Meat And Dairy Products Mislabeled As Vegan And Vegetarian At COP29

As controversy mounts over its meat-heavy menu, COP29 has been found to be selling meat and dairy products mislabeled as vegan and vegetarian.

Campaign group Plant Based Treaty, which is attending the climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, posted a video detailing a number of errors on food labels.

The video showed Shreya Ghodawat, a sustainability advocate and climate activist, picking up a number of dishes at one of the food outlets. One “vegan” bagel contained feta cheese. When she questioned the server, she was told that it was vegetarian and there had been a “printing mistake.” Ghodawat then found a salad with a “V” label on it that contained salmon.

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Elsewhere in the video, Ghodawat and Plant Based Treaty’s scientific health advisor and campaigner Kimmy Cushman showed a menu being served at the conference. Among the dishes were a “vegan” salad containing cheese and a “vegan” toast with cream cheese. “Vegetarian” options included a chicken caesar salad and a salmon salad. One dish marked as vegetarian even included beef, which is regarded as the most environmentally damaging food product.

Ghodawat confirmed to Plant Based News that general food options at COP are very meat-heavy. Most coffee stalls are also not serving plant-based milk, and those that do are charging extra for them. Stalls include a hot dog stand, Domino’s pizza, and a burger bar. “It’s absolutely horrendous,” Ghodawat said. “Words don’t do justice to the anger we’ve all felt.”

COP’s meat controversy

A man holding a sign calling for a plant-based food system outside COP29 — Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo Activists have long called for COP to advocate for a plant-based food system

Over the last few years, the UN climate conference has been under mounting pressure to drop animal products from its menu entirely. Animal agriculture is devastating to the environment, and campaign groups have long argued that it’s unacceptable for a climate conference to serve the most climate-damaging foods.

At last year’s event in Dubai, in apparent response to the widespread backlash of 2022’s meat-heavy menu, COP did increase vegan options on the menu, but still continued to serve meat and dairy. This year, it appears genuine vegan options are even more limited. According to Cushman, COP29 has “taken huge steps in the wrong direction.”

Plant Based Treaty, along with other groups including Feedback Global and ProVeg International, is calling on world leaders at COP to commit to a “just transition away from meat and dairy overconsumption” for the sake of both long-term global food security and climate resilience.