The EU-funded Smart Protein project has published a briefing document outlining measures it suggests the EU should take to support citizens shifting to a plant-based diet.

The measures outlined include labelling food products to highlight their sustainability benefits, such as carbon footprint, water usage and transport miles. It also encourages more European countries to remove the VAT on fruit and vegetables.

In the document, Smart Protein said: “Plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy, along with plant-based whole foods and plant-based diets in general, tend to have a much lower environmental footprint than their animal-based counterparts”.

It added that replacing animal-based products with plant-based products has “the potential to reduce product-related emissions by up to 90%” and that a shift to plant-rich diets could “reduce annual agricultural emissions in high-income countries by as much as 60%”.

The measures suggested that EU regulation allow plant-based products to use conventional denominations such as ‘milk’, ‘cheese’ and ‘yogurt’ for non-dairy products. Use of traditional names and concepts could help inform consumers on the taste and texture of a product, it added.

The regulatory framework for food marketing and labelling standards, the Food Information to Consumers Regulation and the Common Organisation of Markets Regulation, currently prohibits the use of several dairy terms for non-dairy products.

Juliette Tronchon, ProVeg International’s senior policy and public affairs specialist and co-author of the report, said: “Animal agriculture is responsible for about 17% of carbon emissions in the EU, so it is vital that the EU focuses on implementing policies that promote more climate-friendly food. Animal agriculture also contributes to lifestyle diseases, global hunger and animal suffering so replacing animal products with plant-based and cultivated foods offers the EU a multi-pronged solution to these problems.”

ProVeg International is one of 33 partners in the Smart Protein project drawn from industry, research and academia.

The promotion of plant-based foods is also an issue that needs to be addressed in the EU, ProVeg said.

Falk Hemsing, international policy officer at ProVeg and co-author of the report, commented: “Where the EU’s agriculture promotion policy is concerned, healthy, plant-based alternative products are barely mentioned, whereas the livestock sector, with its’ high carbon emissions, high water usage and pollution of waterways, is amply funded”.

The report calls on the EU to adjust policies covering four areas: labelling and marketing, public food procurement, VAT rates and subsidies.

Other policy measures included establishing an EU-wide definition of the terms “vegan” and “vegetarian” and increasing R&D funding for plant-based innovation.

#EU #plantbaseddiets #SmartProtein