European Parliament members on Friday cast their votes on whether to ban "meaty" and "dairy" words in relation to products that contain no meat, such as for example "vegetarian burgers" or "vegetarian sausages."
The proposed amendment to the European Union's agriculture regulations would mean that only products that contain meat can be referred to by terms including "steak," "sausage," "escalope," or "burger."
Farmers have pushed for this tightening of rules, claiming that the meat-like names could confuse consumers and harm agricultural companies.
But environmentalists vehemently oppose the legislation, arguing that it would deter consumers from eating vegetarian products.
Results of the votes will be announced later on Friday.
Dairy products
Non-dairy products are already prohibited from taking dairy names: since 2017, designations like soy or almond "milk" are banned.
But the proposal foresees a tightening of restrictions, also banning descriptive words such as "a la," or "type," when referring to dairy-like products.
Any ban approved by the parliament would still have to be negotiated with the European Commission and EU countries as part of a wider agricultural policy reform.
