Planted in court against the federal government – or: When is a “chicken” (not) a chicken?

The federal government is taking a Swiss start-up to court. The reason: the company is not allowed to name its vegan products after animals, because the consumer can expect real meat instead of a meat substitute.

The company Planted Foods AG cheats with product names such as “planted.chicken” or “planted.pulled”. Even though the words “100% vegetable” and “vegan” appear on the packaging.

The Administrative Court of Zurich has already ruled that there is no consumer deception in the case of Planted products, but the Federal Ministry of the Interior (EDI) has now appealed this decision to the Federal Supreme Court.

The chronology of a dispute over the name of vegan chicken:

It was May 14, 2021 when the Cantonal Laboratory of Zurich complained about various labeling elements on the packaging of Planted products. Planted was asked at the time to refrain from animal species designations for vegan products. Planted objected, which the cantonal laboratory rejected.

The company subsequently appealed the decision to the canton’s health department. However, the latter rejected the appeal and gave the young start-up a deadline to implement the laboratory’s instructions – by September 2022.

Planted subsequently lodged an appeal with the administrative court to have the decision on the objection overturned. And this body decided in Planted’s interest: on November 10, 2022, the Administrative Court of Zurich approved Planted’s complaint.

The court relied, among other things, on an investigation commissioned by Planted. The result: 93 percent of those surveyed acknowledged that “planted.chicken” is a vegetarian product.

The decision says:

The court also stated in the decision that the adjectives “vegetarian” or “vegan” along with animal names indicate that it is not a “meat product” or “the way an animal is fed”, but rather a plant food.

Last Monday, the FDHA appealed to the Federal Supreme Court against the decision of the Zurich Administrative Court.

The department’s communications service writes to the Tagesanzeiger:

A precedent must be set for the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office that will regulate the names of plant foods in Switzerland once and for all.

In fact, there is already a federal recommendation for the designation of “vegan and vegetarian alternatives to foods of animal origin,” in the form of a 2020 information letter.

It states, among other things, that the packaging of plant-based alternatives to animal products must not mislead the consumer.

However, it is not precisely defined when something is fraudulent. The letter only states that designations such as ‘vegan tenderloin’ or ‘vegetarian tuna’ are not permitted by law, but product designations such as ‘soy based whipped cream’ are. In addition, terms such as “fillet”, “sliced ​​meat” or “sausage” are generally allowed, as they represent a “specific designation”. In other words: describe the form and not name the content.

Twitter user Philipp Käsli will probably have to wait for the decision of the Federal Supreme Court to get his questions answered:

(yum)