The Vegan Society’s Public Affairs and Policy Manager, Alistair Currie, commented that the society was “disappointed but not surprised” by the EU decision on food labelling, which confirmed the European Parliament and Council of Ministers’ proposal to permit plant-based products to continue to use the names, ‘burger’, ‘sausage’ and ‘nugget’, but to ban 31 other terms associated with meat such as bacon, beef, chicken, drumstick, loin, ribs, steak, T-bone and wing.
“While we welcome that staple terms used for vegan products, such as ‘burger’, ‘sausage’ and ‘nugget’ will still be allowed, there is no convincing reason why other staple terms, such as ‘steak’, are restricted. This inconsistency mirrors similar anomalies in the restriction of language around dairy alternatives, where coconut milk and peanut butter are permitted but not soya, oat or almond milk.
“This is yet another sign of a protectionist meat lobby running scared from the increasing popularity of the ethical, environmental and health benefits of veganism. This decision will remove consumer choice, stifle innovation in the vegan food sector, increasing costs to businesses that will need to re-label and re-market products with new names and descriptions. None of these benefits the consumer.
“We should be encouraging more people to try plant-based alternatives, as the recent EAT-Lancet report[1] recommended, not discouraging them by making a fuss about a problem that doesn’t exist.
There is no evidence to suggest there is any consumer confusion over the labelling of vegan alternative-meat products. A 2025 survey by Radar[2] showed the opposite: 96% of panel members were able to differentiate between vegan and meat sausages, and 75% of those surveyed were not confused over labelling.”
