Ban on veggie ‘burgers’: plant-based products may lose meaty names in UK under EU law
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/20/food-labelling-veggie-burgers-sausages-plant-based-products-uk-brexit-eu
Posted by pajamakitten
Ban on veggie ‘burgers’: plant-based products may lose meaty names in UK under EU law
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/20/food-labelling-veggie-burgers-sausages-plant-based-products-uk-brexit-eu
Posted by pajamakitten
35 Comments
I think the bigger issue is when we can start prosecuting people who describe a casserole with a bit of puff pastry on it as a pie.
> Joel Scott-Halkes, the head of campaigns at WePlanet, said: “The only confusion over plant-based food labelling in Europe is exactly which shadowy livestock lobby is behind it. There’s no genuine, citizen-driven demand to ban veggie burgers or sausages – just a meat industry push to protect its profit margins from a rising tide of dietary change.”
This is very true. No one is claiming that peanut butter, milk of magnesia or quince cheese are confusing terms; apparently people are so thick as plant-based mince that they will be confused by soya milk and veggie sausages though. It is why you have the meat and dairy industry running adverts during January to promote animal agriculture: they are worried about Veganuary showing people you can live without animal products.
That seems silly. Burgers aren’t necessarily beef. Chicken burgers, lamb burgers…personally I make my own venison burgers. I don’t see why plant based alternatives should be any different. To me “burger” is a ground patty in a roll.
I can understand protecting terms like “milk” as plant-based milks are fundamentally different to “real” milk. But a burger is so versatile.
Thought we’d voted to stop these unelected beurocrats from brussels telling us what to do?
Meanwhile the world burns (storms and floods) but ya know what we call food is of the upmost importance because someone’s meat eating feeling get hurt. Glad I don’t have kids.
I look forward to manufacturers of the traditional and very much meat-free Glamorgan Sausage taking their case to Brussels
As an avid meat eater, plant burgers do not confuse or confound me. I can tell the difference between plant based burgers and beef.
After all these years I finally found a reason to vote for brexit.
Meh. When we wish to have the benefits of market access we have to accept the consequences. This is a nothing issue IMO, it will make no difference at all to the number or quality of vegan “sausages” sold in the U.K. even if they now have to be labelled “vegan minced food tubes”.
What is good is that UK producers will gain access to EU markets (including vegan producers of said food tubes).
Ok, so when are we banning *”humane slaughter”* & *”Happy Eggs”* etc
There’s war on Europe’s borders, people are struggling to make ends meet, society is losing all respect for itself and the world is becoming increasingly divided…
But there are some very loud idiots who can’t distinguish between a beef burger and a veggie bean burger, because the word burger offends them and they need a change in the big bold letters to avoid the confusion.
What weird priorities we have, where what we consume and what it is called is apparently more important than famine and food itself. What a catastrophic waste of time this has already wasted just in thoughts and vibes alone, seeing as it seems to be based on feelings.
This is obviously one of those things for those that need to be told peanuts contain nuts to avoid nut allergies, and those who need to be told not to drink white paint incase they confuse it for milk and to simply not eat glue.
[Yes, Minister really is evergreen, isn’t it?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPwQ0PmK9lw)
This is so pathetic.
Plant based burgers and sausages etc are more often than not in their own plant based section. Consumers aren’t being misled.
This will do nothing to stop people eating less meat. Absolutely pointless lobbying. As a meat eater who tries to have a veggie day once or twice a week, this kind of nonsense only makes me want to up my veggie days.
Chicken nuggets are not made of gold.
I bought ten kilos in Iceland yesterday, what a rip of.
Do people genuinely care about shit like this? It feels like it’s a non-issue. Most vegan burgers are very clear that they are vegan.
Burger and sausage, like sandwich and toasties, are descriptors of the process of preparation, not the filling or ingredients. You choose yourself what’s in it. This is just stupid
I have bad news for these lobbyists who have enjoyed urinal cakes since forever.
If you cant call it a pork sausage if it has below a % of meat, its just a sausage then why, if its 100% vegetarian, cant you call it a veggi sausage?
