Ahead of today’s meeting of the European Parliament negotiators, a group of 28 industry associations and food companies urges MEPs to reject any further restrictions on the names of plant-based foods in the full revision of the Common Market Organisation (CMO) Regulation.
European umbrella groups, including the European Alliance for Plant-based Foods (EAPF), Plant-Based Foods Europe (PBFE) and the European Vegetable Protein Association (EUVEPRO), have signed alongside national associations from Germany, Denmark to Spain and from Finland to Italy. Next to them are brands found in shopping baskets across Europe and the UK: Vegetarian Butcher Collective, Linda McCartney Foods, Quorn, Beyond Meat, Moving Mountains, Meatless Farm, Redefine Meat and more. Their joint statement, “Fair Naming in Support of EU’s Protein Autonomy,” has landed on the desks of the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs responsible for the file.
Europe wants more home-grown protein. So why make it harder to sell, when that is exactly what the European Union is trying to achieve in order to create a competitive, sustainable and resilient protein system?
One hand builds, the other blocks
Just this July, the Commission unveiled its EU Protein Action Plan: more European plant protein, less dependence on imports and new markets for farmers. Plant-based foods are one of the main routes through which EU-grown peas, beans, lentils and cereals reach consumers. Every veggie burger sold is demand for that home-grown plant protein.
Thomas Schobesberger, Secretary General of the European Alliance for Plant-based Foods: “You can’t launch a plan to grow plant protein on one day and then tie the hands of the manufacturers that drive plant protein demand with their products. Policy needs to pull in one direction. Especially after this summer, farmers need diversified opportunities and new markets, not fewer. Naming restrictions would weaken demand at exactly the wrong moment.”
Farmers and manufacturers need markets, not more red tape
The timing could hardly be worse. After a summer of scorching heat and drought, farmers are looking for resilience: crops that fix their own nitrogen, rotations that spread the risk and buyers for what they grow. Protein crops tick those boxes, but only if there is a market for them.
The cost of the additional red tape wouldn’t stop at the farm gate but impacts the whole food value chain. Renaming and rebranding products across 24 official languages is expensive, above all for SMEs. That bill ends up on supermarket shelves in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
Fabio Ziemßen, Chairman of BALPro: „We estimate that the naming restrictions could cause around €250 million in economic damage in Germany alone. And this figure does not yet account for the further restrictions currently being discussed. The more extensive the ban becomes, the greater the economic burden on companies will be, with resources being diverted from innovation and investment into costly regulatory adjustments.”
A solution in search of a problem
Shoppers aren’t confused. Descriptions like “plant-based,” “vegan” and “meat-free” clearly state the nature of the product. Four in five consumers see no problem with familiar names (BEUC, 2020), and in 2024 the EU Court of Justice confirmed that existing rules already protect consumers well enough (Case C-438/23).
Rutger Rozendaal, CEO The Vegetarian Butcher Collective: “Introducing further restrictions on familiar and long-used product names risks creating unnecessary barriers for plant-based products without a clear consumer benefit. Consumers already understand terms such as ‘burger’ and ‘sausage’ in the context of plant-based food. We should focus on giving consumers more choice, not making that choice harder to navigate.”
And yet, a set of new amendments proposed by conservative and right-wing MEPs aims to extend the list of prohibited terms for plant-based foods to include “burger”, “sausage”, “schnitzel” and “nugget”, among others. With these proposals, MEPs try to reopen the ‘veggie burger’ debate for the third time in six years.
Thomas Schobesberger: “The young and burgeoning plant-based food industry needs planning certainty and a reliable regulatory framework. Introducing new naming restrictions undermines precisely this prerequisite for the plant-based sector to thrive, create opportunities for farmers, jobs and growth.”
