European Vegetarian Label
Since the beginning of last year I
have been responsible for the
European Vegetarian label. Because
no-one before me had taken care of a
central project coordination, it took
some time to find out how far the
individual organisations in the different
countries had already made
progress. By means of a good coordination
a lot can be achieved, not
only for the EVU and vegetarians in
Europe, but also for each vegetarian
organisation participating in the
project.
To ensure better communication
within the organisations already
working with the label, an e-mail list
was set up.
First Label Meeting
The first international label meeting
took place last November in
Belgium and served, among other
things, as an opportunity to get
acquainted. No-one was aware of the
situation in the other countries and
so understandably, different opinions
and priorities had developed over
time. It will take some effort to
develop a common strategy in all
countries, but the first steps have
now been made: The label-guidelines
have been accepted and implemented
by all.
Second Label Meeting
On 27 July, the second label meeting
took place in Switzerland. Two
important issues were, in particular,
on top of the agenda: The exchange
of experiences and the definition of
label-guidelines for the Take-Away
trade. Both points were successfully
discussed and/or specified.
Furthermore the standardisation of
the forms for the different labels was
discussed.
Website
Some months ago, a special website
for the V-label was put online
(www.vlabel.info). It contains the
most important information regarding
the European Vegetarian label.
Among other things there is also a
list of products and restaurants
already carrying the EVU logo.
Individual vegetarian organisations
have the possibility to independently
insert their new products and restaurants
into the database.
Unfortunately not all national organisations
have made use of this feature
yet.
This homepage is also available
for general updates and contains all
label contact-data for the respective
countries.
Marketing (PR)
Naturally the most challenging
task now is to make the label widely
known and that is why we have to
concentrate on promoting it. Since
vegetarian organisations are not normally
in a position to set aside large
sums for advertising and the production
of various professional advertising
materials, the EVU will coordinate
this task by designing items
suitable for all organisations and
have them produced in large quantities
so that costs for individual
organisations can be cut. Since
smaller editions of advertising materials
are always disproportionately
expensive, the advantage of a common
European label should also be
used for the coordinated production
of these PR-items. The first two
products were stickers, and napkins
with the V-label-print, destined for
the catering trade.
Outlook
A more comprehensive coordination
of work by the different organisations
will still need some time. All
organisations are short of resources
and manpower and are therefore
unable to concentrate on this common
project exclusively. For this reason
we can only advance in small
steps, but in time, and with compromises
by all concerned, we are going
to reach a common goal: the broad
introduction of a unified controlled
vegetarian label for products and
services. I am confident that we will
make considerable progress during
the next few months.
We have already had requests for
the label from outside Europe (India,
Canada, USA). Therefore we have to
find also a way of worldwide cooperation.
However, there is still a lot of
work to be done. Great efforts will
have to be made in order to become
real partners of the different national
food companies. But such an investment
of time and resources is well
worth our while because the potential
income created by this project
can help our lobbying-efforts and by
that increase the overall influence of
vegetarians.
Renato Pichler
EVU-Vice-President
European Vegetarian Union (EVU) Label-Department
c/o Swiss Union for Vegetarianism
Bahnhofstr. 52, CH-9315 Neukirch-Egnach
Tel. 00 41 (0)71 477 33 77, Fax 477 33 78
http://vegetarismus.ch svv@vegetarismus.ch
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