A Louisiana state law, which took effect on October 1st, bans the use of the word “meat” by plant-based meat producers when labeling their products. Under the law, plant-based meat companies can be fined up to USD 500 per product, per day for using terms including "burger" and "sausage."

Plant-based nonprofit association, The Good Food Institute, and Animal Legal Defense Fund jointly filed the lawsuit on behalf of Tofurky, the plant-based food brand of Turtle Island Foods.

Louisiana is the latest US state to introduce a law regulating plant-based meat labeling following a number of other states. Eight US States (Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Montana) have passed bills so far, with several plant-based companies successfully challenging some of them.

In a similar lawsuit, Tofurky vs. Missouri in October 2018, US District Judge Fernando Gaitan, Jr. denied the preliminary injunction, citing that Missouri would not prosecute any non-meat product label that used a qualifier along with the word “meat” such as “vegetarian,” “plant-based,” or “cell-based,” which Tofurky’s labeling already included. In July 2019, Tofurky again sued Arkansas over the state's plant-based labeling law. The law was later halted as the court declared it was unconstitutional.