I don’t understand at all why something can become law just because an industry “lobbies” for it. So what if the meat industry wants something to be a certain way? Who cares what they want?
I can understand that they might make the argument that they are a large industry, big employer etc and therefore competition from the vegetarian food industry damages their ability to support the national economy, but they’re not losing out to veggie food because people are confused about what they’re buying; they’re losing out because more people want to buy veggie food. It’s pure market forces.
The word burger describes the format. It makes no difference if its Beef, Chicken, Pork, Vegetables etc.
The problem lies with people making out its made of something its not. No veggie burger has ever tried to pretend its made of meat. But you have vegan burgers that advertise themselves as things like ‘plant based Beef Burger’ which confuses people.
This isn’t what is being described in the article but I was in a cafe and picked up a chicken wrap. It’s only because the queue was long I actually read it properly and wandered why it was called a chick’n wrap and not chicken. I then realised it was a vegan wrap. Similarly I’ve seen vegan cheese called cheeze . These names make sense when written down but surely you need to name it something that doesn’t sound identical when spoken out loud.
It is annoying getting burgers or sausages in the plant based aisle/section and it turns out they are plant based.
hmm… it’s like in Britain we generally call black tea just “tea”. If you go abroad and ask for “tea” they almost always ask “which one?” – we generally think they’re asking for a brand name but no, they mean green, fruit, white, black etc.
Milk I would assume is a type of cows milk if there is no additonal adjective, I’d go one step further and expect it to be whole or semi but not skimmed. I’m not sure that’s univerisal, though.
Same with burger. If someone says burger I would expect beef by default and an adjective if it is different. If those are the rules proposed then I’ve no problem with it. “Hey, you need an adjective before burger in the same size font as the word burger if it isn’t beef”
Considering how absurd this is, I’m surprised it’s a guardian article rather than mail, telegraph or express.
Still, good to see the political class earning their keep, focusing on the really important issues 👍 as true in the EU as here
The only hiccup I’ve ever had as a meat eater is at Greggs having to confirm I want an actual sausage roll.
Yes changing it to just vegan roll would save me barely 2 seconds of my day.
Do I think the law needs to enforce it… no.
So in that regard – a “cheeseburger” should just be a block of cheese in a bun?
This is not about consumers getting confused. People who do a food shop, and there is some evidence to back this, are able to see images and read words.
Meat companies are under threat. They are already cutting their ‘beef’ with other ingredients. Injecting water into chicken. Slowly lowering the pork content in sausages to the point where it’s debatable if it could even be called a ‘pork sausage’ or should it be a ‘meat-based food shaped into a sausage”.
‘Burger’ is a shape, it doesn’t imply anything about the contents.
If this wasn’t true, the label wouldn’t have to specify whether it’s a beef, venison or plant-based burger.
It’s fascinating how triggered the livestock industry is by the use of the terms burgers, sausages or milk by non animal products.
Meanwhile people use more alternative products over time and keep using the names.
If anything it draws *more* attention to the veggie burger industry, I’ve never tried one but I might now just to spite ‘big beef’
I’m more shocked how many people are spending their time talking about this. Lmao living your best life’s
If you deeply care about how Europe names their own foodstuffs then you can always campaign to rejoin the EU. Producers are under no obligation to adhere to European naming standards for the British domestic market, so if you are upset about then maybe reflect a bit more deeply on why.
Yet GB “news” is allowed to continue calling itself news…
It’s not like the UK hasn’t done this stuff on its own before – Iron Brew became Irn Bru in the 1940s because laws stipulated the marketing of products had to be literally true.
I love the way they are blaming Labour’s recent deal with the EU when it is of course a consequence of Brexit, that we have given up the power to influence or veto EU decisions about its own business.
It seems to me that it will not necessarily affect UK food producers selling food in the UK, but only the stuff they export to the EU. It might not affect EU food made for export to the UK either. However businesses might find it easier just to comply rather than have two sets of packaging, ordering etc.
I’ve no love for veggie burgers, but is anyone pushing for this. Literally it takes two seconds to read a menu and go “oh, this is actually fake meat, I wanted real meat, I will order something else”
This is a silly thing to happen