Plant-based meat alternatives: the EU restricts the use of certain meat-related terms

The new agreement reached in Brussels on the use of terms traditionally associated with meat should not be seen as a purely terminological issue. For companies producing and distributing plant-based meat alternatives, it is a development that affects labels, packaging, commercial materials and product presentation across the supply chain. At the same time, the plant-based sector has already been moving away from these names for some time, in response to market shifts and changing consumer preferences.

New EU rules

The European Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement as part of the revision of the CMO Regulation to prevent certain names linked to the meat category from being used for plant-based products. These include names of animal species and meat cuts such as steak and bacon. Widely used terms such as burger, sausage and nuggets will still be allowed. The agreement must now be formally approved by both the Council and Parliament before it enters into force.

A more mature plant-based market

Overall, the European ban does not appear likely to constrain the sector, but it may accelerate a transformation that is already under way. The industry is gradually shifting its focus away from products built around simple meat imitation and toward products with a more independent identity.

Rather than a segment still marketed only as an alternative to meat, the European plant-based sector now looks like a mature and diversified market. The latest data point to a market worth around 9 billion euros, driven not only by plant-based substitutes designed to replace meat proteins, but also by established categories such as plant-based milk and beverages.

A shift in the regulatory landscape

The European decision also marks a shift compared with the legal framework that emerged in 2024. In October, the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that, in the absence of a legally defined designation at regulatory level, a Member State could not impose a general and abstract ban on the use of names traditionally associated with meat for products containing plant proteins.

The Court also noted that the European regulation on consumer information already provides adequate protection against genuinely misleading practices. Today, however, the EU legislator is intervening directly to reserve certain terms for meat, and this moves the issue from the national level to a fully European one.

Commercial implications

The impact is unlikely to be the same across the entire sector. The potential damage for companies appears much more limited than it would have been a few years ago, because a large share of producers is already moving away from products focused only on replicating meat.

The most loyal consumers will probably continue to look for these products even after possible renaming, while the real barriers to purchase remain above all taste, texture, perceived healthiness, degree of processing and value for money. In other words, the new rule complicates communication, but it does not by itself solve or worsen the structural issues of the category.

Adapting to the regulation and implementation issues

Several aspects remain unclear from an implementation perspective. One of the most delicate issues concerns how these rules will be interpreted and enforced across the different languages of the Union, where terms, semantic nuances and commercial practices do not always fully overlap.

There is also the issue of hybrid products, meaning products that combine plant-based ingredients with components of animal origin, for which it is still not entirely clear what criterion will prevail when product names are chosen. The same applies to emerging categories, which are evolving rapidly and may not fit neatly within traditional frameworks, as in the case of cultivated meat and other innovative solutions developed in the alternative protein space.

For producers and distributors, this means that adapting to EU regulation will involve several areas, including labels, catalogs, product sheets, e-commerce content, marketing messages and the management of multi-level assortments.

Consumers are now less confused by these terms

One of the arguments most often used in support of the ban is the alleged confusion it creates among consumers. However, a substantial share of consumers accepts the use of these names as long as the products are clearly identified as vegetarian or vegan.

Other analyses suggest that "meaty" terms have little impact on actual confusion and mainly influence taste expectations. For companies, the issue is therefore not only finding alternative names, but rethinking the way their products are presented.