European parliament votes in favour of ‘veggie burgers’

The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) reportedly voted in favour of allowing restaurants and shops to use meat-related words to describe plant-based foods.

With EU MEPs voting against the proposal, which was supported by farmers, companies producing plant-based meat products can continue to use names such as ‘sausage’, ‘burger’ and ‘steak’ on the labels of their products and menus.

If the EU parliament voted against the proposal, the manufacturers would have been forced to rename their products such as ‘veggie discs’ or ‘veggie tubes’.

However, the MEPs did not support the usage of names such as ‘yoghurt-style’ and ‘cheese alternative’ for the plant-based alternatives to dairy products.

Additionally, the MEPs did not support the usage of terms such as ‘almond milk’ and ‘vegan cheese’.

ProVeg International vice-president Jasmijn de Boo said: “Although we welcome the European Parliament’s vote against the introduction of naming restrictions on plant-based alternatives to meat, where common sense has prevailed, we deeply regret its vote in favour of far-reaching and entirely unnecessary restrictions on the descriptions of plant-based dairy products.”

The European Dairy Association welcomed the decision to support the naming restrictions for plant-based alternatives to dairy products.

Taking to Twitter, the dairy association tweeted that the ban would protect terms such as milk, cheese, whey and butter.

Both proposals were part of the common agricultural policy (CAP) reform, where 425 MEPs voted for the adoption of the CAP while 212 voted against the reforms with 51 refrained themselves from voting.

Earlier this month, British media group The Guardian reported that the farmers and meat lobbyists in the country have raised their concerns against plant-based food producers said that the terms mislead people and amount to a ‘cultural hijacking’ of the meat industry.

However, plant-based product manufacturers such as Unilever and Nestle reportedly rejected the claims made by farmers and meat lobbyists.