The European Parliament and Council of the European Union have agreed to go ahead with a ban on the use of animal-associated names for plant-based products, restricting 31 words in total including ‘chicken’ and ‘steak’.
The decision was made yesterday afternoon (5 March 2026) following trilogue negotiations that were extended from late last year into 2026.
Under the new legislation, 31 animal-associated words and traditional names for cuts will be prohibited for labelling plant-based foods and reserved only for meat products.
This move will deliver a significant blow to the plant-based meat alternatives category, which has relied on many of these familiar words to communicate the kind of flavours and textures consumers can expect from the product, and how the product can be enjoyed.
Which words will be banned?
The 31 restricted words are: chicken; beef; turkey; duck; goose; lamb; beef; pork; bacon; goat; veal; poultry; mutton; ovine; steak; ribs; rib-eye; T-bone; rump; liver; chop; wing; breast; thigh; shoulder; flank; loin; tenderloin; shank; drumstick; and brisket.
While the choice to restrict these words has been criticised heavily as an unnecessary limitation by major players across the plant-based food industry, the sector has welcomed the EU’s decision not to include a select few widely used words as part of the ban.
These include ‘burger,’ ‘sausage’ and ‘nuggets,’ which were put forward for potential restriction as part of the original proposal, led by MEP Céline Imart, last year.
In calls for the ban to be scrapped, many campaigners argued that these format-based words have been extensively used for decades to describe the shape of products, rather than the type of protein they are made with. The vegetarian Glamorgan sausage, for example – a traditional Welsh sausage made from cheese and leeks – has been well-established and referred to by the term for over a century, long before today's modern meat alternatives hit the market.
These highly debated descriptive words will remain permitted, provided that products are clearly labelled plant-based so that consumers can continue to make informed choices.
Next steps
Legislators have agreed on a three-year transition period before new regulations take effect, allowing plant-based food producers to clear existing stock and adapt their packaging/branding.
Further details will be finalised on Friday 13 March, with the file then progressing to formal adoption by the Agriculture and Fisheries Council and a final vote in the European Parliament plenary.
The extent to which the restrictions will impact the market for ‘hybrid’ products (those made with a blend of meat and plant-based ingredients), as well as products such as meat-flavoured foods, seasonings and flavourings that do not contain meat, is currently unclear. Further clarification on these elements is expected to follow.
Additionally, the ban will be extended to cover cultivated meat – meat that is created using cellular agriculture, involving the cultivation of real animal cells in bioreactors and eliminating the need for raising and slaughtering livestock. These novel foods are not yet available on the market in the EU, but have been included as part of the ban preemptively.
Industry impact
Plant-based F&B industry organisation ProVeg International has warned that the ban will create significant complexities around translation and linguistic coherence and undermine the single market, with the same products facing different naming constraints in different regions.
“Removing familiar terms does not improve transparency; it reduces clarity and increases friction at the point of purchase,” commented Jasmijn de Boo, global CEO of ProVeg International.
“The real impact will depend on how these rules are implemented in practice… Labelling should empower consumers and support a competitive, future-fit food system.”
Manufacturers operating across different markets will now contend with costs of packaging redesign as well as challenges around labelling standardisation and further compliance measures. This will particularly impact small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), The Vegatarian Society has warned, and will have a knock-on effect on international trade and labelling norms beyond Europe.
The legislation was introduced to protect the animal agriculture industry, with MEP Imart describing this latest development as an “undeniable success” for European livestock farmers.
Supporters of tighter restrictions around meat-related words for plant-based products, including European livestock farmer associations like European Livestock Voice and Copa-Cogeca, argue that the use of such words in plant-based food marketing is misleading to consumers and devalues the cultural significance of traditional meat products.
The longstanding debate
The debate has been ongoing since 2019 at European level, with Copa-Cogeca chairman Jean-Pierre Fleury referring to the use of meat-related words on plant-based alternatives as “cultural hijacking”.
“Certain marketing agencies are using this to deliberately confuse consumers by promoting the view that substituting one product for another has no impact on the nutritional intake,” he said in an earlier press statement discussing the issue as part of the ‘Ceci n’est pas un steak’ EU livestock campaign launch.
The campaigners argue that plant-based alternatives should ‘develop their own approach’ to gain consumer recognition, rather than focusing their marketing around existing meat products.
Industry organisations on the plant-based side have disputed arguments surrounding consumer confusion, with ProVeg’s Jasmijn de Boo stating that there is “no evidence of widespread confusion where products are clearly labelled as plant-based or vegan”.
European studies have indicated that around 80–95% of consumers correctly identify plant-based alternatives and support the use of such descriptors, ProVeg noted.
Recent research has indicated that alternative proteins (including plant-based meat alternatives and cell-based meat) could generate over €111 billion annually, and support more than 400,000 jobs by 2040.
However, key players fear that regulatory hurdles such as labelling restrictions could significantly reduce projected market growth and investment across Europe.
