An investigation by Animal Justice into the caviar industry reveals what PETA has been saying all along: the true cost of this expensive “dish” is extreme cruelty. In the world’s first caviar farm exposé and Canada’s first fish farm investigation, Animal Justice found filthy tanks and workers slicing fish open at Northern Divine Aquafarms—a self-proclaimed “sustainable” and “organic” caviar farm.
The damning investigative footage revealed the following:
Sturgeons and salmon trapped in crowded, dirty tanks
Workers stabbing fish repeatedly in the abdomen to check for egg maturity
Workers sucking eggs out of fish with a straw-like tube
Fish with deformities and injuries
Workers throwing fish on ice and freezing them to death
Workers cutting fish open while they were still alive
Sturgeons, one of the oldest species groups on the planet, are now endangered due to the fishing industry and the caviar trade. These fascinating fish are capable of complex learning behavior and are known to leap out of the water to communicate with others.
Misery at a Caviar Aquafarm
Northern Divine Aquafarms allegedly keeps female sturgeons alive in tiny tanks for at least 11 years until they’re old enough to produce caviar eggs. According to staff at the facility, some sturgeons who apparently attempted to escape from their tanks remained suffocating on the floor hours later.
To check whether their eggs are ready to be sold as caviar, workers force the animals onto a stretcher, stab them in the abdomen, insert a tube, and suck out the eggs with their mouths. Workers apparently do all of this without giving the fish any pain relief.
About 38 fish at the facility—including a 7-foot sturgeon named Gracie, who has reportedly been suffering in a tank there for at least 25 years—are used as breeding machines. Workers routinely cut their eggs out of their bodies to breed more sturgeons.
Before slaughtering the fish for their eggs, the facility reportedly starves them for weeks to “improve the taste.” Then, workers shoot and kill them with a captive-bolt gun.
Northern Divine Aquafarms also exploits salmon for their eggs, known as “roe” or “ikura.”Salmon are curious and intelligent and have impressive long-term memories. In nature, young salmon learn the smell of their home stream. After maturing in the ocean, a female salmon will return to where she was born to lay her eggs.
At Northern Divine Aquafarms, salmon spend their lives in small, miserable tanks before humans slaughter them for their eggs. Animal Justice investigators reportedly saw workers throwing conscious salmon onto ice and leaving them there for over an hour before beating the animals over the head with a metal club and then cutting them open. According to the investigation, many fish writhed in agony when workers sliced them open.
Fishes’ Eggs Belong to Them—Not Humans
When we dive deep into the complex lives of fish, we learn that these animals have distinct personalities, types of behavior, ways of communicating, and needs. Some species of fish sing or create artwork to impress potential partners. Some use tools to access food or communicate. As unique as these individuals are, they share one crucial thing in common with humans and our fellow animals: the capacity to suffer. Every fish is someone and does not want to be exploited and killed for their eggs or flesh.
YOU Can Spare Fish by Never Buying Caviar and Going Vegan
Sustainable, delicious vegan seafood brands dominate the market and don’t cause fish to suffer. PETA Business Friends’ fish-free options—like Cavi-art’s vegan caviar and ZeaStar’s sashimi—allow you to keep cruelty off your plate and taste great. So what are you waiting for? Choose compassion today:
The Late Show featured vegan cheesemaker Climax Foods on its show last night, where Stephen Colbert tried its cheese, and highlighted the controversial Good Food Awards saga.
It seems like Stephen Colbert and The Late Show’s team have their hands on the food tech pulse. Last night, on the programme’s Meanwhile segment, the 59-year-old ate some cheese.
On a normal day, that would maybe have been a little weird at best. But following last week’s events, it was quite a noteworthy piece of TV, mixed with just the right amount of humour, gravitas and delight.
“America’s facing a major cheese controversy,” announced Colbert, highlighting a Wall Street Journal story describing the first time a vegan cheese – Climax Foods’ blue cheese – beat dairy in the famed Good Food Awards, only for things to sour quickly.
Colbert went on to poke some light-hearted fun at his friend and former The Daily Show boss Jon Stewart (who is famously vegan) and Climax Foods’ brand name, before describing what went down.
What happened with Climax Foods and the Good Food Awards
Courtesy: Climax Foods
The Bay Area-based startup uses AI to reverse-engineer what makes cheese taste good. Made from a blend of pumpkin seeds, lima beans, hemp seeds, coconut fat and cocoa butter, the Climax Blue is so well-regarded in the culinary world, it has appeared on the menus of Daniel Humm’s Eleven Madison Park and Dominique Crenn’s Atelier Crenn.
So the cheese doing well in a competition isn’t surprising. What is shocking, however, is what happened to its Good Food Award nomination. While many plant-based cheeses have entered the competition, none have ever won. Climax Foods was about to change that, having been told it was going to win an award for its blue cheese three months ago. The startup’s team was invited to attend the ceremony on April 29 as part of a “weekend of festivities”.
But when news of its status as a finalist came out in January, traditional cheesemakers were – to put it bluntly – pissed. And that’s when things got messy. A week before the ceremony, Climax Foods CEO Oliver Zahn, received an email from the event organiser, the Good Food Foundation, which said the company’s cheese had been disqualified from the competition.
The email said it was because of the cheese’s use of kokum butter – which hasn’t been designated as GRAS [Generally Regarded as Safe] by the US Food and Drug Administration – as well as the fact that it wasn’t “retail ready”. But when Climax Foods submitted its blue cheese for consideration six months ago, there was no explicit rule requiring GRAS certification or a product to be ready for retail. And in any case, Zahn insisted that the cheese is ready to be sold in supermarkets.
The awards website now states those stipulations, but in January (when the finalists were announced), there was no mention of GRAS, and the requirement was that foods are ready for sale (not necessarily for retail). Zahn suggested to AgFunderNews that the retrospective change of rules came “in direct response to a dairy industry person that contacted them this month to come up with a way to disqualify us”.
Courtesy: Climax Foods
Sarah Weiner, executive director at the Good Food Foundation, confirmed that the GRAS criterion wasn’t stated until recently, but added that it has always been part of its regulations. “It is not an issue we have come across in past years, and it was assumed that all ingredients entrants used were generally recognized as safe for consumption in the USA,” she said. “When we realised it needed to be made explicit to avoid this unfortunate and I’m sure extremely disappointing situation in the future, we updated the rules and regulations.”
She told the Wall Street Journal that only thrice before had the awards undergone something similar, with the foundation being informed that a contestant may not meet the requirements. “I think there were a lot more eyes on this particular entrant than there would be on one of the hundreds of other finalists,” she said. “Which made it more likely that someone with expertise would reach out.” Weiner didn’t say who tipped the foundation off about Climax, but Zahn suspected it to be an outspoken “informant” from the dairy cheese sector, accusing the foundation of caving to that industry’s pressure.
Did Stephen Colbert like Climax’s vegan blue cheese?
While Climax Foods submitted a blue cheese made and labelled with kokum butter, it has since changed its recipe to cocoa butter. Zahn said the company was happy to send more samples, but alleged that his team was never contacted by the awards organisers. Weiner, however, said the foundation emailed and called the person who had submitted the application — who no longer works at Climax Foods — and then emailed another staffer, who did not respond.
“I don’t want to get into a fight over this, but it could so easily have been rectified if we had been contacted earlier. But they never contacted us to remedy the situation,” Zahn told AgFunderNews.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he added: “Changing the rules six months after submission, and then not even trying to reach the company to try to fix a fixable situation? If that happened in my company, I would step down as CEO. Seriously, I would step down because that would be so embarrassing to me that there was no way I could justify continuing to run the company. And I would fire anybody who was involved.”
The whole episode is a shame for both Climax Foods and the Good Food Awards. For the latter, it could have been the torchbearer ushering in a new era for critically acclaimed cheese fit for the future. For the former, it would have attracted retail customers, investors and consumers alike.
But Colbert has boosted the chances of the latter happening anyway. “They’ve clearly captured the look of blue cheese, but have they captured the flavour of severed-foot-fished-out-of-a-canal?” he said in his trademark acerbic manner.
He followed up with yet another sarcastic interpretation of famous vegan tropes – you know, they don’t have friends or food, their bones are dissolved from protein deficiency, that kind of stuff. “You couldn’t just let vegans have this one thing?” he asked the Good Food Foundation.
Then came the taste test. For many viewers and consumers, this is make or break. “This is the actual cheese,” he said, pausing. He chewed some more, his face clenching. “I like it. You can really taste the foot.”
As funny as it was, it’s a mark of respect for the Climax Blue, which stood up to Colbert’s expectations on national television. You can’t get much better publicity than that.
Zahn agreed, writing on LinkedIn: “Thanks for singing the praises in your unique ways, and for that witty examination of the Good Food Award snafu, Stephen, you’re the best.”
After taking measures to turn its losses around, Oatly’s quarterly losses have narrowed by 39% from the previous year, and revenue swelled by 1.8% in a performance exceeding analysts’ expectations.
A strategic reset in China, expanded focus on retail and tailored pricing for specific markets have led to what Oatly CEO Jean-Christophe Flatin described as a “solid quarter”.
