The veggie burger and the lost art of category creation

October 2020. The European Parliament rejects the ban on calling plant-based products "burgers" or "sausages." In the same vote, however, it reinforces the existing prohibition on using terms like "milk" or "cheese" for non-dairy products. Veggie burger yes, almond milk no. If this seems like a schizophrenic decision, it's because it is. But the problem isn't legislative; it's architectural.

The vegan industry made a fundamental strategic error: it used meat language as a crutch to enter the market, then forgot to throw away that crutch. Ten years later, we're still at "veggie burger." And this isn't just a marketing problem, it's a symptom of failure in designing a new market category.

The lesson nobody wants to learn from real disruptions

When the automobile arrived, it was briefly called "horseless carriage." But it quickly became "automobile," with its completely new semantic, cultural, and ritual universe. It didn't remain "improved motorized carriage" for twenty years. It created its own identity.

Same pattern with the computer. Initially "electronic typewriter" to help people understand what it did. But quickly it became "computer," then "personal computer," with all its proprietary language: desktop, files, folders, mouse. An autonomous cognitive ecosystem.

The cell phone didn't call itself "portable telephone" forever. It became "cellular," then "smartphone," and now has generated behaviours, rituals, even pathologies (nomophobia) that didn't exist before. It created a world.

Real disruption doesn't parasitize the old but it replaces it. It doesn't say "I'm like that but better." It says "I'm something new, and in ten years you'll understand it's superior."

The vegan industry did the opposite. It used meat language as a psychological passkey to enter the consumer's fridge, but then got comfortable. An entire decade has passed, and we're still at "veggie burger," "vegetable sausage," "plant-based bacon." It's like selling "improved motorized carriages" in 1930. It would be ridiculous. It is ridiculous here too.

The trap of symbolic substitution

Calling a legume patty a "burger" is a behavioural nudge. I understand it perfectly. You're lowering the cognitive barrier: the consumer sees "burger" and thinks "ok, I know what this is, I know how to use it." If you called it "vegetable-origin protein disc," people wouldn't know where to place it in their mental meal. So the initial logic is solid.

The problem is that this tactic, effective for initial conversion, builds the product on foundations it doesn't possess. You define it not for what it is, but for what it isn't: a copy, an alternative, an "almost like." You position it in a permanent state of psychological inferiority compared to the original.

The consumer doesn't think "veggie burger" as its own category. They think "burger," then "veggie" as a restrictive modifier. Like saying "gluten-free pizza, fine if you're celiac, but nobody chooses it if they can eat the normal one. It's always a diminished version of the original.

This is the mechanism of symbolic substitution: you try to hack consumer trust by appropriating an existing category, hoping to inherit its value by osmosis. But it doesn't work that way. Value doesn't transfer automatically. In fact, often the opposite happens: you also inherit the expectations of the original, and when you don't meet them (because you're not meat), it disappoints.

The legislative mess as diagnostic symptom

The European Parliament decision, "veggie burger ok, plant milk no", is perfect as a diagnostic symptom. It reveals that the system itself doesn't know how to classify the phenomenon. And it doesn't know because the category is built on a fiction.

Meat is meat. Milk is milk. They have precise definitions, precise supply chains, precise regulations. The veggie burger is... what? A legume-based product that wants to be meat but isn't? An attempt to sensorially replicate something using completely different ingredients? A hybrid category between traditional vegetarian food and technological innovation?

Nobody really knows. And this ambiguity isn't accidental but sadly it's structural. It's the inevitable result of having built a market identity based on negation ("non-meat") instead of affirmation ("new thing").

Legislators can't regulate what doesn't exist as an autonomous category. They can only create absurd compromises: veggie burger yes (because "burger" has now become generic, like "kleenex"), but plant milk no (because there the dairy lobby is stronger, and "milk" is still protected). The result is a regulatory schizophrenia that reflects the underlying market schizophrenia.

The devastating irony of "ultra-processed natural"

There's another layer of irony here worth exploring. Many vegans justify their choice with three pillars: health, ethics, environment. But the products they're selling as "veggie burgers, Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and similar, are bombs of ultra-processed industrial ingredients.

Look at an Impossible Burger label: soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, dextrose, soy leghemoglobin (produced with GMOs), and fifteen other ingredients your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

Now compare it with a traditional burger: ground meat, salt, pepper. Done.

