Can you call a vegan sausage a sausage? And a veggie burger a burger?
These are important questions that have sparked loud debates within the EU for a long time.
Last summer, 29 words were already on the European Commission's blacklist – from brisket and bacon to beef tenderloin and burger.
This sparked major protests within the foodtech and vegan world, arguing that it was both harmful and unnecessary.
"I've never heard of anyone accidentally buying a vegan burger," said, for example, Ramkumar Nair, founder of Swedish hybrid meat company Smaqo and former company Mycorena, to Impact Loop.
And as recently as this week, Impact Loop revealed a leaked letter from some of Europe's leading foodtech investors, demanding that the EU stop the blacklisting.
Announcement: Sausages and burgers to stay
On Thursday evening, however, a decision was announced by the European Commission and the European Parliament. It is the EU site Euractiv that spoke to three people who were in the room where the decision was made.
According to the sources, 'burger' and 'sausage' are exempt from the ban. In other words: you can call your plant-based product, for example, 'veggie burger' or 'veggie sausage'.
However, a number of meat-related words are banned if used for plant-based products – see the full list at the bottom of the article. Céline Imart from the EPP group in France managed at the last minute to add "liver" to the ban list. This was done to protect France's iconic foie gras, writes Euractiv.
Fish exempted
Fish products are exempt from the ban, and the European Commission can grant exceptions for well-established terms like beef tomatoes. Even cell-cultured products – which are not yet sold in the EU – are subject to the restrictions, but the legal framework to ban the term "meat" for lab-grown food has not yet been decided.
The agreement still needs to be approved by the parliament's plenary and EU countries.
The negotiations, however, were not just about plant-based food. The main issue was to introduce mandatory written contracts in the agricultural sector to strengthen farmers' negotiating position against larger players, writes Euractiv.
Here are the words that are banned if they are plant-based:
- Beef (nötkött)
- Veal (kalvkött)
- Pork (fläskkött)
- Poultry (fågel)
- Chicken (kyckling)
- Turkey (kalkon)
- Duck
- Goose
- Lamb
- Mutton (fårkött)
- Ovine (får)
- Goat (getkött)
- Drumstick (chicken drumstick)
- Tenderloin (beef tenderloin)
- Sirloin (sirloin)
- Flank
- Steak
- Loin
- Ribs (revbensspjäll)
- Shoulder (axel/framdel)
- Shank (framlägg)
- Chop (cutlet/neck)
- Wing
- Breast fillet
- Thigh (lår)
- Brisket (bringa)
- Ribeye (entrecôte)
- T-bone (T-bone steak)
- Rump (rump steak)
- Bacon (bacon)
- Deliver