The company reined in its operating and capital expenditures, and increased its gross margin to 27 cents on the dollar (up by 56% from Q1 2023). It also netted $199.1M in revenue this quarter, a 1.8% improvement from the previous year. This – combined with 10% lower selling prices – took its year-over-year gross profit to $53.8M (a 58% increase).
It means that after posting a 6.5% increase in annual losses last year – when a pullback from manufacturing facilities resulted in large one-off costs – the Swedish oat milk giant has managed to shrink its Q1 losses down from $75.5M in 2023 to $45.8M in 2024. This was led by a decrease in expenses from multiple activities, including “employee-related expenses”, consultant fees and R&D spend.
“The year is off to a good start,” Flatin said in an earnings call. “We are clearly seeing the benefits from the bold actions we have taken over the past two years.”
These actions included its streamlined “asset-light strategy”, which involved the elimination of poor-performing SKUs in China, and its Go Blue plan to expand the applications and range of its products, all geared towards its “North Star” goal of reaching profitability. “Every employee throughout the organisation – no matter their position, region or role – is squarely focused on strengthening the business and bringing us to structural consistent, profitable growth,” said Flatin.
To recalibrate its strategy and decision-making, Oatly has shaken up its operating segments, with Greater China now managed separately from the rest of Asia-Pacific, which has joined the Europe, Middle East and Africa region in a new Europe & International section (this also includes Latin America).
As is expected, Europe & International is the oat milk maker’s largest market, accounting for 55% of its revenue. Here, its revenue increased by nearly 8% over Q1 2023, which was driven by increased volume, price hikes and a 20% revenue growth in foodservice. The company has also introduced new SKUs, such as the 20ml single-use Jigger packs, the zero-sugar oat milk, and its new line of yoghurts.
“We are placing advertisements in high-traffic areas, such as European train stations, and we are creating great tasting experiences and various trade events and coffee festivals,” explained Flatin.
Courtesy: Oatly
Retail remains the dominant channel in Europe, accounting for 82% of its sales (versus 80% in all of last year). Its retail revenue increases of 5% have outpaced the entire plant-based milk category, which has flatlined, as well as the oat milk segment as a whole (3%).
Likewise, retail has encroached upon the foodservice share in North America. While the latter was the slightly stronger segment in the full year of 2023, it has now given way to retail, which makes up 54% of Oatly’s North American business. Here, too, its retail takeaway sales have thoroughly outperformed its counterparts. While chilled plant-based milk witnessed a 3.5% decline and chilled oat milk saw a modest 1.5% hike, chilled Oatly was up by 2.3%. When accounting for its ambient SKUs too, its revenue in this channel was 9.7% higher year-over-year.
This is partly thanks to its new Super Basic and Unsweetened oat milk SKUs and four-strong line of coffee creamers, as well as the partnership with Minor League Baseball. It means North America now makes up 34% of Oatly’s revenues.
Courtesy: Oatly
Globally, retail accounted for 65% of Oatly’s Q1 2024 revenue, and foodservice took a 32% share, with the remaining coming mainly from e-commerce. “Every city in which we land the Oatly brand proves the magic of the brand and how prepared these markets are to welcome us with open arms,” noted Flatin. “Whether it’s a barista in specialty coffee or it’s a customer buyer, we repeatedly get the: “Finally, you guys are here!’”
China reset on-track
If Europe & International and North America gained, something had to give. That was Greater China, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan and drove 11% of Oatly’s Q1 sales this year.
This was expected, given the business’s struggles in China, where it withdrew low-margin SKUs from retail and e-commerce and amped up its foodservice focus, which is responsible for 70% of its sales in the region (rising from 65% this time last year). E-commerce is also much bigger here than elsewhere, taking up 13% of the market share.
Courtesy: Oatly
Greater China offset the sales growth Oatly experienced elsewhere, with revenue down by 27% compared to Q1 2023. However, when discounting non-recurring costs – also known as adjusted EBITDA – performance in this region improved, with losses plummeting by 80% from the first quarter of last year to $3.4M. Even when contrasting this with the previous quarter, this figure was down by 64%.
This was attributed to lower selling costs and general expenses, as well as much greater gross profit. As part of its growth strategy in Greater China, Oatly has patrnerd with the country’s largest coffee chain on a limited-time Earth Day promotion, which it says will boost category momentum and brand visibility. It has also launched value-priced products with several customers that are performing well – this includes its pistachio-oat milk, which boasts 4.2g of omega-3 fatty acids per pack.
Courtesy: Oatly
“Sensitive to the economic context prevailing in China and the new consumer behaviour, it was clear we needed to complement our portfolio with SKUs that could hit certain price points,” said COO Daniel Ordonez. “This helps us to build a stronger service package for our customers, drive volume growth to sustain necessary levels of capacity absorption, and hence, solidify our margins.
“The consumer environment in Greater China remains challenging. However, we are identifying opportunities to rebuild our business in a disciplined manner,” he added. “While it is clear we have not yet gained the traction needed for this business to capture the full opportunity that region provides, you can see we’re starting to make progress on the second stage of this segment’s turnaround plan.”
Oatly reiterates 2024 guidance and teases new barista milks
Courtesy: Oatly
To further capture consumer share, Oatly highlighted the impending launch of its new barista milks, which now feature an organic version, a variant for light-roasted coffee, and a 1.5L pack. “We conquer the hearts and the minds of coffee specialty first, then we expand experiences in foodservice but in a selective manner, balancing margin and growth, while we make ourselves available in retail,” explained Flatin.
The company remains pragmatic about the upcoming year, reiterating its full-year outlook of revenue growth by 5-10%, adjusted EBITDA loss between $35-60M (versus $158M in 2023), and capital expenditures below $75M.
“While we are encouraged by our first quarter results, we recognize that we are only one quarter through the year and that our three operating segments are in very different stages of their turnaround journeys, their maturity, their execution, and the amount of traction they have achieved on the strategic actions.
Impossible Foods is considering a “liquidity event” that could see the plant-based meat giant raise more capital, go public or even be sold to another company in the next few years.
As plant-based meat fights back after a difficult couple of years, one of its pioneers is already exploring moves that could signal a sea change for the industry.
Speaking to Reuters, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness indicated the business is targeting a “liquidity event”, which could mean an IPO for the California-based company in the next two to three years.
But it’s keeping its options open over what this might entail. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed into an IPO,” explained McGuinness, adding that Impossible Foods was also considering another raise of funds, or even a potential sale to another company.
Navigating a tricky investment landscape
This isn’t the first time Impossible Foods has been linked with an IPO. In 2021, it was preparing to go public with a reported valuation of $7-10B, raising $500M the same year. Founder and then-CEO Pat Brown told Bloomberg that a stock market listing was inevitable for the company, explaining: “You have easier access to capital to support growth, but more importantly to me, there are millions of non-billionaires out there who are very, very supportive of our mission but they don’t have a chance to share in our success.”
But in early 2023, McGuinness – who took over from Brown in April 2022 – suggested the company wouldn’t be going public that year. “We’ll do an IPO when we need to do an IPO,” he said at the time.
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
Now, however, things may be changing, as plant-based businesses face pressure from inflation and the cost of living, misinformation in the media, and a loss of faith from investors. On the latter, investments in plant-based foods fell by nearly a quarter 24% from 2022-23, reaching $907M. Companies across the food tech sector have found it hard to raise money, with a 61% drop in investments last year, according to industry think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI).
Meanwhile, retail sales of plant-based food have also dipped slightly to $8.1B (a 2% decrease), though meat and seafood analogues faced a larger 12% decline in the US. But industry experts remain positive, thanks to a new wave of plant-based products that better meet consumers’ demands. “We expect a wave of plant-based 2.0 products and a steady flow of new product success stories that will generate a new narrative for the alt-protein category, leading to improved investment conditions for startups,” says Hédi Farhat, investment manager at ProVeg Incubator.
The dire investment landscape also seems to be passing. GFI had suggested that the financing totals are likely an underestimate as a greater number of funding rounds have been kept under wraps given there were more simple agreements for future equity (SAFE) and bridge rounds in 2023. But the next year is expected to remain challenging for plant-based companies – in the first quarter of 2024, startups in this sector only secured $58M in funding, a mere 6% of last year’s total.
Courtesy: GFI
All of this to say, if Impossible Foods does end up attempting to raise capital, it may not be as swift as the last time. However, as a market leader that has already bagged nearly $2B (just under a quarter of all investments in the sector since 2015), it’s hard to bet against it.
Industry will keep a close eye on Impossible Foods
McGuinness’s interview with Reuters comes at a curious time. Just last week, Bloomberg reported that Goldman Sachs is in talks with credit lenders seeking $250M to shore up capital for fellow plant-based meat giant Beyond Meat. It was suggested that the debt would be used for general corporate purposes and to repurchase some of its $1.15B convertible bonds at a discount.
This followed Beyond Meat’s end-of-year earnings report, which revealed that while the company had been performing better than expected in the last quarter, its annual revenue was down by 18%. Since then, Beyond Meat has launched multiple revamped product lines and increased product prices.
Impossible Foods has itself introduced a new beef hot dog and a brand refresh, which featured a much greater focus on flavour and nutrition – the two chief factors dictating plant-based consumption now. “We’re not leading with the planet because not enough people care. It’s the reality now,” said McGuinness.
