Harmonization of vegetarian and vegan labeling is needed to keep pace with plant-based innovation, flags EVU

Source: Food Ingredient / image: Food Ingredient / Author: Elizabeth Green

The European Vegetarian Union (EVU) is calling on the European Commission to harmonize vegetarian and vegan food labeling rules. The renewed urgency comes as it has been an entire decade since the Food Information to Consumers Regulation was enacted (on October 25, 2011), which urged the EC to implement food criteria for vegans and vegetarians in voluntary labeling.

The EC had set out the agenda at a food information working group meeting at the end of 2019 but has not picked up the topic since then and, according to the EVU, the Commission is failing to meet its obligations to ratify labeling rules. 

And, the EVU believes the tenth anniversary of the Food Information Regulation to be “an excellent opportunity to proceed.”

The European Vegetarian Union is the voice for Europeans choosing vegetarian and vegan products over animal-based nutrition.

Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, Ronja Berthold, head of public affairs, says: “There is no due date for this implementing act and so the Commission has not considered this topic to be of high priority and pushed it aside with a view to more pressing issues from the Commission’s perspective.”

“There is a lot of innovation and potential out there, and we should introduce this basic piece of vegetarian legislation in order not to fall behind the development of the market.”

FoodIngredientsFirst has reached out to the EC for further comment.

Too challenging to work out?
The EC might also see this kind of groundwork legislation as quite challenging, Berthold concedes. 

“We believe, though, that it is neither an unimportant piece of food labeling legislation nor is it too challenging to work out. There is a broad consensus among consumers and the industry, and we even have an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard already,” she explains. 

Over the past decade, the EVU has reminded the EC of its duty to the food sector and consumers on several occasions. 

Berthold stresses, “It is important for the industry, as well as for consumers, to have harmonized rules for voluntary vegan and vegetarian labels so that they have confidence in the food they buy.”

She adds that it will also help producers to have more legal certainty, to be able to label more and accurately, and consumers can also be sure of specific standards that have to be applied, no matter where and with which labels they buy these foods. 

“Now is the time to move forward because the tenth anniversary of the call for the implementing act is a great opportunity to pick up work on this, and more and more vegan and vegetarian products are produced and sold throughout the EU,” she urges. 

“Additionally, if harmonized rules are worked out for the EU’s internal market, it could mean that they have more chances or more confidence to sell and produce their products Europe-wide.”

A boost for the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy?
Last week, the European Parliament released a report that outlines areas for improving Europe’s “Farm to Fork Strategy,” initially proposed by the EU Commission in May 2020.

According to the EVU, the EC is currently pointing at its Farm to Fork Strategy obligations as a reason for not continuing with the implementing act. 

The European Parliament recently released a report that outlines areas for improving Europe’s “Farm to Fork Strategy.”

However, the recently adopted European Parliament resolution on a Farm to Fork Strategy “calls furthermore for the long-overdue harmonization of requirements concerning labeling for vegetarian and vegan foods to be put forward without further delay,” it states. 

The European Parliament and the EVU acknowledge the implementing act as an integral part of Farm to Fork legislation. 

Berthold believes the vegetarian and vegan food labeling topic can be “well integrated into the Farm to Fork Strategy, as the strategy aims at a more sustainable European food system, with a diet shift toward more plant-based eating, which is both advantageous for personal as well as planetary health.”

“We would hope that it is another reason for the wider industry to consider producing and selling more vegan and vegetarian foods, that it has this signaling effect.”

“We are looking to the forthcoming French Council presidency to take on the subject and put it on the Brussels agenda,” she adds.

“The average European consumes too many animal foods and not enough plant-based foods,” Berthold indicates. “Plant-based foods also compare favorably to animal foods when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. We believe that better information and more clarity for vegan and vegetarian labeling will contribute to achieving this diet shift.”

In line with these themes, “Shared Planet” leads Innova Market Insights’ Top Ten Trends for 2022, underscoring that consumers now rank planetary health as their number one concern, overtaking personal health, which has been the top priority in recent years.

With personal health and global sustainability proving to be strong drivers of consumer choice, plant-based R&D has refocused from mimicking meat, fish and dairy to optimizing and diversifying options.

According to data from Innova Market Insights, the desire for diet variation has led to a 59% increase in launches of new plant-based products in the year to August 2021. 

Wider market development 
Berthold supports this notion, further stating that the appetite for vegetarian and vegan food has “grown enormously” over the past decade, as well as expectations about taste and convenience.

The EVU is the organization backing the “V-Label,” a voluntary certified labeling scheme.

“The number of vegans and vegetarians is growing, but also the number of people occasionally interested in these foods. There is no end in sight for the plant-based food sector,” she asserts. 

“We expect more and more products to be on the shelves in the coming years, and we expect them to become better and better, especially in the meat and dairy alternative sphere,” she continues.

Vegetarian and vegan food labeling has been a point of contention for industry over recent months. Earlier this year, following a vote in the European Parliament in October 2020 to further restrict dairy terms and imagery for plant-based dairy products, more than 34 MEPs called on the EC and the Council to reject “plant-based dairy censorship.”

In mid-April, alt-milk players slammed plant-based dairy labeling restrictions, while the conservative dairy lobby heavily touted pro-censorship sentiments.

In a win for the meat-free sector taking place, last October, the European Parliament rejected the veggie burger ban, which would rename “veggie burgers” to “veggie disks.”