🍏 30% of Brits to eat meat-free/ KitKat Vegan is back/ Banning "Not Milk" / & Much More
Plantwise Monthly Roundup (January 2023)
We review this month’s most interesting plant-based news, product launches, and government policy changes.
🌱 30% of Brits could be following meat-free diets by the end of 2023
📚 TL;DR: According to Finder UK, over 7 million adults in the UK already follow a meat-free diet. This figure includes vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians. Vegetarians are by far the most popular group, accounting for nearly half of the meat-free population. This year, nearly 9 million adults intend to give up meat, with 43% of Gen Z planning to do so. While the new year intentions sound promising, Finder UK also finds that in 2022, more people actually gave up on their meat-free diet than those who joined the cause. Notably, over a quarter million people dropped out of the vegan group.
🧩 Context: The cost-of-living crisis presents a significant obstacle to people’s food choices, with meat alternatives often perceived to be too expensive. Moreover, adopting a healthy, affordable plant-based diet requires specific knowledge and effort, against which many busy individuals are unequipped. We need a regulatory shift that subsidises healthy plant-based products and away from meat and dairy, while the government and businesses work together to help people better understand nutrition and sustainable choices in food.
➡️ You can read Finder UK’s survey results here…
🍫 KitKat Vegan goes nationwide
📚 TL;DR: Nestle has now made KitKat Vegan permanently available across the UK supermarkets this January, in the format of a single 41.5g 4-Finger bar. The plant-based chocolate bar is made with rice-based milk alternatives.
🧩 Context: More than 1 billion KitKats are eaten each year in the UK, made with 100% certified sustainable cocoa. Developed by Nestle’s R&D centre in York, KitKat Vegan was first launched as a special limited edition in 2021. Nestle will also roll out KitKat Vegan in 14 other European countries.
➡️ You can read the news article here…
🍫 Vegan Fois Gras makes waves in Spain
📚 TL;DR: Hello Plant Foods, a Spanish plant-based meat producer, launched a vegan fois gras “Hello Fuah!” in Spain last month. Initially unsure of the potential reception, the company made just 5,000 units for the supermarkets, only for ALL of them to be sold out in 12 hours. Now, Hello Plant Foods plan to launch 30,000 units to accommodate the requests.
🧩 Context: Foie gras is the liver of a duck or goose that is fattened by force-feeding. In November 2021, King Charles removed foie gras from all royal residences. British farmers have been banned from producing foie gras since 2000, but it can still be imported and sold in the UK.
➡️ You can read the news article here…
📱 Plantwise brings food pairing ideas based on aromas
📚 TL;DR: There is a scientific reason why aubergine goes well with tomatoes in a dish. The majority of what we perceive as flavour actually comes from our sense of smell. Food releases volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the air, and the VOCs from different ingredients interact with each other to produce more complex aromas. Ingredients with overlapping aromas tend to go well together, even if the combinations seem surprising at times. The Plantwise app helps users discover these food pairing ideas so they can effortlessly add a flavourful twist to their favourite dishes.
🧩 Context: Plantwise is a mobile app that helps people easily enjoy a healthy, affordable, and sustainable plant-based lifestyle. The app provides over 100 protein-rich, high-fibre recipes for free. Each recipe not only tracks nutrition but also supermarket prices and the climate impact. This January, Plantwise made the App Store charts for Health & Fitness in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and the Czech Republic.
➡️ You can download Plantwise on Apple App Store here…
🍫 “This Is Not Milk” Is Not Milk
📚 TL;DR: The UK Food Ministry, DEFRA, is considering proposals from Trading Standard officers to ban dairy descriptor names on plant-based products, a potential move that is denounced by ProVeg UK. This means plant-based brand names that contain the word “milk” either as a play on words (e.g. “mylk”) or as a negative descriptor - such as “Alpro This Is Not Milk Whole Oat Drink” may also be forbidden. The new guidance document is due to be published in the coming weeks.
🧩 Context: In 2017, the European Court of Justice banned the use of “milk”, “butter”, cheese”, or “yoghurt” for purely plant-based products. These terms are reserved by the EU law for animal products only, which is why in European supermarkets, non-dairy milk is labelled as a “plant-based drink”.
➡️ You can read ProVeg’s denouncement here…
🛒 Consumers become less willing to pay more for sustainable products
📚 TL;DR: Capgemini Research Institute’s latest survey finds that 41% of consumers globally are “willing to pay more for a product they perceive to be sustainable”, led by Millennials and Gen Z. This is a substantial drop compared to 2020 when 57% of the consumers said they had paid premium prices for sustainable products.
🧩 Context: 78% of consumers say they will be more loyal to companies that help them through this difficult time. Companies can help their customers by reducing prices of essential items (e.g. tea bags & rice), offering discount programmes (e.g. 10% discount scheme for senior customers), and providing cost-saving ideas such as cost-saving recipes.
➡️ You can read the full report here…
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