Courtesy: Impossible Foods/Green Queen
A company spokesperson told Green Queen after the rebrand that sustainability “is and always will be our reason for being”, noting that it’s still part of its packaging and across various touchpoints of the consumer journey. “However, we realised we can get even more consumers in the door by leading with our incredible taste and nutritional quality – then, we can seal the deal with the environmental benefits,” they added.
In the meantime, Impossible Foods has been expanding both its retail and foodservice footprint. The company’s distribution expanded by 25% in January alone, with its products available in over 75,000 locations worldwide. Just today, it has announced a deal with Whole Foods to place its chicken analogues on the shelves of select stores across the US.
But as inflation squeezes consumer budgets, many are turning to cheaper products like canned meats and inexpensive retailers like Dollar General and club stores like Costco. McGuinness said that Impossible is open to expanding into dollar stores, adding: “We have a good club business.”
Courtesy: Peter McGuinness/LinkedIn
The company has also been moving into baseball stadiums across the US, extending an exemplary foodservice record that includes clients like Burger King (it’s featured in the signature Impossible Whopper), Starbucks, IHOP, White Castle and Disney.
McGuinness declined to share his company’s current valuation, but all this means Impossible Foods’ next move will be closely watched, especially given the post-IPO challenges faced by other plant-based giants like Beyond Meat and Oatly, whose stocks have slumped by about 97% since going public in 2019 and 2021, respectively. Will it be a sale? Another fundraise? A public offering? Everything is on the cards.
As studies about the consumption of dairy pile up, they reveal some terrifying implications for human health. One stark finding is that just one serving of cow’s milk per day—a third of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ recommended daily intake—significantly increases the risk of prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer. Studies have revealed similar links to cancer from eating other dairy foods.
Since cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., we’re petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require disclosure of the association between cancer and dairy in a warning label on dairy items.
The FDA’s Role Is to Inform Healthy Decisions—It Must Step In!
Dairy’s association with deadly types of cancer is cause for serious alarm—especially in the U.S., where the federal government subsidizes dairy production but still encourages people to consume dairy daily in its dietary guidelines.
People need accurate information to make healthy food choices. Clear labeling would let buyers know the risks of consuming dairy up-front so they could make informed decisions about feeding themselves and their loved ones.
Cows used by the dairy industry are forcibly inseminated repeatedly to ensure a steady supply of milk, which they produce only after giving birth.
It’s common practice for cows’ beloved newborn calves to be torn away from them shortly after birth so that the milk meant to nourish the calves—who end up in veal crates if they’re male—can be sold for human consumption. Once mother cows’ bodies wear out after repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughterhouses, where they endure a violent, painful death.
Don’t Know How to Ditch Dairy? PETA Has You Covered
PETA’s free vegan starter kit can make the switch even more effortless. Order a copy today to get hooked up with vegan recipes, nutrition, and other information to make the transition to a happier, longer-lasting life:
Studies propose a few mechanisms that may explain the positive association between dairy and cancer. For example, studies show that consuming a high intake of milk increases insulin-like growth factor-1, which is important for the growth and survival of cancer cells. Regardless of the exact mechanism, an overwhelming number of studies demonstrate that consuming dairy is associated with cancer risk, which is why PETA is calling on everyone to choose vegan and keep dairy off their plates.
Prostate Cancer
According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of death by cancer in men. A systematic review, which reviewed numerous studies on the topic, found that the majority of studies suggested a link between consuming milk and the risk of prostate cancer. One study found that specifically whole milk increased men’s risk of developing fatal prostate cancer.
PETA urges the FDA to require a label warning men of this risk and encourages everyone to protect their health by ditching dairy.
Breast Cancer
As stated by the International World Cancer Research Fund, breast cancer is the most common cancer worldwide. One study discussed in the petition determined that consuming just 2/3 of a glass of milk per day doubled the risk of breast cancer. PETA encourages women to prioritize their health by going vegan. People can visit PETA.org to find hundreds of delicious, healthy, animal-free recipes and tips.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem admits that she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, who attacked chickens, as well as a goat she says smelled “musky.” She reveals this in her soon-to-be-released book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.
PETA is making it clear that there is no reason to shoot animals—and points out that Noem should have found a humane dog trainer, kept the puppy away from chickens, or even found a different home for Cricket:
“Most Americans love their dogs, and we suspect that they’ll consider Gov. Noem a psychotic loony for letting this rambunctious puppy loose on chickens and then punishing her by deciding to personally blow her brains out rather than attempting to train her or find a more responsible guardian who could provide her with a proper home. Noem obviously fails to understand the vital political concepts of education, cooperation, compromise, and compassion.”
—Colleen O’Brien, senior vice president of media relations at PETA
Kristi Noem Shot Her Dog and Goat—Here’s What You Can Do to Help Animals
Every animal is someone. It’s speciesist to believe that farmed and captive animals, like goats, don’t suffer or feel emotions to the same extent as the animals with whom we lovingly share our homes, like dogs.
Help animals by taking PETA’s vegan challenge. After three weeks, you’ll be a pro at finding vegan options at your favorite restaurants, eating vegan on a budget, and meeting all your nutritional needs:
Note: PETA supports animal rights, opposes all forms of animal exploitation, and educates the public on those issues. PETA does not directly or indirectly participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office or any political party.
Veganuary will soon host the first Choose Chicken-Free Week, as part of a wider rollout of mini-campaigns to complement its annual month-long initiative.
On the back of its most successful campaign to date, Veganuary is initiating additional initiatives throughout the year to encourage people to eat fewer animal products and more plant-based food.
It’s starting with the Choose Chicken-Free Week, which will run from April 29 to May 5. For the campaign, Veganuary has already captured the attention of restaurants and brands selling egg- and chicken-free food, including TiNDLE Foods, Next Level Burger, Loma Linda and The Mushroom Hub.
“There are many simple and surprising ways to replace eggs in your favourite recipes,” said Veganuary US director Sandra Hungate. “From everyday ingredients like banana and apple sauce to culinary innovations like aquafaba – the liquid from a can of chickpeas which can be whipped into a beautiful meringue – there’s an egg-free swap out there for everything from breakfast to dessert.”
Why Veganuary is targeting the chicken industry
Courtesy: Getty Images via Canva
Coinciding with Respect for Chickens Day (May 4), the campaign will see several of these brands and foodservice operators unveil new offerings and discounts on their products. Next Level Burger and its subsidiary Veggie Grill will launch limited-edition menu options in May, and Ike’s Love & Sandwiches will promote three vegan chicken sandos.
TiNDLE, meanwhile, will be running a two-for-one offer on its products, Vitacost and FireRoad Foods will provide a 15% discount, PLNT Burger will let consumers buy one chicken sandwich and get another for half the price, Loma Linda will put its starter pack (chicken in broth and BBQ sauce) on sale for $6.49, and The Mushroom Hub will roll out a pulled jerk lion’s mane experience box.
Brands will provide recipes using either plant-based chicken or egg – such as TiNDLE’s vegan garlic parm wings, Vitacost’s deviled eggs, and Atlantic Natural Food’s chicken enchiladas – or do away with chicken-related products altogether (think teriyaki tofu burgers by Nasoya and pulled jerk lion’s mane by The Mushroom Hub).
These efforts are to promote a shift away from the chicken industry, which is associated with intensive farming, health risks, animal cruelty and environmental pollution. Though chicken is the most popular meat of all, over the last few years, bouts of avian flu have led to a chicken shortage and subsequent price hike, which has coincided with the cost-of-living crisis – and this trend is set to continue this year.
In the US, almost all chickens (99.97%) are farmed in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – that amounts to 8.9 billion birds, versus the 3.6 million that aren’t raised in factories. Globally, as of 2021, over 73 billion chickens are slaughtered around the world each year, according to the FAO. The UN food body has actually advocated for a shift from red meats like beef to poultry, which it argues is less polluting.
While that is technically true, factory-farmed meat has a huge environmental footprint, and poultry meat is still near the top end of the highest-emitting foods, far above plant-based ingredients that are typically used to make analogues.
“For hens used for eggs, suffering is inherent in all methods of egg production – including free-range. Their lives are short, and for male chicks, very short indeed,” Veganuary explained on its website. “They are the wrong sex to lay eggs and the wrong breed for meat, so their lives are deemed to be worthless, and they are killed in the hatchery.”
Veganuary will launch more campaigns after ultra-successful 2024
Graphic by Green Queen
Veganuary has been on an upward trajectory ever since it was launched in 2014. This year, 1.8 million people officially signed up to the campaign – more than doubling the number from 2023. But separate surveys commissioned by Veganuary have shown that in reality, that figure is much, much higher: the campaign estimates that around 25 million people decided to eat exclusively vegan in January 2024.
Its official survey found that the success rate during the challenge was 45%. And of those who ended up maintaining a plant-based diet throughout the month, 30% intended to continue doing so. If you aggregate that with its official signup numbers, this year’s campaign effectively influenced 540,000 people to ditch meat, dairy, eggs and other animal products.
Even among people who didn’t see Veganuary through, 95% said they’ll reduce their consumption of animal products to some extent, with 74% saying they’ll cut this by half or more. And 73% are very or extremely likely to give veganism a go again in the future.
