Has Big Business Hijacked Veganism – And Sold It Back To Us?

And there is a lot of marketing – some of it for products that have always been vegan, but are now more explicit about being plant-based foods. Shreddies and Shredded Wheat, for example, added a vegan badge at the end of 2018, while Ryvita has a marketing campaign featuring Davina McCall and a bunch of enticing vegan topping ideas – from coconut yoghurt and mango to smashed avocado, tomatoes and chilli flakes. 

Adding a new label can of course be a good thing, as it helps us to identify what we’re looking for. But others have reservations about what brands hope to say about their products by using a vegan label.

In the vegan section of Marks Spencer’s food hall I chat to Karen Hughes, 49, who is somewhat sceptical about the growth of vegan-labelled products. “I think it’s all just to do with money,” she says, pointing to products that would previously not have been labelled as vegan. “It’s food we already knew was vegan – you don’t have to just label everything. Everything is either fried or processed – and there’s all of those mock meats that are just full of junk, and I don’t know how healthy they are.”

Not all meat alternatives are unhealthy – there are plenty of good choices you can make. But you shouldn’t think that vegan meat alternatives are automatically “guilt-free” products. Some meat-free bacon, sausages and burgers were found last year to contain “more salt than seawater” by campaigning group Action on Salt. Vegan marketing, however, often gives the impression that we’re somehow buying into something healthier and more ethical, even when the reality can sometimes be a bit more blurry. 

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Felix Dickinson is a development consultant who has worked with food brands to create vegan menu items. Long-time vegans are already “speed readers” of food labels, he says, so they tend to know what’s vegan and what isn’t. But brands are trying to tap into the psyche of the general public, who are dabbling with veganism, flexitarianism and reductionism in the belief that doing so will be healthier for them.

Dickinson points to products such as Flora’s ‘Freedom Dairy Free Spread’ – and the fact that margarine has always been dairy free. “Margarine has existed forever, it’s hilarious – they just put it in a new package,” he says. Flora did not respond to requests from HuffPost UK for a comment. “I respect it [as a business strategy]. And as much as people see this as a trend I don’t think it’ll go anywhere anytime soon.” 

The question of whether people reducing their intake of meat and dairy produce will prove a short-lived trend or is evidence of a significant change in attitudes toward health, environment and animal welfare is as yet unclear. And there is some tension around the idea of veganism as just another lifestyle choice to opt in and out of.

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Brands used to run focus groups in order to work out how they could flog their wares; now they look increasingly to social media, the great free directory of public opinions. Rachel Emms, director of Verbalisation – a consultancy that has analysed the motivations of consumers recently attracted to the idea of veganism – found that health was by far our number one priority, with concerns about how our everyday habits impact the environment secondary. In MS, I chat to Susan Digweed, browsing the vegan meals. Her daughter became a vegan a year ago, has lost weight and reduced her cholesterol – inspiring Susan and her partner to go meat-free two days a week too, for the health benefits. 

Dickinson, who became a vegan when he was 15 and was attracted to the lifestyle via the punk rock scene, is relaxed about the explosion in veganism and people’s motivations for embracing it. “I applaud the rise and popularity in it as it brings completely new light to what was seen as odd to so many people. I’m very happy with the idea of people adopting a plant-based diet,” he says.

But some vegans are less accepting of the belated interest of brands and mainstream consumers. They are concerned about what they see as a “misappropriation” of true veganism – which is generally a lot stricter than a plant-based diet and means shunning all animal derived products, including leather, wool, and honey – and find it cynical that major brands are now ploughing so much money into creating sometimes highly-processed vegan foods.

“[Life is] easier because products are listed as vegan so I have somewhere to start,” explains Michael James-Robinson, who has adopted a strict vegan approach for 30 years, reflecting on the greater choice available. But, he notes, it can also be more difficult when products labelled as “vegan” rather than “suitable for a vegan diet” fall short of being suitable for those who take a stricter approach.