Farmers have criticised bakery chain Greggs for misleading customers with its newly launched 'fake steak bake'.
The company's vegan sausage roll was one of the most talked about foods introduced on the UK high street in 2019.
Looking to follow up on that success, Greggs has now unveiled the vegan 'steak bake' to coincide with this month's 'veganuary' campaign.
The new offering uses plant-based Quorn pieces and includes onions and a gravy filling wrapped in 96 layers of puff pastry.
But farmers have taken to social media to criticise the chain for misleading customers by adopting the word 'steak' in the product.
Welsh hill farmer Gareth Wyn Jone said of Greggs' new product: "That should be a vegan Quorn bake, no steak in it. So could be misleading advertising."
So it’s not a steak bake at all it’s a Soy bake then . Hope the label it right and not misleading ppl????
— Gareth Wyn Jones (@1GarethWynJones) December 27, 2019
Does my head in when they call products like these under a ‘meat’ name... like where’s the steak in this... there isn’t. So why call it that? Same with the ‘Vegan sausage roll’ no sausage ???????????
— Ffion Hooson (@ffionhooson0) December 29, 2019
Why do they put steak on label. ! there is no meat in it ,supposed to be an alternative to meat #misleading . These people are not supposed to like meat !!!!
— Temple Bar Farm (@fodderforfoodys) December 29, 2019
TV presenter Piers Morgan, who is no stranger to challenging veganism, gave his 7 million Twitter followers his opinion on the new snack.
A ‘meatless’ steak is not a bloody steak. https://t.co/PxEX5T3cKg
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) 2 January 2020
The uproar is reminiscent of the French government's food label ban in 2018. Vegan and vegetarian food are no longer permitted to use labels with meat or dairy specific terms like “burger” or “milk”.
Before that, in 2017, the EU's Court of Justice ruled that plant based products cannot use the word 'milk'.
The NFU has recently called for 'clear and unambiguous' labelling on food products to allow shoppers to make more informed choices.