People found eggs the second toughest animal food to part with during Veganuary (only behind cheese, though by a significant distance). Meanwhile, animal welfare was the number one driver of Veganuary participation this year. So it makes sense for Veganuary to introduce a campaign that touches upon a much-loved food in a much-derided industry.
“Veganuary is not a short-term phenomenon that comes to an end in January. With initiatives like #ChooseChickenFree, the Veganuary movement continues to grow as both individuals and businesses embrace plant-based year-round,” said Hungate.
The popularity of Veganuary is pretty apparent if you walk into a grocery store in most countries during January. It’s hard to escape it, and there are numbers to back that up. This year, more than 2,000 new products and dishes were unveiled during Veganuary. But given we need to accelerate our efforts to change how we eat, the campaign says it wants to have a longer-term effect, and has been working with individuals to support them with dietary shifts, and companies and restaurants to increase the number of vegan options across the calendar year.
This is why Choose Chicken-Free Week is just the start. “Over the summer, Veganuary will run additional campaigns such as Choose Fish-Free Week, BBQ Month, and Choose Dairy-Free Week, aimed at educating the public about the benefits of trying vegan,” said Hungate.
Whether these campaigns will have quite the effect of the main show at the beginning of the year, no one knows. But you only need to look at this year’s participation to know that there’s a strong precedent for them to work.
Wait—there are events in which folks fling fish corpses for fun?! On April 22, PETA sent a letter to John McInnis III, co-owner of The Flora-Bama Lounge, Package, & Oyster Bar, urging him to bring a wave of fintastic compassion to this year’s Flora-Bama Mullet Toss by replacing the dead fish typically tossed across state lines with realistic, reusable rubber ones donated by PETA.
We also offered to cater the mullet toss with tasty vegan fish sandwiches, which spare animals a violent death and don’t contain the mercury, iodine, sewage, and other contaminants often found inside real fish.
The Morbid Mullet Toss
The Flora-Bama Lounge has hosted the mullet toss since 1985. The event involves individuals on a beach throwing a mullet—a fish indigenous to the Gulf Coast—from a 10-foot circle in Florida across the state line into Alabama. By tossing fish corpses for fun, the participants of the morbid event, along with its organizers, disrespect other animals and rob them of their dignity.
Here are five things that could be thrown instead of fish at any “mullet” toss:
Fresh, biodegradable flowers
Small clumps of seaweed
Retrievable beach toys
Oneself (Leaping safely into the water!)
Reusable, fake fish (our original suggestion)
To denounce National Seafood Week (October 4 to 11), protesters “caught” in fishing nets asked Londoners to protect aquatic animals of all kinds by going vegan.
In 2018, PETA commended the Gulfport Historical Society board for unanimously voting to use weighted plastic fish instead of the dead bodies of real ones at its mullet toss—setting a clear example for other similar events to make the kind switch.
Why Fish Should Never Be Tossed or Eaten
Studies show that fish can recognize themselves in mirrors and photographs, are self-aware, and communicate with each other using complex sounds. Every fish whose body is treated like a hacky sack at the mullet toss is an individual who had a life precious to them, swam free, had feelings, and didn’t want to die. PETA hopes to modernize the moment with fabulous fake fish that cause no harm and can be reused for years.
“We’re not here to confishcate the fun: Throwing a rubber or plastic fish, rather than a dead one, would be as fun, challenging, and enjoyable but also positive. A first-ever fish-friendly fling could even lure our mascot Freeda Fish to line up to get in on the act. Will you please mullet over?”
—PETA President Ingrid Newkirk
Using dead fish—or any animal, dead or alive—for entertainment or food perpetuates speciesism and the climate catastrophe, yet fake fish can be reused for years. If the organizers of the Flora-Bama Mullet Toss agree to make the humane switch, PETA hopes the free vegan fish sandwiches we would hand out to participants would also help increase awareness and compassion.
Humans kill more fish for food each year than all other animals combined. They slowly suffocate or are crushed to death when they’re yanked out of the oceans in huge nets, and workers cut open survivors’ stomachs on fishing boats while they’re still alive. Every person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 aquatic animals and other sentient beings each year. And buying or making vegan seafood is simple and fun.
Ditch the Mullet Toss and Take Action
Go vegan, try trash fishing, and never participate in or support events that use other animals or their corpses as props for entertainment. Dive into our delectable vegan seafood recipes:
You know what time it is—time to go vegan! Vegan rapper and songwriter C5 is known for his lyrical prowess and opening for artists such as Chance the Rapper, Snoop Dogg, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, and Usher. Now he’s lending his remarkable talents to PETA to deliver a powerful Earth Day message through the art of rap. He and his beautiful family joined PETA on the beach to create a music video with a timely, important message.
Lyrics
You know what time it is?
Time to go vegan.
You know what time it is?
Come on.
I don’t mean to come off like I’m ridiculin’ or preachin’,
but here’s a couple reasons to consider going vegan.
I was talkin’ to my good folks over at PETA.
We all impactin’ the world from the things that we eatin’.
They ain’t have no pork chops in the garden of Eden.
I’m just teasin’,
but it ain’t humane, I’m just sayin’.
These animals like us, they feel pleasure and pain,
separated from their families just for our gain.
Going vegan, one person can save over 200,000 gallons of water a year.
That’s the price of your change.
Farming animals is ruinin’ the land.
We gotta take care of the Earth for all our children, that’s grand.
They gotta live here after us, it’s worth the sacrifice.
All our rainforests vanishin’, that’s a tragic sight
for a meal that only lasts for a night.
Is it worth it?
(Is it worth it?)
We gotta start eatin’ our meals with purpose.
(Go vegan.)
Going vegan can protect you from diseases
(From diseases)
and provide you with all the nutrients you needed.
(You needed)
On top of all of that, the food is great.
You able to change your fate by changing what’s on your plate.
Go vegan
if you really care about the planet.
Go vegan.
The things you eat contribute to the damage.
Go vegan
if you wanna eat good and live healthy.
Go vegan.
You should put some vegan food in your belly.
Go vegan.
And if you love the animals, show compassion.
Go vegan
if you want a better world, let’s make it happen.
Go vegan
even if it’s only for a day.
Go vegan.
That day can make a change.
‘These Animals Like Us, They Feel Pleasure and Pain, Separated From Their Families Just for Our Gain’
Many companies slap misleading labels touting compassion on the same types of cruelly sourced products that they’ve sold for decades. This is known as “humane washing,” a marketing ploy that makes consumers believe they’re making kind choices when they’re actually not. There is simply no kind way to steal animals’ flesh, eggs, or milk. Their bodies belong to them, not us.
Animals exploited for food in the U.S. today endure miserable lives on farms. Farmers sear off the sensitive beaks of chickens with a hot blade and cut off the testicles of male cows and pigs without any painkillers. The babies of mother cows are stolen from them soon after birth. Chickens, turkeys, and pigs used for food spend their brief lives in dark, severely crowded warehouses, many of them so cramped that the animals can’t even turn around or spread a single wing.
‘Going Vegan One Person Could Save Over 200,000 Gallons of Water a Year. That’s the Price of Your Change.’
The most significant part of our water footprint comes from what we eat—and eating our fellow animals uses massive amounts of water (approximately 36 to 74 trillion gallons per year in the U.S. alone).
To put it in perspective, it takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef—the equivalent of taking about 57 baths—but only 244 gallons to produce a pound of tofu.
‘Farming Animals Is Ruinin’ the Land. We Gotta Take Care of the Earth for All Our Children’
Animal agriculture takes up about 30% of the world’s entire land surface, and over 90% of all Amazon rainforest land cleared in the last 50 years is used for raising animals. In the U.S., we use 56 million acres of land to grow food for animals and only 4 million acres to grow food for humans.
‘Going Vegan Can Protect You From Diseases and Provide You With All the Nutrients You Needed’
Going vegan is also good for your health. There is no nutritional need for humans to consume animal flesh, eggs, or secretions. All our dietary needs—including as infants and children—can best be supplied with vegan food. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics notes that eating plant-based foods reduces the risk of suffering from many chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
‘You Able to Change Your Fate by Changing What’s on Your Plate’
Eating vegan is one of the easiest and most effective things we can do to help protect animals and the environment. By going vegan, you can spare nearly 200 animals a year! Start changing the world:
Impossible Foods has invested in transitioning a farm from cattle production for meat to crop cultivation for plant-based meat, all while rescuing the cows in the process.
You’d be forgiven for immediately thinking of a new vegan buttermilk dressing when you hear the words ‘Impossible Ranch’. But that’s not what plant-based pioneer Impossible Foods is doing in South Carolina, where a now-former cattle farm will sport crops like soybeans, sunflowers and coconut trees.
These will support the manufacturing of Impossible Foods’ vegan beef, chicken and pork products, transforming the output of the farm from animal-derived meat to plant-based instead. In addition, the company is rescuing the cows on the property, and documenting the long-term transition project on its social media to allow consumers to follow along.
“Impossible Ranch is a living and breathing educational resource where our commitments to giving back to the planet and supporting animal welfare are front-and-centre, along with the plants representing key ingredients in our products,” said chief marketing and creative officer Leslie Sims. “We want to bring consumers along on this journey and help them understand how choosing meat from plants can be a better choice.”
