Do you mean scrapple…?
I used to know a guy who had a dog named scrapple…
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Yeah, bashing people based on a crude generalisation of a group they happen to be a member of just isn’t cool. It’s not like you’re responsible for everything that people in the south do, and you can’t be held responsible for fixing the whole of southern culture.
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Ug, it’s been too long for me to remember clearly. Either way, I’m certain I correctly recall that their was no will whatsoever to investigate.
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…and make it out of non-monoculture non-rainforest soy. …Oh 
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In Europe we are also considering a law like this, I don’t think it will make it into actual law, but I’ve been unpleasantly surprised by the EU before…
A Dutch producer (De Vegetarische Slager, literally The Vegetarian Butcher) currently has these products that would have to change their name, mind the spelling:
EN: Vegetarian Chicken pieces
NL: Vegetarische kipstukjes
EN: Smoked bacon pieces
NL: Spekjes gerookt
So basically they already added a “c” somewhere in there to differentiate and it’s always displayed in it’s own part of the supermarket, but still that is not enough…
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Or, OR, Impossible Burger moves their HQ to Hamburg, then simply points at purveyors of Buffalo wings.
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Buffalo wings not only are not made of buffalo, but they’re named after a city that never had any buffalo.
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This is exactly the sort of thing that happened when margarine was introduced.
The dairy industry said it would “confuse” people, so they tried to ban it. Then they demanded that “oleomargarine” be printed in enormous letters. Then they said fine, but it can’t be colored yellow. It has to be colored green or purple. Then they said it can be colored yellow, but the consumer has to mix the dye into the product at home.
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Those devious motherfuckers. Impossible Burger wanna get moved Germanywards post haste, then lawyer up, sez I.
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So there are no Buffalo buffalo to buffalo Buffalo buffalo?
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Maybe you mean they took away a “c” or maybe something got autocorrected to include the “c” that shouldn’t have been there?
Either way, I don’t see how that indicates to the consumer that it’s not meat. And frankly, I can see how that “smoked bacon pieces” label could be confusing. Yes the brand says “vegetarian” but does it have to? Does it have to be a particular size on the label? Do vegetarian foods have to be in a separate section of the market, or is that just something the market chooses to do?
So, artificially colored industrially processed rapeseed oil loaded with trans fats fake butter can’t be disguised as butter? I don’t see the problem.
Actually I think margarine is a good example of the dangers of unchecked food labeling. There you have an artificial product trying replace a natural one. It’s targeted at poorer consumers and touted as healthier even though it isn’t necessarily. And given their way, the corporations that make it would make it look in both packaging and form as much like butter as they can specifically to displace butter in the market. Which is exactly what they’ve done.
Again, I’m not against using the word “burger” because that term has been applied to many products. But I would be in favor of requiring all meat-substitute products to bear the label “contains no meat” on at least 5% of their label.
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Simple answer? An incredibly successful marketing campaign. Blame De Beers.
You know the difference between gold jewelry and diamonds?
There’s no secondary market for diamonds. No one wants to buy a “used” diamond ring.
Or at least so I was told by numerous industry execs – I have zero interest in owning diamonds.
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Maybe when they lose in court we can also force them to label their “slaughtered livestock” patties differently too just so consumers understand what they are really eating.
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I don’t think that this law goes far enough.
A Burger should be made out of 100% Beef, without additives or fillers. Modifiers to Burger should be able to change that, but they should be standardized as well. Ie., Turkey Burger, Pork Burger, Chicken Burger, Black Bean Burger, Vegetable burger (with a list of valid vegetables), and so on.
A Hot Dog should be a combination of Chicken, Pork, and Beef. An All Beef Hotdog should not contain any animal proteins other than Beef, including the casing.
The problem is that when you are eating out, getting a list of ingredients is really hard. For example - I am allergic to pork. I can’t eat a good number of “all beef” hot dogs because they have pork casings. I’d be very upset if I found out that my Vegetarian Hot Dog or Sausage had a pork casing!
I don’t want stuff in my food that I don’t know about. If I buy a Hot Dog and it is vegetarian, that is a problem. If it is a Vegetarian Hot Dog (all in the same size and script) then that isn’t a problem.
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This is just one of those momentarily-stupid-and-soon-overturned laws passed by Big Something to stop small companies from doing anything innovative — it’s exactly like the laws in the 50s pushed by the butter industry forcing margarine to be sold as pure white without colorants to make it look like butter, which the industry got around by including a packet of yellow food coloring to be mixed in. (As @tsath also pointed out, but I missed!)
We’ll have some stories about restaurants calling them “veggie patties” or “Impossible Borgers” for a few months before people stop being stupid.
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I don’t understand what you are saying here. The producer of the vegetarian product adds a extra letter to the name of their product. Imagine if they named vegan bacon: “backon”. I added the regular/correct Dutch spelling so you can see the difference in spelling even if you don’t know Dutch, is that what confuses you?
It doesn’t it’s just a fun* example of a way a company can get around the rules on what they can call something. They are not calling it spek, they are selling speck, totally different.
*YMMV
The main target audience of these products are people looking for vegetarian food, they have to cater to those people first, they have to advertise that the product contains no meat. They are not (yet) making a product that is cheaper, they really have to compete on their unique selling point, that it’s meat free.
Also the new law doesn’t state that you have to clearly label something as vegetarian. It states that you can’t sell vegetarian burgers and call them burgers, no matter how much you emphasise the vegetarian part of that name.
I think it’s something the market chooses to do. But that just makes sense right? If the market would put motor oil in between the olive oils you’d also be right in being upset if you accidentally bought some of that to sprinkle over your salad.
I think you are missing the point here. The point is that with no push-back the lobbyists will just keep adding and adding arbitrary conditions. It’s not that there shouldn’t be rules around this, just that the rules should make sense.
In this case I find it very hard to believe that there is actually a significant amount of people that are confused by the labels.
But only for products that can be confused with meat products right? Or do you also want to do this on tofu? And on portobello mushrooms? Lentils? Who decides when something can be confused for a meat containing product?
Or would it maybe be easier to only label the products that do contain meat?
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Oh I see it now. Thanks. Yes, it’s misspelled but there’s nothing inherently meatless ability an extra c. So many brands misspell their products intentionally for trademark purposes I don’t think it’s obvious.
And without regulation, other lobbyists will continue to try to remove conditions and allow for deceptive advertising. There are no good guys in this fight, only corporations looking to sell as much as possible.
I think that’s because, at least right now (as you point out) not containing meat is a selling point, mostly. But I don’t trust any corporation to be honest if it’s against their financial interest. When meat-substitute prices are on par with meat, I think we’ll see some corporations try to pass their meatless products off as meat just to make a buck. It’s happened countless times, and it will continue to happen. Deception in packaging is not going away.
Well, I suppose if it says “burger” it should say what kind, lentil or tofu or beef.
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I don’t know of any stores that place plant-based burgers & dogs mixed-in with the meat-based ones. There’s always a separate section, often called “vegetarian” or “meat alternatives” or “heathy choices” or something, and plant-based burgers/dogs always make it very clear on the front of the package that they’re not made of meat. It’s a point of pride; they don’t hide it. If someone’s buying Boca Burgers or Beyond Burgers and assuming they’re made of beef, that’s entirely their fault.
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