A food company and and advocacy organization filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Wednesday after Missouri enacted legislation [text] that would prohibit producers of meat-alternatives from using the word “meat” in advertising and marketing.

Vegan brand Tofurky and food-advocacy group Good Food Institute (GFI) brought the suit before the US District court for the Western District of Missouri [official website]. In addition, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri complained that the Missouri bill is unconstitutional.

The bipartisan bill, which passed by a vote of 125-22, is the first of its kind in the US. The bill states that companies cannot “misrepresent” a product as meat “that is not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry.”

The bill aims for a more transparent product as it hopes to limit consumer confusion and protect the state’s ranchers. Currently, plant-based products like seiten and tempeh are often described as “meat.”

The complaint states:

The Statute is a content-based, overbroad, and vague criminal law that prevents the sharing of truthful information and impedes competition by plant-based and clean-meat companies in the marketplace. The Statute does nothing to protect the public from potentially misleading information. As such, the Statute violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, the Dormant Commerce Clause, and the Due Process Clause.

Violators of the bill could be fined up to $1,000 and imprisoned for one year.