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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.
I've long considered this position to be unnecessarily strict. Something that is produced according to specified procedure and contains specfied ingredients, just not in the right location, is lumped together with food that is only tangentially related to the original PDO product. As a consumer, I want to be able to choose between Wisconsin Schmeta, Wisconsin Feta and PDO Feta. European rigidity results in less visibility for me, not more: either some country caves in and labels both products from Wisconsin "Schmeta", forcing people to look at the fine print to determine if it's practically feta or some soy-based spread, or they don't and all three products are labelled "Feta", again, forcing people to look at the fine print.
Why would someone in Wisconsin put Maine, Greece or Canada on their cheese? If the name on a package is a place name, it is expected that the product is from there. Can an Indonesian factory start selling Swiss watches? Geneva watches with manufactured in Jakarta written in tiny print would be a lie.
Feta can only come from Feta. Dairy is different depending on the cows/sheep and the local practices and traditions. Feta isn't just a generic product but represents much more than that. Reducing local food product to nothing more than a generic product kills. For many smaller producers the protection they receive help them preserve their communities and smaller businesses.
Sparkling wine can be made in many places and I am sure there is excellent sparkling wine from more regions than Champagne. But instead of trying to freeload of the Champagne brand these producers should build their own brands and promote their type of wine.
Because all of these names have become names for a style of product rather than just a place name. Cheddar is a style of cheese, not any old cheese from a particular village in Somerset. Same for all those other cheeses, and many of the wines, particularly including champagne. Europeans and other supporters of protection of origin (like India) like to pretend this isn't true but it is; Basmati is both the name of a place and the name of a variety of rice. The Europeans pretty much showed their hand on this when they banned not only "Champagne" but "méthode champenoise" on wine labels. It's not about expectations of customers, it's about protectionism.
That's a pretty silly way to put it. People also use product names like 'googling stuff' for other search engines, yet the US still allows Google to trademark their name and then bans other companies from slapping Google on their search engines. That's not some sort of denial about how people use language. Legislators simply don't allow language use to dictate things like trademarks and in the EU, product names.
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