A safe haven for cattle
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
The 70-acre Impossible Ranch is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Having operated as a cattle ranch for decades, the transition to crop farming sees Impossible Foods work in partnership with the family that has tended the land for so long. This, it says, helps it “honour the heritage” while highlighting a “renewed focus on animal welfare”.
In the US, 70% of cows and nearly all chickens and pigs are raised on factory farms – that totals over nine billion animals. But foods derived from industrial production methods come with many health risks. For example, in the US, water pollution from factory farms threatens or impairs over 14,000 miles of rivers and streams and more than 90,000 acres of lakes and ponds. According to the EPA, nitrogen and phosphorous waste from factory farms has been directly associated with aquatic deaths. And, in many parts of the world, animals have been culled for years to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases.
Moreover, 575 billion lbs of animal waste are generated by a mere 5% of American concentrated animal feeding operations annually. This contains elements that “seriously degrade” rivers and contribute to antibiotic resistance among humans, leading to the American Public Health Association calling for a ban on new CAFOs.
Impossible Foods says its ranch is a “safe haven” for the property’s resident cattle, and is inviting customers to suggest names for the animals – which comprise six cows, two steers and a calf – with updates from the farm being shared on its social channels.
Apart from the health and water pollution aspects, there’s also an environmental benefit to this. Meat is twice as polluting as plant-based foods, and makes up 60% of all emissions from the food system. In fact, one peer-reviewed study last year (which involved inputs from Impossible Foods) revealed that swapping half of our pork, chicken, beef and milk production with plant-based analogues could halt deforestation and reduce agriculture and land use emissions by 31%.
Impossible Foods is ramping up consumer education efforts
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
As part of the launch, which coincides with Earth Day, Impossible Foods is taking over the Oculus Transportation Hub in Manhattan to exhibit the ranch to New York City commuters. The company argues this will help people envision a future where plant-based meat and cattle can coexist peacefully, at a time when the source of people’s food and what it does to the planet is garnering increased attention.
Sims alluded to this, noting: “As a leader of the plant-based category, we saw both a need and an opportunity to demystify meat from plants in a way that feels more approachable for consumers.”
This is the latest step in Impossible Foods’ efforts to educate and engage with consumers. Only last month, the company unveiled a brand refresh with new red packaging (a colour associated with superior taste for plant-based meat). The new look puts a greater spotlight on taste descriptors, visuals, and specific health credentials (like saturated fat and sodium content).
The idea was to lean into the meaty flavour and texture of its products, while pointing to their nutritional superiority over conventional counterparts. “We realised we can get even more consumers in the door by leading with our incredible taste and nutritional quality – then, we can seal the deal with the environmental benefits,” a company spokesperson told Green Queen last month. “With every converted consumer, we’re able to maximise our positive impact on the planet.”
“With every move we make, we want to set the tone that we’re an inclusive brand. We don’t want people to feel judged for loving meat, and we need to show them they don’t have to change their lifestyle in order to help the planet or their health,” the spokesperson said.
The farm transition project will doubtless push its mission further. Other similar initiatives include The Trasfarmation Project, Refarm’d, and the Dairy Farm Transition programme by Miyoko’s Creamery. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, RESPECTfarms is working on a similar vision for cultivated meat.
Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has released its annual State of the Industry series of reports, covering plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins. Here are the key takeaways.
Political resistance and a drop in funding and sales were offset by a hike in manufacturing facilities, diverse partnerships, and regulatory approvals in the alternative protein world last year, according to the 2023 State of the Industry reports by the Good Food Institute (GFI).
Comprising plant-based, cultivated and fermented proteins, the reports outline the progress, challenges, and future of the industry. Globally, retail sales for plant-based meat, seafood and dairy saw a slight increase, from $28B in 2022 to $29B in 2023. But the road towards taste and price parity, improved accessibility, better nutrition, and significant market penetration remains lengthy, with GFI comparing this to Hofstadter’s Law.
Coined by scientist Douglas Hofstadter, it reads: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” It’s meant to describe the difficulty of estimating how much time it will take to complete complex tasks. “As Hofstadter’s Law and similar adages dictate, this will take time,” says GFI business analyst Daniel Gartner, drawing parallels with alternative protein’s progress. “However, keep our eyes on the goal post and the vision all of us in this industry are working towards – a brighter food future for people and the planet.”
Here are the key highlights from the 2023 State of the Industry reports:
Plant-based milk on the up, but meat and seafood suffer
Courtesy: GFI
The plant-based food market in the US saw $8.1B in dollar sales in 2023, down by 2% from the year before. This meant the industry represented 1.1% of the overall food sector’s sales. But looking at longer-term trends, global sales for plant-based meat have nearly tripled from $2.2B in 2014 to $6.4B in 2023.
For plant-based meat and seafood, the decline was larger, representing the macroeconomic challenges faced by the category. Here, US retail dollar sales fell by 12% to $1.2B. Sales for conventional meat and seafood, in comparison, flatlined – but the average price per unit was only up by 3%, compared to 9% for plant-based analogues, which now make up 0.9% of the overall meat market. Burger patties are the most popular, followed by nuggets, tenders and wings, and grounds.
Things were slightly more positive on the plant-based milk side of things, where sales grew slightly by 1% to reach $2.9B and take up 14.5% of the overall milk sector in the US. Almond is still king, capturing 56% of the market, with oat continuing its ascendancy (24%).
When it comes to consumer adoption, 62% of households bought vegan products, with meat and seafood reaching 15% of homes, and milk 44%. Encouragingly, the repeat purchase rates were high at 81% for the entire category, 79% for milk, and 62% for meat and seafood analogues.
Beef is closest to price parity, eggs farthest
Courtesy: GFI
GFI notes that the price gap between plant-based and conventional proteins is still a significant purchase barrier, outlining that grocery costs were the key economic concern for consumers last year. And 2023 was challenging for the vegan sector in this aspect – while plant-based foods saw a lower price growth than the overall food sector and some conventional categories in 2022, the former’s markups were higher in 2023.
From 2021 to 2023, plant-based meat and seafood’s average price per unit rose by 17%, compared to 16% for their conventional counterparts. Last year, the average price premium for plant-based meat and seafood was 77%. That said, beef is currently the vegan analogue that’s closest to price parity, with plant-based versions costing $7.48 per pound, versus $6.24 for the same amount of animal-derived beef – a 20% difference.
The gap is much larger in other categories. For milk, this comes to 104%, while eggs have the highest price premium at 317%. Even other meat categories need to bridge this gap, with vegan chicken costing 156% more, pork 177% and turkey 214%.
Alternative protein investments underestimated
Courtesy: GFI
A host of reports over the last few months have showcased the dire situation of VC funding in the food tech sector. Globally, agrifood tech companies brought in 49% less capital in 2023 than the year before, according to one report.
The data cited by GFI signals a 42% in overall VC investment across all sectors, with a 40% drop in climate tech, 51% fall in fintech, and 61% decline in food tech financing. For alternative protein companies too, funding dipped by 44% from $2.9B in 2022 to $1.6B in 2023. This was dominated by plant-based startups ($907M), followed by fermentation ($515M) and cultivated meat ($226M) companies. Collectively, these sectors have secured $15.7B in all-time investment.
“The sales and investment slowdowns in 2023 weren’t unique to the alternative protein industry, but as a relatively nascent sector relying on private investments to navigate early-stage operations and strong sales performance to secure favourable placements on retail shelves, they played outsized roles in the sector’s 2023 performance,” writes Gartner.
But GFI suggests that these totals are likely understated, with some funding rounds not publicly disclosed. While that is the case for certain deals in general anyway, this year may have had a higher frequency due to a large number of simple agreements for future equity (SAFE) and bridge rounds, and based on its conversations with market participants. Some of these rounds may be reported this year.
Despite that, investments in Europe actually increased for the second consecutive year, reaching $584M (up by 74%), a record total for the region. It was the first time European investments comprised over half of all invested capital in the plant-based industry.
Legislative wins and challenges for alternative protein
Courtesy: New Culture
Despite the private investment dip, public financing for these sectors matched the record levels of 2022. Canada announced C$150M for Protein Industries Canada, Germany set aside €38M in its federal budget for a sustainable protein transition, the US committed $40M in fermentation funding over four years, and the UK injected £15.4M in multiple cultivated meat projects.
However, GFI noted that total public investment in 2023 only met a tiny fraction of the estimated $10.1B in annual support needed to realise the full potential of alternative proteins.
It has been a rollercoaster year in terms of regulation for cultivated meat and precision fermentation. The US joined Singapore as the second country to allow the sale of cultivated meat. Israeli precision fermentation company Remilk received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the FDA to cement its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), while The Every Co obtained its third such certification in late 2023. Imagindairy and TurtleTree, meanwhile, earned self-affirmed GRAS status (with a ‘no further questions’ letter coming in January this year for the former).
Since then, Israel has also joined the list of countries that have approved cultivated meat, while Singapore issued its second certification earlier this month. Precision fermentation companies like New Culture, The Protein Brewery, Vivici and Oobli have achieved some form of GRAS status in the US too.
