The benefit of 'meat-free mania'

Charlotte Rogers, writing in this week’s Marketing Week, is suggesting brands be wary of, in her words, “the meat-free mania”. She relates how successful so many of these products have been in the past year but warns against the high number that are processed, therefore probably not that healthy, and she highlights some of the mistakes some brands have made.

I think she has missed the overall benefit the meat-free movement is having, and will continue to have, on society overall.

To cover off her two main issues first. Many vegan products are processed but this only mirrors the corresponding meat products. Processed equals convenient and people want convenience.

For time immemorial, when organisations have tried something new, mistakes are made. Anybody afraid of making mistakes will never try anything new. I’m more surprised by how few mistakes have been made!

But the overall benefit of the meat-free movement is not, in the short-term, commercial, it’s societal. It will help save the planet which, of course, will be commercially beneficial in the long-term. Animal agriculture produces more harmful emissions that contribute to the climate crisis than any other sector, including transport. It is literally killing the planet. We all need to eat less animal products and the ‘meat-free mania’ is helping to raise awareness of this issue and encouraging people to do just that.

I

’m not vegan but am eating much less meat since early last year. This was prompted by becoming more aware of the issue when helping a couple of vegan brands launch their range of products. It’s this awareness that is crucial and the more products available and the more meat-free becomes mainstream, the greater the number of people eating less meat which can only be a good thing for Planet Earth.

As with all new categories, double-digit growth is not sustainable but meat-free is here to stay so keep those meat-free brands coming.