Meat is the New Tobacco – PNR307
WHAT IS HAPPENING Amsterdam has decided to ban meat advertising in public spaces: billboards, transport shelters and digital screens. Private media and points of sale are excluded, but the political signal is clear.
- This is not new in the Netherlands.
- Amsterdam follows a regulatory trajectory already seen elsewhere, particularly in the UK, with restrictions on HFSS food advertising and ongoing discussions around so-called healthy targets for retailers. Formally, nothing is banned. In practice, the market is steered.
- Amsterdam is the first European capital to directly target a specific food, after years in which states and regions had already targeted alcoholic beverages – wine included – and individual nutrients such as sugar.
READ IT AGAIN: STATE ENGINEERING: MARKETING IS DEAD IN THE UK
WHY IT MATTERS Because it confirms what I warned about years ago: food has become the new tobacco. Not because of comparable health risks, but because of the political approach.
- First, food is culturally delegitimised.
- Then, communication is restricted.
- Finally, choices are normalised.
Policies presented as serving public health or environmental goals end up shrinking individual choice and shifting decision-making power from citizens to authorities.
ENVIRONMENT: METHANE IS NOT CO₂ The claim that meat is inherently incompatible with sustainability is questionable. Methane from livestock belongs to a short biological cycle, fundamentally different from fossil CO2. Simplifying a complex environmental issue into a slogan produces bad policies, not solutions. SEE PNRXXX
- Public health is built through balanced diets and informed lifestyles, not by discouraging individual foods.
INNOVATION NO DISCRIMINATION The Netherlands is free to innovate and pursue industrial strategies, including investing in alternative proteins. What it should not do is discriminate against other foods for ideological or symbolic reasons.
- Sugar taxes are emblematic: marginal benefits, high economic costs.
PNR304: UPFS: IT’S NOT THE ENEMY
THE PRECEDENT The issue is not meat. It is the precedent.
Once authorities decide what can be visible in public spaces, the scope easily expands: other foods, other sectors, other choices, with tangible costs for traditional supply chains and SMEs.
- The result may be a new wave of bans and constraints that fail to address the real causes of health challenges, rooted in lifestyle complexity.
When food becomes the new tobacco, it is not just about diet.
It is about freedom, the model of society we choose, and trust in citizens.
