The European Parliament has approved a negotiating position to restrict the use of terms such as “steak” and “sausage” to products containing meat.
In a statement yesterday (8 October), the parliament said MEPs voted 532–78, with 25 abstentions, to adopt their stance for upcoming talks with the European Council and European Commission. The talks are scheduled to begin next Tuesday.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The mandate includes a new definition of meat as “edible parts of animals” and states names including steak, escalope, sausage and burger should be reserved exclusively for meat products and exclude cell-cultured items.
Hamburger, egg yolk and egg white are also in the list.
“The amendments to the current common agriculture policy laws aim to strengthen the contractual position of farmers and thus stabilise their income,” the European Parliament’s statement read.
Whether non-meat analogues can be marketed using terms traditionally associated with meat has been a topic of debate in the EU in recent years.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataFive years ago, MEPs debated similar measures but voted against a ban.
In January, France’s highest administrative court annulled two government decrees seeking to ban the use of animal descriptors for plant-based proteins.
Three months earlier, last year the ECJ “ruled that the bans were not compatible with EU law”.
This week’s vote drew criticism from some lawmakers. Anna Strolenberg, an MEP on for Volt Nederland and part of the European Greens grouping, said: “We could have spent this time debating the fact that our planet is on fire. The fact that we have a brutal war on our borders and that our societies are getting angrier and more divided. When Europeans look at their leaders, what do they see? They see us discussing burgers.”
NGO ProVeg International described the vote as “disappointing”.
Jasmijn de Boo, the CEO of ProVeg International, said: “Plant-based foods are, and always will be, an essential part of EU agriculture, its economy and its growth. So today’s vote by the European Parliament to restrict the labelling of plant-based foods is disappointing.
“Aside from the fact that consumers are not confused by ‘meaty’ labelling of plant-based foods, we must also remember that the EU already has robust legislation in place to protect consumers from misleading labels.”
