For dairy products, European rules have been clear for many years. The designation “milk” is reserved for mammary secretion, while names such as cream, butter, cheese and yoghurt are intended for products derived from milk. Simply adding an adjective is not enough to get around the rule. The Court of Justice of the European Union reiterated this in a 2017 judgment that has become a point of reference: designations reserved for dairy products cannot be used for purely plant-based products, even when they are accompanied by indications clarifying their origin. This is why we find “soya drink” on shelves rather than soya milk.
But every rule has its exceptions. The European Union recognises some designations that had entered traditional use before the market for plant-based alternatives reached its current size. In Italian, the list includes, among others, “latte di mandorla”, “latte di cocco” and “burro di cacao”. This is not a contradiction: these are names whose nature is considered clear by custom.
With meat, the path has been less linear. Unlike the dairy sector, for a long time there was no equally broad system of reserved designations at European level. In 2023, Italy introduced a law that prohibits, for processed products composed solely of plant proteins, a series of references to meat, animal species and the terminology proper to butchery, charcuterie and fishmongering. The same law provides for a decree listing the designations concerned. In 2024, the Court of Justice intervened in a French case, establishing an important principle: in the absence of a specific legal designation, a Member State cannot generally prohibit the use of terms traditionally associated with products of animal origin to indicate foods containing plant proteins.
A new phase began in the summer of 2026. European Regulation 2026/1739 introduced a common list of designations reserved for meat and meat products. These include “meat”, references to species such as chicken, turkey and lamb, and names of cuts such as fillet, ribs, breast, wing, bacon and steak. The new rules on designations will apply from 19 August 2029. There is, however, an interesting detail: “burger” and “sausage” do not appear in the final list.
But why is steak treated one way and burger another? Here the issue stops being purely regulatory and becomes marketing. A name does not only indicate the ingredients. If we read “plant-based burger”, we already know what shape to expect, we imagine cooking it in a pan or on the grill and we know where to place it within a meal. A definition such as “preparation based on pea protein”, however precise, communicates something different. This is one of the reasons why companies have an interest in using familiar words. Not necessarily to make people believe that a plant-based food is meat or cheese, but to place it within a category the consumer already knows. The difference is especially important when a new product is trying to find space in the diet of people who do not follow a vegetarian or vegan diet.
