Europe

According to hundreds of open-text responses, many consumers view the name debate as unnecessary or just “symbolic politics.” The majority prefer to see a focus on more urgent societal issues.

The reasoning behind the ban is supposedly to prevent consumers from accidentally purchasing plant-based products instead of meat ones…but plant-based products are often sold in their own sections and have distinctive packaging. Having “burger” or “sausage” in the name suggests what the product is intending to replace, which is helpful to people looking for alternatives to these products, especially if they have recently switched to a plant-based diet.

Overall, what a non-issue.

This whole discussion is a big nothing-burger, designed to divide and distract the people from real issues. Just have a look at who voted for this, majority right wing and eurosceptical factions. To sow distrust, paint the EU as a bunch of idiots who have nothing better to do, who want to regulate your daily life, who thinks the citizens are a bunch of children.
Now everyone is talking about this stupid measure because it makes great headlines, forgetting to mention that this vote does not have any regulatory and legal impact. The only thing it does is that the parliament has to discuss it, which is a long way from turning this into a law.

But it's great for the outrage mill, makes amazing headlines (for a while) which sow distrust and division and also lots of ridicule towards the EU.
Someone's gonna profit from it one way or the other and everyone else will be dumber just for having this shoved in our faces.

It is Brexit all over again.

Nobody, in the history of mankind, has been confused by the term veggie burger.

Maybe margarine should be pink.

Remember, the deputy who proposed that also said that France recognizing Palestine was not the right moment and not a priority. But lobbying is.

The numbers show that the problem is not with the packaging but with the supermarket shelves. The proximity of meat and plant-based alternatives leads to confusion; simply banning names would likely have little impact.

This coincides with a pet peeve of mine: strategical supermarket shelving. When in previous decades there were separate sections for different types of produce, these are now mixed in thematically somehow. So, as an example, before there was refrigerated vegan products in one section, sausage/meat products in another, now there's a section for "things to put on bread".
Before there was an organic section, now organic food is mixed in with "normal" food and you have to look for a label.

This is no doubt to make customers buy more, but I fail to see how exactly. It just pisses me off. I might spend more time in the shop because of that but not more money.
I have practiced economical shopping, comparing prices and ingredients, for decades. I am not changing my habits.

They also want me to bend down more often - but that's OK.

Many see this as a sideshow. According to hundreds of open-text responses, many consumers view the name debate as unnecessary or just “symbolic politics.” The majority prefer to see a focus on more urgent societal issues.

A certain type of voter gets riled up very nicely when you even suggest that eating less meat is an option. Therefore it's specifically right-wing populist Symbolpolitik.

Just create icons for foods as we've done for recyclables.

Milk carton? Paper icon. Detergent bottle? Plastic icon.

Veggie burger? Vegetarian icon. Vegan burger? Vegan icon.

Then you can just skip all this naming politics and call it whatever you like. Just require the appropriate icons on the front of the packaging.

Meat/poultry/fish should be their own icons as well imo.

I don't know if there's any good reason not to do this, but it seems like a good idea to me.

If they're going to do that they should also ban french tacos.

Nothing happens. Thats it. Of course they could just mandate that all non animal based meat substitutes have a huge clearly visible label. Even better force them to make all plant based meat substitutes be green.

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Something along the lines of Mexico’s labeling for excessive sugar etc would work well enough if adapted to “vegan/veggie/meat” etc.

The underlying issue here is it manufacturers try to hide what’s in their products and rely on people not taking the time to look at label ingredients or what they’re actually buying.

Better labeling requirements would solve a lot of these issues.