Veggie Burger Ban, Round Three: EU Parliament Reopens the Naming Fight

The hard-fought EU compromise on names for plant-based products has been in force for barely a week, and MEPs are already sawing away at it again. The European Parliament is once more debating a ban on the terms burger, sausage and nuggets for plant-based products, for the third time in six years.

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What had already been settled

In June, the EU Parliament passed a compromise: 31 animal-related terms such as chicken, beef or bacon stay reserved for products of animal origin, while format names like burger, sausage and nuggets remain allowed for plant-based products. That rule entered into force on 19 August, less than two weeks before the new debate.

The freshly tabled amendments would expand the ban list considerably. Alongside hamburger, sausage and nuggets, it now includes terms that had never been part of the discussion. And for the first time, blended proteins are explicitly addressed: hybrid products combining animal and plant components, the very category many large meat corporations are currently working on themselves.

MEPs from S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left are pushing back, proposing to delete the ban list entirely or to soften its implementation technically.

“A shopping list for the meat lobby's summer barbecue”

The European Alliance for Plant-based Foods (EAPF) sees the amendments as contradicting the EU Protein Action Plan the Commission presented on 7 July to strengthen domestic protein production and reduce import dependency. EAPF Secretary General Thomas Schobesberger does not mince words:

“These proposals look more like a shopping list for the meat lobby's summer barbecue than like legislative text.”

Thomas Schobesberger, Secretary General of the EAPF (translated from the German statement)

Repeatedly reopening settled agreements, Schobesberger adds, also weakens the Parliament's position as co-legislator.

NoConfusion coalition: 600 companies from 22 countries opposed

The NoConfusion coalition, coordinated by the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) and WePlanet and representing, by its own account, over 600 companies, retailers and organisations from 22 EU countries, rejects the amendments as well. Its spokesperson Rafael Pinto recalls what actually kept Europe busy this summer:

“This is the third time in six years, and the second time in the current legislature, that the European Parliament will vote on banning the terms ‘burger' and ‘sausage' for plant-based products. MEPs worked hard over the summer, while Europeans battled wildfires, droughts and rising living costs, to put this nonsensical topic back on the agenda.”

Rafael Pinto, Senior Policy Manager of the EVU (translated)

The coalition is particularly critical of a clause that would allow individual member states to add national restrictions of their own. Worst case: 27 different rulebooks for the same product. The European Court of Justice warned against exactly this fragmentation of the single market back in 2024.

Is anyone actually confused?

The argument behind the bans has been the same for years: consumers might confuse plant-based products with animal ones. The fridge aisle tells a different story. Vegan burgers and sausages carry V-Labels, their own brand names and mostly conspicuously green packaging, and the people who buy them seek them out. How normal these products have become shows in the order shares at Burger King Germany (in German), where roughly one in five Whoppers is ordered plant-based, and in the German plant-based market overall (in German).

What happens next

On 2 September the agriculture committee debates the amendments, in December the committee votes, and the plenary follows next year. Until then nothing changes for producers and retailers; the veggie burger keeps its name.

Which leaves the question of how often the same debate needs to be held. The veggie burger has survived it twice already. We will follow the committee's decision and report. How politics treats plant-based products differently in other arenas too is currently on display in Germany's debate about a planned sugar tax that would hit plant drinks.