A court in Barcelona has confirmed that vegan companies in Catalonia can continue to call their plant-based products “sausage” and “chorizo,” rejecting claims from the meat industry that such labels amount to unfair competition.
The case was brought by ANICE, the Spanish meat industry association, against the Barcelona-based vegan company Heura, over the way Heura labels and presents its plant-based alternatives to meat products. ANICE argued that using traditional meat names on vegan items, together with images of sliced products, misleads consumers and exploits the reputation of the meat sector. The court disagreed, finding that Heura’s packaging and marketing clearly indicate that the products are plant-based, and therefore do not deceive shoppers or constitute unfair competition.
Heura’s labels use familiar culinary terms such as “burger,” “chorizo,” and “sausage,” but they also prominently state that the products are made from vegetables and plant proteins, not from the bodies of animals. The judges held that this combination of wording and imagery is lawful, as long as the overall presentation does not hide or obscure the true nature of what is being sold. In practice, this means that vegan companies in Catalonia are allowed to use traditional meat-related names, provided they make it obvious that their products are animal-free.
The ruling echoes wider European guidance confirming that member states cannot simply ban descriptive meat terms for plant-based foods if there is no specific legal definition that would be violated. For vegan businesses, this decision is significant, as it allows them to communicate clearly to consumers by referencing familiar recipes and formats, without being forced into obscure or confusing terminology.
Heura welcomed the outcome as a win for both transparency and the plant-based sector, which has often faced attempts by the animal exploitation industries to restrict how vegan products can be named and sold.
