I'm not a vegan, not even a vegetarian, though I rarely eat more than one meat dish a week. But I find this phenomenon pointed to in the Guardian baffling:
When Jim Anderson and his wife, Samantha, opened their vegan restaurant, the Oak Tree, in 2013, they boasted proudly of its plant-based menu. Not any more. The "V-word" has become such a target for abuse that they have removed it from their menu and social media.
"We block up to 10 people a day on social media," said Anderson. "All we are is a restaurant that serves a type of cuisine. But for some reason, that word – the V-word – seems to cause people to go crazy, so we've dropped it."
It may sound odd that anyone would be offended by chilli fried tofu or lightly battered cauliflower, but Anderson said the online abuse was relentless.
He said vegan restaurants had become a punching bag for culture war trolls who see them as a "threat to their way of life, like transgender rights and Black Lives Matter".
This is insanity. To wage so-called 'culture wars' around food in this way is an absurd waste of time and energy (though trolls gonna troll). So much for free-expression in a 'free' society.
All that said there's been a dip in the appetite for vegan and vegetarian food - at least to judge from sales.
Demand for vegan and vegetarian food had plummeted, he said, while the number of people choosing pescatarian – fish and dairy but not meat – had risen by 15-20%.
"Potentially, people who were very strict vegan have reassessed things because Covid taught us that we're here for a good time not a long time," he said. "I think people have loosened their strict veganism and they are willing to dip into pescatarianism or the odd meat dish."
Industry experts said veganism was undergoing the same phenomenon as organic food before the financial crash of 2008: in perilous economic times, people prioritise value for money over food that may be more ethical but more costly.
Another columnist notes:
But I think the real reason for falling sales is simpler: it's the economy. The modern vegan – forced to endure the cost of living crisis and food inflation that is at an all-time high – is cash-strapped and time poor. Cooking Instagram-inspired dishes such as tofu veggie scramble for breakfast, or jackfruit tacos for dinner, is a time-consuming process. And British working hours are some of the longest in Europe, leaving less time to make a meal from scratch at home with ingredients that may be harder to come by. Plant-based convenience products such as meat-free burgers and ready meals have helped ease many consumers into a vegan routine. But this choice can still feel like a luxury when products are priced significantly higher than their meat equivalents. For some, vegan alternatives are just simply too expensive.
And they can be. I had a Beyond Meat burger at the weekend - it was great, tasty, moreish, and I'm looking forward to the next more than I would to a meat version. But it was also expensive. It's something I wouldn't have more than once every month or two and it would fit into a weekend dinner sort of slot.
Meanwhile it would be useful to get comparative figures for Ireland. Has Brexit and the impact of Brexit and the impacts on the economy added to the general problems there, thereby exacerbating the trends described above?
Or perhaps part of the dynamic is in the following:
Helen Dewdney, the consumer expert better known as the Complaining Cow, said: "Many are looking to just reduce their meat intake and become part-time vegetarians or vegans, which in turn means that food outlets serving only a vegan menu are seeing fewer and fewer customers through the doors."
Anderson conceded that the vegan boom had "levelled out". "Veganism was very popular for a while but maybe when Covid started people's priorities changed," he said.
This is intriguing:
A YouGov survey that has tracked since 2019 the proportion of diets in the UK population that are plant-based suggests it has fallen from 3% to 2% in the past year. However, a separate study by the comparison site Finder.com last month found the number of vegans in the UK had increased by 1.1 million in the past 12 months.
One trend is clear: fewer vegans are choosing to eat out, leaving restaurants deciding whether to stomach putting meat on the menu or closing their doors for good.
It's worth pointing out that diets positioned with less meat are broadly speaking considerably better in terms of health outcomes, whatever one's views on meat and its production. So it's not disaster, though perhaps a recalibration:
Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, said she had seen a trend away from plant-only towards "plant-forward eating". Businesses were moving towards broader menus and experimenting with plant protein in meat dishes as a way to retain the vegan appeal, she said.
Clive Black, a retail analyst at the investment group Shore Capital, said the market for plant-based food had been progressively growing. "But the reality is far too many people thought it was going to be a bigger market than it really is."
I'd been a little sceptical of some of the claims being made in the past decade about the market for purely vegan or vegetarian foods, and I'd be largely sympathetic towards same. But then again, perhaps it's a case of consolidation and that's no bad thing either. And the second article linked to makes some good, and in part positive points:
Veganism has come a long way. It has shed its holier-than-thou aesthetic, now has a broader base of adherents and is seen as trendy and aspirational. What was once considered to be an all-consuming lifestyle is now less rigid; and people can participate on their own terms with products that extend the traditional vegan boundaries beyond vegetables and pulses. But there is a remaining barrier that is yet to be overcome: cost. Until production costs drop, or Britain's bleak economic outlook brightens, it is likely the vegan revolution will continue to stall.
No comments:
Post a Comment