The food manufacturer Rügenwalder Mühle is already working on possible new names for its meat substitute products.

"This is a highly sensitive issue," said management spokesman Jörg Pfirrmann to the Tagesspiegel newspaper. The range of issues being considered is broad.

One could choose completely new, imaginative names or something more descriptive, says the Rügenwalder CEO. "But perhaps we can also continue to use old terms – with new additions." The European Parliament decided last week that meat made from plants could no longer be called veggie schnitzel or burger. For the German market leader Rügenwalder Mühle, which now generates 70 percent of its sales from meat alternative products, the packaging changes, new naming rights, and new retail listings alone would cost a mid-single-digit million amount, according to Pfirrmann. The long-term consequences, however, are even more serious, because new consumers might not find it so easy to access alternative products after a rebranding. "But we still hope it won't come to that, because the EU Commission and the member states still have a say," Pfirrmann said. Rügenwalder is hoping, not least, that German Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer (CSU) will be on board. Rainer has announced his intention to reduce bureaucracy. However, the European Parliament's new initiative would create new bureaucracy if a name ban were to be implemented, Pfirrmann said: "In that respect, he would have to be on our side."