A Burger by Any Other Name?
When is a burger not a burger? According to the European Parliament, when it’s made of plants!
It was in October 2025 that the EU Parliament voted to reserve meat-related names like burger, steak, sausage, and even schnitzel exclusively for products that contain actual animal meat. The decision received support from 355 MEPs against 247, framed as an act of consumer protection. Officials claimed it would prevent “confusion” among buyers and “protect the cultural integrity of European meat.” Behind the seemingly straightforward language of transparency, however, lies a deeper and more tangled story, one woven from lobbying, politics and Europe’s enduring nostalgia for its rural past.
Who Cooked Up the Ban
Driving the amendment is Céline Imart, a French centre-right MEP and a farmer herself. As rapporteur for the agricultural committee, Imart framed the move as part of a wider push to increase the negotiating power of farmers and “protect traditional terminology.”
Her campaign quickly gained the support of livestock lobbies throughout France and Europe. For many in the meat industry, the rise of plant-based food has felt like an existential threat, both economic and cultural. What began as a niche dietary choice is now a multi-billion-euro industry reshaping supermarket shelves and restaurant menus.
Framing the fight as one of “truth in labelling,” Imart and her allies leaned on a familiar argument: the EU already protects dairy terms such as “milk” and “cheese” from imitation, so why not meat?
Consumers Weren’t Confused, But Farmers Were Angry
And yet the evidence for consumer confusion is paper-thin. Surveys by European consumer groups show that over 80% of shoppers know exactly what “veggie burger” means. They understand it’s plant-based. The packaging clearly says so. The supposed “misleading terminology” simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
It was, in fact, France’s earlier attempt to enforce such a ban that ended up in court. In October 2024, the French law was overturned by the European Court of Justice, which stated that the move was beyond EU powers and that there was no evidence of widespread misunderstanding. That verdict makes the new EU-level ban not only controversial but potentially vulnerable to future legal challenges. Meanwhile, producers of plant-based foods, especially small and mid-sized companies, warn that rebranding will cost millions. The names “veggie sausage” or “plant-based burger” are familiar to consumers; forcing firms to invent clunky replacements risks alienating the very customers driving the EU’s green food transition.
A Ban Seasoned with Politics
If this isn’t really about confused shoppers, what is it about?
The short answer: politics.
The long answer: identity politics in post-industrial Europe.
The European Parliament that passed this measure has swung rightward since 2024, with the centre-right European People’s Party eager to consolidate support among farmers and rural voters. Since then, agricultural protests have flared across Europe over environmental rules and market reforms. For many politicians, defending “meat terminology” became a symbolic and safe way to show solidarity with farmers without spending a cent of new subsidy money.
Céline Imart embodies this political mixing of identity and interest. A farmer-turned-legislator, her very role invites questions of conflict of interest, though no formal violation exists. Still, her dual identity points out the blurred lines between policymaking and constituency politics in the EU’s agricultural arena.
The Cultural Undercurrents
The “veggie burger” saga is also about Europe’s uneasy relationship with modernity. Food, after all, is heritage. In France, steak-frites isn’t just dinner; it’s identity. In Italy, prosciutto is cultural patrimony. Allowing soy-based products to share that linguistic space feels, to many, like sacrilege.
This cultural resistance to changing food language mirrors wider anxieties: about climate-conscious lifestyles, urban cosmopolitanism, and the erosion of traditional livelihoods. In that sense, the fight over “burger” is really a proxy war over who defines the future of European life, the countryside or the cities, the old farmers or the new consumers.
The Legal and Economic Recipe for Trouble
Even if the law survives Council negotiations, it won’t be easy to enforce it. Will restaurants have to rename “veggie burgers”? What about fast-food chains or menus translated into 24 EU languages? The grey areas are endless, and the ECJ’s 2024 precedent looms large.
Critics say this adds bureaucracy and cuts across the EU’s own environmental commitments. Europe has pledged to promote sustainable diets and reduce meat consumption for climate reasons. Banning familiar plant-based terms sends precisely the opposite message.
The Real Meat of the Matter
The “veggie burger” ban proposed by the EU has less to do with substance than with symbolism. It reflects a politics of nostalgia – an attempt to legislate linguistic purity in an age of changing appetites. It will only serve to confuse consumers rather than help them. It will placate farmers with symbolism, rather than protect them. It punishes innovation rather than embracing it. In the end, it is not a fight about food at all. It is a struggle over who gets to define Europe’s cultural future and whose identity gets to be served on the plate.
The Verdict
The “veggie burger” controversy is Europe in miniature: an old continent wrestling with new realities, clinging to its culinary past while legislating its cultural anxieties. In the name of safeguarding tradition, the EU has waded into a semantic skirmish that looks set to appear absurd in retrospect-a bureaucratic battle over burgers that exposes a deeper fear of change simmering beneath Europe’s table.
