In a quirk of regulation in Australia, local food standards allow a plant-based protein product containing no meat to be sold with a label that uses a meat descriptor, while export rules define meat as being a product which must contain actual meat from an animal.

Red Meat Advisory Council chair John McKillop told Kerry Lonergan in Beef Central’s The Weekly Grill podcast that local food standards are not serving domestic consumers well when it comes to truth in labelling.

“You’re only allowed to dupe the domestic consumers, not the international consumers,” he said.

Australia’s new agricultural export legislation, the Export Control (Meat and Meat Products) Rules 2021 which took effect in March of this year, specifically assures export customers that when they buy meat from Australia, meat means “any part of an animal (including an animal carcase and offal) that is slaughtered other than in a wild state”.

The same rules specifcally prescribe beef as being meat from a bovine animal, lamb from an ovine animal, pork from a porcine animal etc.

Domestically, Australia’s Food Standards Code is similar in that it describes meat as any part of a slaughtered animal for human consumption.

However, Mr McKillop said a clause added by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) in 2016 had the effect of allowing a non-meat product to be labelled domestically with words including meat, beef or chicken, provided the label also provides additional context such as ‘plant-based’.

“Our understanding is that was following a fair bit of lobbying pressure by Sanitarium with the intention of having milk included in their labelling, because what it also did was opened the flood gates for fake meat to be included in that labelling as well,” Mr McKillop said.

“And the plant based manufacturers have made it very clear their target market isn’t the vegan market, they have already got that market, what they are trying to target is the people who may become more flexitarian I think they call it, so hence it is in the meat cabinet.

“That has been their campaign and how they have got around it is this addition of that clause in the FSANZ standard.”

One of Australia’s most prominent meat exporters, Richard Rains, also drew attention to disparity between domestic and export laws surrounding meat definitions in his submission to the Definitions of Meat senate inquiry.

As the law stands today, he said, plant-based proteins can be imported to Australia and sold as they are, and the same products can be manufactured in Australia and sold within Australia.

By contrast, he said, it was against the law in Australia to label non-meat product as meat or beef and export it, as this is not “true to label”.

‘This country appears to be more concerned about the health and wellbeing of our international customers, than we are for our own consumers’

“This country appears to be more concerned about the health and wellbeing of our international customers, than we are for our own consumers,” Mr Rains said.

Mr McKillop said the red meat industry did not fear comptition, but expected that everyone should be able to compete on the same basis.

“The marketing campaign of many of the plant based manufacturers, not all of them, is to denigrate one product (real meat), to raise their own product,” he said.

“Really saying if you buy plant based beef, not only is it better for you, it is better for the environment, it is better for animal welfare, you can buy this product and feel guilt free.”

However he said there was no such thing as a “free lunch in cropping” to produce plant-based foods.

“But the plant based manufacturers tend to ignore all of that,” he said. “As we know in Australia we actually lead the world in animal welfare practices and the industry has a clear path in looking to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 which really removes all of those arguments the plant-based manufacturers can put up.”

Mr McKillop said the red meat sector’s hope is that FSANZ will remove the clause that allows non-meat products to use descriptors such as beef, lamb, or goat.

“Ideally  we would also like to have legislation in there similar to what Michael McCormack introduced in the free range egg where there was a national standard adopted which required the consent of all the states,” Mr McKillop said.

“What it did was it allowed the consumer to say I am buying this free range egg, it actually means something, and this is something everyone has to adhere to.

“So that would be the two steps we would like to be done in order to remove that ability of the plant based manufacturers to put a photo of a beef cow or steer or a lamb or a goat into there as well as use the word.”

Plant-based manufacturers say meat industry trying to squash competition

Meanwhile manufacturers of plant-based alternatives to meat have also taken the opportunity to put their views to the Senate inquiry.

Ketjil Hansen, founder of the Delicou brand which manufactuers a range of plant based seasoning and alternative meat products, said in his submission that Australian consumers are not confused or conflicted by the clear labelling of plant-based protein products, and there is a clear incentive from the meat industry to attempt to squash competition.

“The push is not backed by clear evidence, and could be detrimental to the emerging plant-based protein industry which is an important alternative for people looking to eat a healthier diet which is more sustainable for the planet,” he wrote.

The intention of plant-based meat companies was not to capitalise on the benefits of animal products, but instead provide an alternative to traditional meat.

“The use of descriptors like ‘chicken’, ‘mince’, ‘beef’ and ‘patties’ are used as allowed in Food Standards Code Standard 1.2.2-2 to help consumers identify the flavour and texture they can expect, as well as product format for recipe application. It is in no way intended to convince consumers they are in fact purchasing meat and is most frequently included with the qualifiers ‘Plant Based’, ‘-free’, ‘-style’ or ‘Vegan’.

He said the use of livestock images on plant-based meat “was extremely rare”.

In its submission published on the website food processor Sanitarium said qualified ‘meat’ descriptors have been around for over 100 years in Australia, such as its own “nutmeat” product.

“The terms “… milk” and “… meat”, as qualified, have been in use for many decades by Sanitarium and Life Health Foods. To remove such descriptors from labels could render these products immediately unrecognisable to consumers, force new descriptors that are likely less meaningful to consumers, and make the choosing of plant-based alternatives, based on legitimate health, cultural or ethical reasons, more difficult,” the Sanitarium submission said.

To listen to the full Weekly Grill interview in which John McKillop also reflects on what he sees as RMAC’s role in the industry, provides an update on the proposal to integrate red meat integrity systems into one body, and “why it is a good time to own a cow”, click here