Smoky bacon crisps could be removed from UK supermarket shelves or forced to change their name under Prime Minister Andy Burnham's Brexit reset deal with the EU, which is expected to see the UK adopt EU regulations on plant, animal and food trade standards to remove post-Brexit checks on exports.
The popular flavour could fall foul of planned EU laws prohibiting the use of "meaty" terms to describe vegetarian food. To prevent consumer confusion, the crisps may have to drop references to meat, since most smoky bacon crisps are made with flavourings rather than real meat.
Renaming or Recipe Changes
Manufacturers could alternatively alter recipes to make them no longer suitable for vegetarians, but adding beef extract to a crisp recipe would increase costs and shorten shelf life. By becoming an EU ruletaker, the Government would need to sign up to a list of 31 banned terms for plant-based food, including "steak", "fillet", "ribs", "chicken", and "beef".
The food and farming deal is one of three agreements Mr Burnham is set to sign with Brussels negotiators at the EU-UK summit on November 20, alongside a deal on emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme.
Minister's Reaction
Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle expressed exasperation when asked about the claims on Time Radio, likening the issue to the Brexit debate about bendy bananas. Dame Angela told host Stig Abell: "Oh, Stig. I mean, really, we've had EU straight bananas, and now we're talking about banning smoky bacon crisps, I think you should get a life."
She added: "This is actually about ensuring that we can do business with our closest neighbours. We've got huge potential growth in our economy if we allow our farmers and food producers to be able to export into Europe again without all the huge uncertainty and the costs and frictions that Brexit brought us. This will be a deal that improves that situation and it will enable this economy to grow and for us to have higher levels of prosperity than we've had before. If you want to obsess about smoky bacon crisps, I suppose that's your choice."
Political Reactions
Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Brexiteer Tory MPs, said: "Yet again, we see the practical drawbacks of Labour's cosying up to the EU. When 17.4 million UK citizens voted to leave the EU, it wasn't so they could subsequently tell us what to put in a Walkers crisp packet. Why on earth is Andy Burnham so desperate to rejoin an organisation that wants to dictate to us like this, whenever they get the chance?"
Dawn Carr, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said: "If lawmakers were not kowtowing to industry but being serious about truthful food labels, they'd require dairy milk to be labelled 'cow lactation fluid', eggs 'chicken ova', and meat 'flesh'. It doesn't matter to animals what we call vegan foods; it matters only that we choose them over the fleshy, bloody alternatives."
Mr Burnham has said the Government will "explore options" following the UK-EU summit for a different long-term relationship with the bloc. His recent remarks have fuelled questions about the prospect of the UK returning to the EU or adopting its freedom of movement rules, but the Prime Minister has insisted voters would ultimately be "the boss" of any changes.