But there have been challenges as well, with Florida on the verge of banning cultivated meat, and Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee all proposing similar bills. Across the Atlantic, Italy became the first country to ban cultivated meat, while a group of countries asked the EU to rethink its already-stringent novel foods regulations. France and Romania are also considering a ban on these proteins.
More facilities, more jobs
Courtesy: Meatable
In spite of the tough funding environment and legislative challenges, there has been an increase in both the number of companies and production facilities for alternative proteins. There are now 174 businesses working on cultivated meat across the supply chain (up from 166 in 2022), and 158 on fermentation-based proteins (versus 136 in 2022).
Meanwhile, 2023 saw 10 new cultivated meat facilities open, while seven fermentation plants began operating too. And several more sites were announced across the alt-protein spectrum too. According to the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Global Methane Hub, this trend means the industry could support up to 83 million jobs internationally by 2050.
“However, the alternative protein sector is not yet positioned to capture those levels of economic impact,” notes Gertner. “The plant-based, fermentation, and cultivated industries exist in distinct stages of industry development, but the average quality and availability of alternative protein products do not yet meet consumer expectations. To approach significant market penetration levels, alternative protein companies need to continue to improve product cost, taste and volumes.”
He implores governments, companies and investors to dedicate more research and investment towards alternative proteins, if they’re “serious about improving food security, reducing emissions, and achieving climate goals”. “By scaling, reducing costs, and improving taste and texture, alternative proteins – alongside other advances and innovations –can continue to shape the future of food and agriculture,” he said.
As emergency repairs continue on a massive 60-foot-long crack that’s threatening the integrity of the Panguitch Lake Dam, we sent a letter to Allen Henrie, president of the West Panguitch Irrigation & Reservoir Company, offering to contribute to the considerable funds required to fix the fissure—provided the company agrees to plaster the dam with our eye-catching appeal urging residents, “Give a dam about your health. Go vegan.”
The Panguitch dam may be leaky, but the research is watertight: Consuming meat, eggs, and dairy is unhealthy and unnecessary. When it comes to human health, it’s not damned if you do, damned if you don’t. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, going vegan reduces an individual’s risk of developing diabetes by 62%, their chance of being hospitalized for a heart attack by 33%, their risk of suffering from heart disease by 29%, and their risk of developing cancer by 18%.
Going Vegan Saves Lives
Every animal is someone. Our fellow sentient beings—who live rich and fulfilling lives when allowed the freedom to do so—suffer immensely when they’re deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them so they can be used for food.
Every person who goes vegan—including those who would see our ad—saves nearly 200 animals a year and prevents them from suffering on factory farms, where workers routinely castrate and brand cows without painkillers; cram chickens and turkeys into filthy, ammonia-filled sheds by the tens of thousands; and imprison pigs in cages so small that they’re prevented from standing up or turning around.
And the nightmare doesn’t end there. After living in misery, these animals are then subjected to the horrors of being transported on severely crowded trucks in all weather extremes, deprived of food and water, to slaughterhouses, where U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors frequently report that workers slit the animals’ throats while they’re still conscious.
Going Vegan Is Easy!
Panguitch residents have PETA’s full support in going vegan, and you do, too! Our vegan starter kit makes saving animals and living a happier, longer life easy, with loads of recipes and advice for enjoying life on the compassionate side:
The Rewe Group has opened the doors to its first 100% vegan store in Germany. Called Rewe Fully Plant-Based, the new space houses more than 2,700 products, and is located on a road crossed by 90,000 pedestrians every day.
Weeks after it was rumoured to be opening the store, German retailer Rewe has unveiled its first fully vegan supermarket in the country. Taking over from the previous flagship store of Veganz on Berlin’s Warschauer Brücke (Warsaw Bridge), the 212 sq m Rewe Fully Plant Based space boasts over 2,700 products from more than 300 brands.
This means that the new location nearly doubles the number of vegan items in Rewe’s regular stores (around 1,400), and blends its private-label offerings with big brands and newer startups. Visitors will find Rewe Bio, Rewe Beste Wahl, Vivess and ja! products, alongside industry leaders like Oatly and Alpro, and challenger brands such as Not Guilty, For Foodies and Greenforce.
“With Rewe Fully Plant-Based, we show how varied and large the selection of vegan products is,” said Rewe Group CEO Peter Maly, who sees this as a key test concept. “We primarily expect learning effects for our classic supermarkets. Here at the Warschauer Brücke in Berlin-Friedrichshain, we have the chance to pave the way for even more new products and brands to reach supermarket shelves. We are very curious.”
Bright yellow, rich green, warm rust red
Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex
Trade website Supermarktblog reported last month that the former Veganz store, which had changed hands last year, already had the name of the new Rewe store attached to the façade. The tagline ‘fully plant-based, totally good’ was also visible on the storefront and inside the entrance area of the store.
While Rewe declined to confirm any plans for the supermarket at the time, it has since been hyping up the opening with what the publication describes as guerilla marketing tactics at nearby subway stations, lampposts, parking meters and walls. These featured bright yellow-green banners with a QR code sporting the caption: “Berlin is getting more comfortable”.
Designed alongside the creative agency CMF, the neon colour scheme is intentional, with yellow, green and red shades donning the store with colourful triangles from ceiling to floor.
“Rewe Fully Plant-Based is an eye-catcher. Lively, striking, natural – these are keywords that have driven us,” said Rewe Ost (East) CEO Stefan Hörning. “We were able to give the well-known red Rewe logo a new coat of paint for the first time. We supplement the green letters with the simple addition ‘Fully Plant-Based’. This allows us to get to the heart of what’s in the store without any frills.”
A plethora of products for all shoppers
Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex
Upon entry, the first products visitors encounter are fruits and vegetables, immediately followed by a salad bar and vegan sushi counter. This is a deliberate move as the retailer aims to target not just vegan or flexitarian consumers, but also aims to be a point of contact for people to do their everyday shop and locals and tourists to pick up a snack or drink before heading to events or back home.
Chilled smoothies, spreads, seitan and other products can be found in fridges along the walls, while the middle of the store is adorned with plant-based milks, nuts, spices, baking ingredients and drugstore items. Then there’s a snack bar with cream cheeses and freshly made open sandwiches, while the frozen section, baked goods, chilled drinks and vegan ice cream greet the checkout area.
In fact, the latter is available as part of an in-store soft serve machine. And as for the bakery items, Rewe Berlin merchant Dennis Henkelmann (who manages the store) explained: “The supermarket is in close proximity to the S-Bahn, and there are many apartments and offices around it. That’s why we consciously rely on a large selection of baked goods. We have more than 40 products, from vegan Franzbrötchen to pretzel bagels to Sunday rolls.”
The Rewe Fully Plant-Based store also does away with regular manned cash registers, with payment only available at three self-checkout counters, or via its Scan&Go tech that allows shoppers to scan groceries as they walk through the store and add them to their cart.
Rewe Fully Plant-Based makes for a key test
Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex
“Our range is colourful, there is everything from vegan burger sauce, ramen and wines to various snacks. We are a real supermarket, just purely plant-based,” said Henkelmann. The new supermarket has a staff of 12, all of whom have been specially trained on the vegan range.
It isn’t intended to be a temporary pop-up, but will serve as a test for similar future concepts. If it ends up being successful, Rewe could subsequently launch a corresponding initiative in Rewe Center stores nationwide, which would align with its vegan Pflanzilla approach under its Austrian subsidiary Billa.
Rewe opened the first Billa Pflanzilla store in Vienna in 2022, followed by a pop-up location in Graz last November (which ended its run in February). In addition to this, it has integrated Pflanzilla World as a mini-section in 21 of its Billa Plus stores. That’s not all – apart from the company’s own-label plant-based lines, it previously launched a plant-based meat counter in a Kaarst store after seeing a 45% hike in meat-free sales, and dropped the prices of vegan products to either match or be cheaper than their conventional counterparts in Billa and Penny stores.
“We have special products, including lots of fresh things. With us you can try out new things, much of our range is organic. Here, young companies with new ideas have the chance to get one of the coveted places on the supermarket shelf,” said Horning.
“We have been recognized several times in the past as vegan pioneers in the food trade, and the strong response from our customers also encourages us,” added Maly. A survey commissioned by the company last year found that 58% of Rewe customers have bought vegan products previously, and 27% replace animal-derived foods with plant-based analogues several times a week.
With 90,000 people crossing the Warsaw Bridge every day, footfall shouldn’t be a concern for Rewe. Neither should consumer response, given that Germany is the largest plant-based market in Europe, with 59% of consumers reducing meat consumption, and its government has earmarked €38M in its federal budget this year to support alternative proteins and open a Proteins of the Future centre.
And last month, the German Society for Nutrition updated its dietary guidelines to recommend halving meat consumption, limiting dairy intake, and eating more plant-based foods – with the latter suggested to make up at least 75% of diets in the country.
UK oat milk brand Minor Figures saw losses grow to nearly £10M last year, citing inflationary pressures and a downturn in the Asia-Pacific market – but its overall revenues jumped to £31.8M, and the company is now on the path to becoming profitable.
In its newly filed accounts, Minor Figures said its losses widened by 39% to £9.9M in the year ending June 30, 2023, though its revenues increased by 9% to £31.8M following strong growth in its key markets of the UK and North America.
