From euractiv.com
Germany is both Europe’s top meat producer and its largest market for plant-based foods
BERLIN – The European Parliament’s vote to ban terms like ‘burger’ and ‘sausage’ from vegan products has stirred debate beyond Brussels – nowhere more than in Germany, exposing political fissures and competing industry interests.
The debate has laid bare tensions between Germany’s powerful meat industry, which is the largest in Europe, and the country’s booming plant-based sector, which dominates the European market and sees restrictive labelling as a threat to further growth.
The proposal – part of a wider regulatory review aimed at strengthening the position of farmers in food supply chains – will be brought to the Commission and Council. Among German MEPs, 20 voted in favour of the proposal against 61 who rejected it.
At home, Germany’s ruling coalition appears divided on the prospect of banning widely used labels such as veganes Schnitzel and Tofu-Bratwurst.
Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer, a trained butcher and member of the governing conservative CDU/CSU bloc, said he was committed to ensuring consumers made well-informed decisions – echoing arguments from proponents, who say calling a vegetarian burger a “burger” could confuse customers.
“In principle, I welcome the clear distinction and identifiability of traditional animal foods and plant-based meat substitutes,” Rainer said in a statement to Euractiv.
Sausages have long sizzled in Germany’s political debates. Markus Söder, leader of Bavaria’s CSU and a champion of the regions meaty traditions, fanned the flames last month by denouncing “tofu terror” at a folk festival.
The CDU/CSU’s junior coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), sided with the opposition Greens in criticising the proposed labelling change as unnecessary and potentially harmful to the plant-based sector.
“We have other problems than the name ‘veggie sausage’,” said Franziska Kersten, agricultural policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group. “Companies rely on the brand names they have already developed and are now concerned about economic damage.”
Critics ranging from politicians to agriculture and food policy experts have questioned the motivations behind thee move. Some say the measure is skewed towards the livestock sector amid a drop in meat consumption across the EU in recent years linked to tight supply, high prices, and sustainability concerns.
“The aim of the EU plans is apparently to slow down the growing trend among consumers to at least occasionally give up meat in order to support the struggling meat industry,” the Berlin-based advocacy group Foodwatch said, adding that “nobody accidentally buys tofu sausages”.
Behind the brands
Meat remains a major industry in Germany, which was Europe’s top producer in 2023. Over €44 billion worth of meat and meat products were produced last year, almost 70 times the equivalent value of meat substitutes.
But consumption has been consistently declining, dropping to below 52 kilograms per capita in 2023 and only slightly increasing last year.
The smaller plant-based industry, by contrast, has been thriving in Germany, Europe’s largest market for meat alternatives. The country produced 126,500 tons of meat substitutes in 2024, more than double the amount produced five years earlier.
In an open letter to MEPs ahead of the vote, industry players – including supermarket chains Aldi Süd and Lidl, fast-food giant Burger King, and plant-based producer Beyond Meat – said alternative proteins could contribute up to €65 billion to Germany’s economic output within 20 years and create 250,000 new jobs, including 40,000 in agriculture.
Germany’s Rügenwalder Mühle, a major manufacturer of both meat products and plant-based alternatives, said it could cost the company a mid-single-digit million euro amount to align its vegan and vegetarian branding with the proposal.
The German Butchers’ Association, meanwhile, welcomed the prospect of a “clear linguistic distinction” to avoid misleading consumers.
For Stephanie Wunder, head of sustainable diets at the Agora Agriculture think tank, the meat-labelling debate is an example of food policy being inappropriately politicised.
“Food policy deserves a depolarised, goal-focused public debate,” she said. “Instead of the suggested ban, what’s needed are measures that support consumer-friendliness, health, and sustainability.”
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