EU Court: plant products can be called “steak,” “meatballs” or “sausages”

Brussels – It sounds like a slap in the face to detractors of plant-based foods: the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled today (Oct. 4) that these products can also be sold using names typically associated with meat—provided, of course, their composition is clearly stated on the label.

According to the judges of the Luxembourg-based court, member states do not have the power to prevent manufacturers from marketing their vegetarian foods with terms and formulas traditionally associated with butchery and charcuterie. In short, we will continue to find soy burgers, veggie sausages, steaks, patties and plant-based cutlets on supermarket shelves. This rule can be exceptionally waived, the CJUE explains, only where specific legal criteria already exist for assigning a particular name to a product based on plant proteins. In all other cases, however, “veg” labelling complies perfectly with the relevant EU provisions (in EU Regulation 1169/2011).

The dispute on which the court ruled originated in France, where a law prohibited using terms such as “veggie burgers” or “vegan sausages” in marketing plant-based products. A group of operators in the industry (the Association Protéines France, the Union vegetarian européenne, the Association végétérienne de France and the company Beyond Meat Inc.) had then challenged the legislation in question, until in August 2023, the transalpine Council of State deferred the case to the CJUE, which concluded in today’s verdict that if member countries do not introduce legal names for specific food categories they cannot prevent manufacturers of plant protein foods from using descriptive names borrowed from the carnivorous universe to make them more recognizable to potential buyers.

The court specified that the governments of the Twenty-Seven can put regulations in place to protect consumers from misleading marketing. However, if the labelling of food products clearly states their composition, there is no reason to prevent the use of certain expressions just because common sense associates them more immediately with meat products rather than their plant-based alternatives.

The ruling will, in all likelihood, have considerable implications throughout the single market, as other countries, such as Italy and Belgium, have introduced or are considering introducing laws similar to the one challenged beyond the Alps. In Italy, for example, the legal basis of some provisions recently introduced by the Meloni government could be lost, such as Article 3 of the so-called “Cultivated Meat Law” (Law 172/2023, which came into force last December), which prohibits the use of expressions borrowed from the butcher’s, delicatessen or fishmonger’s world for “processed products containing exclusively vegetable protein.” In the name of the harmonization of trade practices within the Union, at this point, it seems fair to expect that companies and industry associations in all member states will subsequently consider the CJEU verdict as an essential precedent that plays in their favour, to “save” vegetable meat labels (after, four years ago, the EU Parliament had already rejected attempts to ban these designations as part of the reform of the Union’s Common Agricultural Policy).