The London-based oat milk maker attributed the losses to continued inflationary pressures on raw materials and the supply chain, and a decline in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which took its cumulative losses to over £20M in the last three years. However, Minor Figures indicated that these challenges have now been addressed by management, with the business turning its attention away from APAC to focus on the UK and North America as it looks to become profitable by 2025.
“Whilst macroeconomic conditions have been challenging, the oat category has continued to grow and the business is strategically focused on revenue growth and market penetration, in order to position itself as one of the top three brands across all major markets in the long term,” the filing reads.
Minor Figures’ Asia struggles mirrored by Oatly
Courtesy: Minor Figures
While sales fell by 35% to £5.9M in APAC, Minor Figures witnessed a 12% growth in its home market of the UK, reaching £13.4M, while its North American turnover grew by 54% to reach £12.5M.
Speaking to the Grocer, co-founder and CEO Stuart Forsyth said the company made a big bet on the demand for oat milk in Asia, which was booming but has failed to reach its potential post-pandemic. The mistimed investment of capital in the region “massively” magnified the business’s losses in the region.
Forsyth ascribed the APAC difficulties to a downturn in China, where fellow competitor Oatly has also struggled. The Swedish oat milk giant has halted construction of a manufacturing facility in China, with its COO Daniel Ordonez noting it can’t justify “significant investments with uncertain payoffs”. “We will be therefore slowing down on SKU expansion and eliminating many unnecessary SKUs… and migrating to a more simplified cost structure,” he said last year.
The difficulties in China played a part in Oatly’s restructuring last year, and has similarly affected Minor Figures too. While oat milk’s popularity has hiked in China over the last few years, it has also meant a larger number of brands and products offering the coffee-friendly dairy alternative, making it a crowded market with plenty of domestic and international competitors for brands like Minor Figures, which discontinued product lines and wrote off a large amount of stock in 2022-23, leading to one-off costs of £1.5M.
“We responded immediately by reshaping our cost base and refocusing our efforts on increasing product margin,” Forsyth added. “Our efforts have taken time, but resulted in a return to solid margins, and a leaner, more focused business, which is now in a much stronger position.”
The company’s accounts state that its performance in Q1 this year is significantly better than 2023, with Forysth identifying strong double-digit growth and a significant reduction in losses that are setting Minor Figures on the path to profitability.
“The Group has continued to expand in North America and Europe with increasing distribution points across the on-trade, grocery, export and online channels. In a competitive oat milk market, Minor Figures is one the fastest-growing brands in North America and the UK,” the document states. “The brand also has significant distribution in Australia through all major grocery chains.”
This was echoed by Forsyth, who added: “Our growth has continued this year with the EMEA business continuing to outperform in its category and the North American business growth above 38%, with notable wins in some of the biggest retailers, including Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, Albertsons and, recently, Kroger. All of this is set against the wider context of the Asia-Pacific region now beginning to stabilise post-Covid.”
Overcoming oat’s optics obstacles
Courtesy: Minor Figures
Like the wider plant-based industry, milk alternatives have had a dip in market performance over the last year. In the UK, the overall milk market was hit by a fall for alt-dairy leader Alpro, which experienced a 22% drop in volume sales, according to Nielsen data for the Grocer’s Top Products survey for 2023. And even though Oatly saw a modest 0.3% growth in volume – this is a far cry from the 100% increase in sales for oat milk in the UK between 2019 and 2020.
Kantar data shows that UK non-dairy products saw a year-on-year sales decline of 3.8% in January 2024, with an 18.4% higher markup than animal-derived dairy items. Even in the US, gallon sales for plant-based milk fell by 7% in the year ending December 3, 2023, with oat milk witnessing a 0.9% growth.
However, oat milk is currently undergoing a PR challenge, with online influencers and media outlets questioning the health credentials of the product. People have pointed to spikes in blood glucose (which is normal with any food, and oat milk itself usually has a moderate glycemic index), its low protein content (which shouldn’t be an issue considering we’re overconsuming protein anyway), the inclusion of additives like emulsifiers and acidity regulators (which are generally recognised as safe by health bodies and forms part of a wider fear around ultra-processed foods), and its effects on bloating (a claim that doesn’t have much evidence to back it up).
British market research firm Mintel forecasts that once inflationary pressures start to ease, consumer spending will regain momentum and support the growth of plant-based dairy, predicting a rise in retail value sales of 50.2% over the next five years in the UK. (Its current lineup comprises three oat milks, a chai concentrate, and two ready-to-drink canned cold brews.)
Minor Figures, which has brought in over £30M in investment, including a new fundraise in June 2023, is set to announce further retail and foodservice innovations later this year. “2023 is a follow-on investment from the current investor base,” said Forsyth. Its backers include Danone’s VC arm Manifesto Ventures, Hong Kong’s Green Monday. “They were confident in our commitment and vast improvements made to business, and were able to provide further capital.”
The company said it’s confident that producing “high-quality oat milk in this fast-growth category” across all its regions will lead to another year of revenue growth, outlining that it has experienced fast growth in each year since its launch. “We expect the trend of moving away from dairy to plant-based products will continue,” its filing states. “Business growth will be driven by channel growth, increased distribution points and geographical expansion, underpinned by an increasing demand for plant-based products.”
As plant-based meat companies rejig their nutritional messaging and cultivated meat battles to shake off the ‘lab-grown’ tag and political attacks, two consumer surveys reveal that health remains a key priority for Americans when it comes to alternative proteins.
The overconsumption of meat in the US is a major driver of the country’s large climate footprint, with one analysis showing that Americans’ red meat intake is over six times higher than advised by the Eat-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet.
Only 12% of Americans consume half of all the beef eaten in the US, and about 40% don’t think eating red meat increases greenhouse gas emissions – despite beef being the most polluting food. Separate research shows that as many as 74% of Americans don’t link meat-eating with climate change, while one estimate suggests the country needs to cut meat consumption by 82% if it wants to avoid climate diasters in the future.
And while the number of vegans hit a decade-long low in the US last year, another poll suggests that the percentage of consumers who are eating plant-rich diets has doubled over the last few years – but the red-meat-eaters have also grown in number. The paradoxical results of all these surveys show that there’s certainly interest in plant-based eating in the US, but meat still rules the roost.
That paradox is also highlighted by two new surveys about food in the country, covering cost of living, animal protein, plant-based proteins and cultivated meat.
Plant-based brands will find it hard to sway new customers
The first of these surveys is the March Consumer Digest by data science firm 84.51°, which polled 400 consumers who shopped from Kroger in the last three months.
It reveals that the higher cost of living continues to influence consumer behaviour significantly, adjusting meal plans to include dishes that use less meat (43% are doing so); purchasing more beans, legumes, nuts and eggs (33%); and reducing protein consumption (18%).
Courtesy: 84.51°
When it comes to the latter, shoppers are most concerned with taste (60%) and value (55%), while plant-based sources are among the factors they’re least concerned with (45%). In fact, animal protein sources take up four of the top five spots in the list of preferred protein sources, with vegetables (cited by 86%) third on the list, although they are above all meat sources.
Other plant proteins are much lower on the list, with tofu coming in last (11%), just behind soy (11%), plant-based meat (15%) and lentils (22%). 84.51° reveals that plant-based milk often serves as an entry point for vegan food consumption, which is apparent when you consider that milk is the vegan category households consume most (33%). It’s also among the top three segments that Americans want to consume more of, alongside fresh and frozen plant-based meats.
Courtesy: 84.51°
For 59% of respondents, health is the most important consideration pushing them to eat plant-based, followed by sustainability (42%) and taste (38%). This is exactly why industry leaders like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have shifted their messaging of late, introducing nutrition-focused products, packaging and marketing campaigns.
When it comes to consumption barriers, cost is key to 53%, while 41% are dismayed by low sales or promotions. And it seems that companies in this space face an uphill battle to lure consumers, with nearly half (48%) of people who haven’t tried vegan analogues saying they aren’t likely to do so in the future – only 5% say they’re very likely to try them.
Courtesy: 84.51°
Cultivated meat may need to tackle the uncommon
Researchers at Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability, meanwhile, surveyed 1,200 Americans for its March Consumer Food Insights Report, revealing that while Americans do prefer conventional meat more than cultivated, the latter isn’t too far behind (considering its current scale and availability) when it comes to a restaurant setting.
For example, while 96% of Americans would try chicken in restaurants, two-thirds (67%) would be willing to do so with cultivated chicken as well. This is similar for conventional versus cultivated beef (94% and 65%, respectively) and pork (88% vs 60%).
“We see similar results when evaluating consumers’ willingness to try conventional and cultivated meats in a restaurant setting,” said lead author Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue. “The proportion of consumers willing to try the cultivated versions of these meats is around 30 percentage points lower, though it is still a majority, about 60%.”
He added: “Given the fact that cell-cultured meat is not widely available, these results reflect consumer distrust of the unknown when it comes to food, which is a barrier for any novel food trying to break into the market.”
