In October 2025, members of the European Parliament voted in favour of a bill to reserve terms such as “burger” and “sausage” for meat products. If this bill is approved by most EU member states, products made from meat alternatives or vegetables will no longer be allowed to have “burger” on their packaging.
This bill would change the words on the packaging, but it is not enough to change the words that people use in their everyday lives. A push to change the meaning of a word from a government body is unlikely to be successful, linguistically speaking, because of how the human brain processes and stores the meaning of words.