Which is more "natural"? Which requires less industrial transformation? Which has a simpler supply chain?

The disconnect is total. They proclaim superiority on health and sustainability while selling industrial products that require complex production processes, global supply chains, chemical additives to replicate meat's taste and texture. I'm not saying industrial meat is better, I'm just I'm saying the ultra-processed veggie burger isn't the answer they promise to be.

If you really wanted healthier plant-based eating, you'd eat legumes, whole grains, vegetables, stuff that's existed for millennia. You don't need a lab to create "fake meat" for you. But that doesn't sell, because it lacks the appeal of magical substitution without sacrifice.

Why they didn't have the courage to create the category

The real question is: why hasn't the vegan industry created its own identity? Why does it continue parasitizing meat's identity?

The answer is brutally simple: because most of their consumers don't really want to "stop eating meat." They want to "eat meat without guilt." And the entire category is built on this fundamental ambiguity.

If you were truly convinced of the superiority of your choice, you wouldn't try to camouflage it behind the language of what you're replacing. Early Christians didn't call churches "improved pagan temples." They created a completely new identity, with its own language, rituals, mythology. And they conquered the empire.

The vegan industry gave up this cultural battle. It chose the path of short-term convenience, "let's call it burger so people understand" but sacrificing the possibility of building something bigger long-term.

It's the same mistake startups make when they present themselves as "the Uber of X" or "the Netflix of Y." It's a cognitive crutch for investors, but it condemns you to always be "the one like the other." Real winners create the category, Airbnb isn't "peer-to-peer hotel," it's Airbnb. Amazon wasn't "the online bookstore," it became Amazon.

How to escape this trap

Saying "let's call them legume patties" is theoretically correct but pragmatically suicidal. The average consumer sees "legume patty" and thinks "hippie stuff," not "normal lunch." The semantic battle is already lost if you change the name tomorrow.

You need an evolutionary bridge. A parallel language that gradually becomes dominant:

Keep "burger" in the transition phase, but introduce proprietary terms that create culture. Not generic "impossible burger," but specific categories with strong identities: "Plant Performance Protein" for athletes, "Clean Protein Bowl" for health-conscious, "Regenerative Food" for environmentalists. Each segment has its own language, rituals, tribe.

Build usage experiences that are better, not "equivalent." Fitness meal prep becomes "plant power prep." Vegetable protein breakfast becomes a cool trend among influencers. You create ambassadors who don't say "I stopped eating meat" but "I discovered something new that makes me feel better."

Focus communication on intrinsic benefits, not substitution. Not "it's as good as meat," but "it has this superior nutritional profile," "costs less," "prepares faster," "is more digestible." Qualities that stand on their own.

And gradually, the reference to meat becomes secondary. Like coffee no longer needs to call itself "energetic beverage alternative to alcohol" (which was its initial positioning). It's simply coffee, with its autonomous global culture.

The biggest lesson: the courage not to imitate

This veggie burger mess teaches something that goes beyond food. It's a lesson on how to create market categories, how to build real disruption, how to win without copying.

The temptation to imitate existing success is extremely strong. It's easier, faster, safer. But it's also the path that guarantees you'll always remain second. The original will always have more credibility, more history, more emotional identification.

True strategic strength lies in creating something so different and desirable that people stop thinking about the old thing from lack of interest, not guilt. You don't win by saying "we're better than them." You win by saying "we're something completely new, and in a few years you'll wonder how you lived without it."

The vegan industry had this opportunity. It could have been the Tesla of food—something so innovative and desirable that even people who don't care about the environment want it. Instead it became the Zune—a copy of something more famous, with some extra features nobody asks for.

And now it finds itself with a European Parliament that doesn't know how to classify it, consumers who see it as "alternative" rather than "primary choice," and a structural dependency on the language of what it wants to replace.

Maybe in another ten years they'll understand. Or maybe not. Meanwhile, they'll keep selling "veggie burgers," perpetuating the cognitive limbo they created themselves.

Next time you hear someone talk about "disruption" or "revolutionary innovation," look them in the eye and ask: "Are you creating a new category or copying an old one with some modifications?"

The answer will tell you everything you need to know about their future.