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Notes -
Nudge towards Just(ice/ Egg)
As some may be aware, Europe has stricter non-trademark restrictions on what one is allow to call their product. In the EU a cheese may only be called a Feta or Parmesan if it is produced according to specified procedure in Greece or Italy, respectively and contains specfied ingredients. This geographic restriction even includes pastry such as Kalakukko. That a consumer might not taste the difference (or even find the johnny-come-lately superior) is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.
The stated reason of making sure that the consumer is certain that the product matches what he imagines it to be, is also behind the recent push to ban animal deficient and even wholly lacking products, on cashing in on the perception of taste created by centuries of butchers and milkmen.
A maiori ad minus as "plant-based protein" products do not even taste the same, let alone contain the same nutrients as non-human animal derived ones, while cheddar-style cheese unapologetically made in the Green Mountain State and West Country Farmhouse Cheddar are similar in taste and nutrients, it stands to reason that restrictions on usage of meat-related names should be at least just as onerous as those related to geography.
An even better argument would be a survey asking consumers if foods with names such as: "malk", "chick'n nuggets", "just mayo", "beyond sausage", "chik'n apple sausage" [different brand than the previously mentioned nuggets], "chilli sin carne" contain milk, meat or eggs or if they have in the past been misled into buying vegan products which usually aren't clearly segregated, thinking they are omnivoric.
The latest news on this front comes from also one the biggest supporters of restrictions on usage geographic indicators, France. After a court voided an attempt last year to curtail cultural appropriation of companies like Beyond Meat™, the French government has on monday taken another swing at it.
That it falls to the country of de Gaulle and Pétain, and not the organization of Altiero Spinelli and Konrad Adenauer (which one would expect, given how involved the EU is with consumer rights) is due the latter abdicating this aforementioned duty.
Opponents of restricting what may be labeled a steak, burger, sausage, mayonnaise, or milk, claim that nobody is being misled and that consumers might be more easily convinced to purchase "Chick3n Nugg3ts" than "Breaded Soy for Frying", "Malk" than "White Oats Concoction". The argument goes that people might be reluctant to try new things and that they would be unfamiliar what to do vegan neologism-labeled products. That overcoming this reluctance, by hook or by crook, is necessary not only for the benefit of soy farmers and Impossible Foods™ but for the whole of humankind as replacing meat with vegetables reduces the risk or severity of climate crisis.
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
The verses suggest that these names are simply identifiers for preexisting categories. But the categories were made for man, not man for the categories. The question is what's most useful. On the one hand, I don't think anyone is deceived by a term like oat milk (though I'd be open to evidence that people are actually confused by that), and it's taken off because many consumers genuinely do find it a superior product to cow milk for coffee. On the other hand, it was not milk as people understood it when it hit the mass consumer market (antiquated definitions notwithstanding), and if it were instead required to be called "oat emulsion," consumers wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole. That would have been a worse outcome for consumers, so it would have been bad to put restrictions around use of the term milk, at least for oat milk products.
My main decider for whether a restriction is good or not is how often consumers end up deceived, regardless of whatever other labelling exists on the product. I do know my dad has mistakenly purchased a "chik'n nugget" type product, so I'd come on the other side for that particular labeling.
I think there are particular ways companies can navigate this. New World winemakers managed to create differentiation from lower tier producers by respecting the champagne appellation.
I largely agree with this, the entire thing seems like a backhanded way of creating monopolies for yourself by making it impossible to make the product outside of pretty substantial limitations, and often from a very small region. If you can only use the label “Provel Cheese” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provel_cheese) if the product is made in St. Louis from local cheddar, Swiss and provolone cheeses milked from Missouri cows, then I’ve effectively created a set of conditions so difficult to meet that it’s nearly guaranteed to be made by only a handful of companies who are then free to manipulate the price as they please. If I only require that any such provel that doesn’t meet that strict definition be labeled to note that (made in Wisconsin, perhaps, or from cows in Idaho, or whatever) then it’s not deceptive and if there’s no actual quality difference between a provel made traditionally in St Louis from Missouri milk, and a cheaper but non traditional provel, then th3 public is smart enough to make that decision.
It's worthwhile creating these categories and monopolies because that's what creates the value worth imitating in the first place. Most of what gets sold in the US as "champagne" is not the genuine article, doesn't come from Champagne, and isn't strictly speaking the highest caliber. But people buy it anyways. And if there was no protection in Europe over what Champagne meant, and anyone could contribute a definition, there would be nothing worth ripping off.
But if the average consumer is not really seeing a difference between “real Champagne” from the right region of France made with the proper grapes by traditional methods and a California knockoff, then the value is basically marketing, people aren’t necessarily choosing the product for anything intrinsic to the wine, they’re buying a brand, and probably believe in the product because of the price and the legend of French wines especially champagne.
I suspect this is true of most such products— if I gave a blind taste test between the “real” version of the product and one that doesn’t meet the label standards I question whether the average person can really tell the difference. A lot of the perception of quality is based in expectation based on reputation, cost and marketing.
So I think it’s still basically a monopoly situation, aimed less at protecting the public and more about protecting European monopolies.
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Many completely new consumer products, dissimilar to anything that existed before with newfangled creative names took the market by storm. Of course, it was because they were better/cheaper/more addictive than natural product, something that does not apply so far to any of this "alternate" stuff.
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