European Parliament says quit using meat names for plant-based products

The European Parliament voted Wednesday to ban the use of terms like steak and sausage for plant or “cell-cultured” alternatives.

The vote was a landslide, 532-78, to define meat as referring to edible portions of an animal, according to The Associated Press.

Europe’s lawmakers had voted against such a ban in 2020, reported Reuters.

The new proposal affects the use of steak, burger, hamburger, egg yolk, egg white, sausage and escalope, or scallop.

A committee in the Parliament will work to clarify the ruling, then send it to the European Union’s executive branch and the governments of the EU’s 27 countries to be ironed out to its final form, according to AP. 

Parliament member Celine Imart, a member of France’s center-right  Republicans, said on X that the proposal was a “great victory for farmers at the European Parliament! A sausage is meat produced by our breeders. Period. The recognition of their work and transparency towards consumers have won support.”

Detractors say the proposal was unnecessary and that consumers don’t get hoodwinked by meat terms on products not made of meat.

Parliament member Anna Strolenberg of the Dutch center-left Volt Party, said on Bluesky that proponents of the rule “claim it’s to stop consumers being ‘confused between meat and plant products’ — solving a problem that nobody had! This new rule leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”

Thomas Waitz, a Parliament member hailing from Austria’s Greens Party, said during the proposal’s debate, “Some politicians here in the house think that we need to mistrust consumers’ intelligence — that they’re not able to see and read what they’re actually buying. If something’s called a vegan burger, then everybody knows it’s not going to contain meat,” according to Euronews.