Vegetarian labelling

When we decided to adopt a vegetarian eating regime one of the first problems we experienced was the difficulty of knowing whether a product would actually meet the ‘suitable for vegetarians’ criteria. In the UK, many branded products sport the Vegetarian Society’s ‘Seed’ symbol, a legally registered trademark for vegetarian accreditation, and most supermarkets will label their own-brand products as suitable for vegetarians. Indeed, the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s have their own range of vegetarian foods. Here in France there are no such easy solutions to labelling. Of course, most products have a list of ingredients and the EU recommended nutritional information, but you can often buy a goats’ cheese and spinach quiche only to find a few lardons or a bit of smoked salmon lurking in the filling. Reading the labels is so time consuming, and relies on having reading glasses handy!

There is no EU-wide legal definition of the terms vegetarian or vegan, nor a compulsory labelling requirement. In the UK, the Food Standards Agency have published guidance about labelling which establishes criteria for the information on vegetarian products which should be provided to consumers. This guidance was produced in conjunction with the UK Vegetarian Society. Despite the lack of an agreed definition there is a move within the EU for a formal recognition structure. EU regulation 1169/2011 EU Food Information Regulation requires the European Commission to define the requirements of vegetarian and vegan food, but this has not been achieved due to the lack of an EU-wide consensus.

On our travels I’d often come across the smart green and yellow ‘V label’ on vegetarian and vegan food packaging. It makes life so much easier when you can easily recognise vegetarian and vegan food, especially if you are in a country where you are not familiar with the language. During a recent trip to Germany I was stunned at the sheer quantity and quality of vegetarian and vegan options available. In our favourite supermarket, Edeka, these were not hidden away in a remote corner but in the first refrigerated cabinet that you encountered on entering the shop. I took great pleasure in posting photographs of my vegan haul on social media to make my veggie friends back home jealous. There was vegan chorizo, tofu salami that tasted better than the real thing, Quorn ready-meals – schnitzel, burgers and satay, and vegan pasta and pesto.

 

 

The group behind the V label is the European Vegetarian Union. This is a voluntary organisation based in Switzerland with members from all 28 EU countries. It has prescribed criteria for labelling as either vegetarian or vegan and devised the voluntary labelling scheme. Some 800 food producers across the EU use this label, including giants such as Aldi, Alpro and Unilever, although I have not yet spotted it in France.

My own local observations have been confirmed by market research (Euromonitor, 2015) which found that the vegetarian market is less developed in France than compared to many other EU countries. Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden are among the top, with around 10% of their populations being vegetarian or vegan. I’ve not yet been able to find any up-to-date figures for France, although it does seem that there is a move towards eating less meat with a number of French vegetarian and vegan groups on social media.

 

There is clearly strong growth potential, but France has always struck me as a country that is slow to change. Recently, Carrefour has identified the obvious gap in the market and introduced its own range of sixteen vegetarian and vegan ready-meals. I’ve also read reports that Carrefour have done a deal to stock Quorn, but I’ve not yet found it in any local branches of the chain. Personally, I’m not really looking for vegetarian ready-meals, although stuffed pasta, pesto and pizzas can be useful stand-bys, as I like to cook from scratch whenever possible. I’d just like to know whether the basic ingredient is suitable for vegetarians without having to trawl through the list of ingredients.

Although ‘pure’ vegetarian food can be difficult to locate, organic products, or Bio as it is usually labelled here, are widely available, even in the smallest of supermarkets. There are also dedicated bio-coops and markets. Here you can get usually tofu and soya mince, plus nuts, seeds and welfare-conscious products. The problem here is that most are, in fact, organic niche market products, and hence, higher priced. This was something I learnt to my cost when visiting our newly opened Intermarche superstore. A brand-new dispenser had been installed for a wide variety of Bio dry goods – nuts, seeds and pulses. The pricing was craftily set at per 100g and there were no weighing scales. So, you just had to fill your biodegradable paper bag and hope for the best when presenting it at the checkout. I did manage to keep a straight face when my bag of whole almonds weighed in at nine euro, and it was true that there was sufficient quantity to make my daily breakfast bars for over a month!