Courtesy: Purdue University
Interestingly, of those respondents not willing to try conventional chicken, beef or pork, around 46%, 26% and 22% said they’d eat cultivated versions of these products, respectively. “This shows that there may be (a) market for cultivated meat among a sizable portion – albeit small number – of consumers who do not eat meat along with a majority of consumers who already are willing to try conventional versions of these meats,” Balagtas said.
In terms of health, consumers felt traditionally farmed meat is tastier and healthier than cultivated versions. On a scale of 0 to 5, beef (4.4) and chicken (4.2) ranked high on the flavour aspect, versus 2.7 each for their cultivated counterparts. Similarly, beef scored 3.4 and chicken 4.2 when considering their health credentials, compared to 2.6 and 2.9 for cultivated beef and chicken, respectively.
Courtesy: Purdue University
The report also looked at certain ‘exotic meats’ – like octopus, shark and ostrich (among others) – where acceptance for conventional versions was higher than cultivated meats, but it is mostly a minority of consumers who are willing to try either of these products. Other animals included kangaroo and zebra too – this is topical considering Australian company Vow, which last week became the fourth company globally to receive regulatory approval for cultivated meat, has been known to work with cells of these species.
Its debut product itself is somewhat out of the ordinary. The company has produced cultivated quail as part of a parfait, and its co-founder and CEO George Peppou outlined why cultivated meat companies need to stop recreating conventional meats, and produce entirely new foods instead. “By changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet alone. Despite what we’d like to believe, those externalities don’t matter as much as we think to a vast majority of consumers when it comes to purchasing,” he told Green Queen last week.
It encapsulates the results of the Purdue survey – there’s much less gap between acceptance for the cultivated and conventional versions of ‘exotic’ meats than for chicken, beef and pork. “The only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that consumers choose selfishly. That’s why Vow is different, because we innovate instead of imitating, and therefore offer something that consumers will selfishly choose, because it is deliberately different.
France’s top administrative court has suspended the government’s decree to ban the use of words like ‘steak’ and ‘ham’ on plant-based meat analogues, which was approved earlier this year.
The Conseil d’État has dealt a blow to the French government’s livestock ‘sovereignty plan’ by suspending the ban on meat-related terms used by plant-based companies on product packaging.
The decision by the country’s highest administrative court found that there was “serious doubt” about the legality of the ban – which is set to come into effect on May 1 – and it means producers can continue to use terms like ‘steak’, ‘escalope’ and ‘ham’ on meat analogues.
This is the second time such a ban has been suspended by the Conseil d’État. In June 2022, the government introduced a similar decree to ban such terms. But following criticism from plant-based producers and complaints from meat-free associations, the court suspended the degree, arguing that the timeline was too short and wording too vague.
This second degree, proposed in September last year and approved in February this year, was virtually identical, but has been seized by the court after concerns were raised by vegan food manufacturers.
Why France wanted to ban meat labels on plant-based products
Courtesy: Carrefour/LinkedIn
The state council’s decision on the first decree was referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which in 2020 had rejected an EU-wide ban on meat-related terms on plant-based products (it had, however, outlawed words associated with dairy).
In September, the French agriculture ministry took the court’s complaints into account to prepare a new decree, which was co-signed by then prime minister Élisabeth, economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire and agriculture minister Marc Fesneau.
The decree sought to ban 21 terms like ‘steak’, ‘beef’, ‘ham’ and ‘grilled’ from plant-based meat labelling, while there were more than 120 additional phrases like ‘bacon’, ‘sausage’, ‘cooked fillet’, ‘poultry’ and ‘nuggets’ (plus non-meat terms such as ‘liquid whole egg’) that companies could use as long as the amount of plant protein in these products doesn’t exceed a maximum limit ranging from 0.5% to 6%. It was an indirect way of restricting plant-based analogues to use any of these words, given that they all contain 100% plant proteins.
When the decree was published in late February, new prime minister Gabriel Attal confirmed “it was a request from our farmers” to ban such terms. It was part of its supportive stance on livestock farming, which includes €400M in aid for the sector. Fesneau himself last year called for an increase in factory farming and cheaper meat production, despite the climate, health and animal welfare costs associated with these practices.
The decree included a fine of up to €1,500 for individuals and €7,500 for companies that fail to comply with the new rules. France’s measures to do so mirrored Italy’s restrictions on plant-based meat labelling, which was part of a wider ban on cultivated meat too. France itself is hoping to prohibit the sale and production of the latter within its borders.
Labelling ban would cause ‘serious and immediate harm’
Courtesy: Flaggenwelt/Getty Images
The Conseil d’État cited the EU’s food labelling legal framework to note that there’s doubt over the possibility of adopting such national measures. It had referred to the same regulation over its 2022 suspension of the first decree too.
The court said a ban would cause “serious and immediate harm” to the financial interests of plant-based manufacturers, six of whom raised concerns that led to the council seizing the ban. It added that some restaurant menus have been using such terms for a long time, and the decree would lead to a significant drop in the turnover of two companies that had questioned the ban whose majority of sales related to these products.
The ban would also result in costs related to packaging and marketing strategies given brands would need to modify their messaging, which could mean a pause in sales. Additionally, since the decree only applies to those who produce within France, their competitors who manufacture in other EU countries will be able to continue to use these terms to sell their products in France.
The ECJ still hasn’t provided guidance about the first decree and whether it was legal under EU law, and the French court has asked it to do so in the coming months. Until the ECJ responds to the query, the ban will remain suspended.
While labelling restrictions have been a thorn in the flesh for plant-based meat for years, recent developments are encouraging. Italy, for example, is reconsidering its ban after pushback from the country’s leading union of food manufacturers. In another win for the industry, a South African court has ruled against upholding a ban introduced the same month as France’s proposal, which saw strict labelling rules for plant-based food, prohibiting references to ‘meat’ and threatening to seize any products that fail to comply.
One of Asia-Pacific’s foremost plant-based meat companies, New Zealand-based Sunfed Meats is shutting down after facing supply chain pressure, high costs, and a loss of faith from its investors.
A week after it emerged that investors have slashed the company’s valuation to zero, Sunfed Meats founder Shama Sukul Lee has confirmed that the Auckland-based plant-based meat startup is closing after nearly a decade in operation.
In a video posted on her social media channels, Lee confirmed reports that the brand’s products were no longer available in Australia after inventory ran out in January. Its remaining stock in New Zealand is set to dry up in the next two months.
“Despite Sunfed’s self-evident competence in unique products and manufacturing and FMCG, Sunfed’s VC investor did not see value in that. And that is of course their prerogative, as they can put their money elsewhere where they can get bigger, faster, easier valuation returns,” said Lee. “It probably needs to be said that Sunfed’s VC investors chose not to clear the way for Sunfed, but instead held on to their preferential claims, which complicated new capital options for the company.”
Lee founded Sunfed Meats in 2015 as one of Asia-Pacific’s first plant-based meat startups. Its first product didn’t come into the market until 2018, but the Chicken Free Chicken was instantly popular among consumers and drove the brand’s growth.
The company’s portfolio is focused on clean labels with a base of pea protein, faba bean protein, extra virgin olive oil and yeast extract. “I was not happy with the vegan junk food options in the market and wanted to see if we could make something which would offer the good things about meat, namely nutrient density, low-carb and allergen-free,” explained Lee.
“I was also not interested in making mince or its variants like burgers, but instead wanted to make fully formed whole pieces, and it was important to me to make these as cleanly as possible using simply heat and water,” she added. (Although the company did add a minced SKU, presumably to meet market demand.)
Lee outlined that the company had four phases of growth to chart: R&D, market validation, productisation, and breaking even. She and her husband bootstrapped the business with NZ$112,000 and faced plenty of challenges as a young startup. “The whole thing looked doomed to fail, but we eventually had some major breakthroughs.”
Courtesy: Sunfed Meats
In 2016, the company received NZ$1.2M from several VCs during its market validation stage, before its chicken analogue shot the brand to success. It entered all major grocery stores in the country, and led to another $10M capital injection, $5M of which was from Australian VC firm Blackbird Ventures. The investment would allow Sunfed Meats to set up a hygienic food facility, novel manufacturing lines, and an FMCG supply chain, as well as develop and launch new products.
Its portfolio soon expanded to Boar Free Bacon, Bull Free Beef and Fish Free Tuna, and the company’s success saw it turn over NZ$4M in revenue and enter the Australian market. But just as it was looking to move into its profitability phase, things took a turn with the pandemic.
Post-Covid troubles had investor ‘write Sunfed off’
Describing it as “Covid hell”, Lee explained that Sunfed Meats went into “chronic business survival mode” just to keep production going. “There was one crisis after another, with staff shortages, supply chain disruptions and skyrocketing costs.” But Sunfed Meats managed to ride the wave and keep supermarkets stocked,” she said.
“We were pretty battered and bruised afterwards and needed a capital injection to get on top of things. Unlike other companies in this plant-based space, Sunfed did not take hundreds of millions of dollars of investment,” she noted. The last investment round was in 2018, and Lee said that the startup’s achievements since receiving “that minimal investment” have been “self-evidently remarkable”.
“However, it also meant that we ran very lean for far too long with not much resources for growth activities, such as distribution and marketing. With Covid, new capital had become harder as markets tightened up and priorities shifted. And Sunfed’s existing VC investors were no longer interested in supporting the business.”
She added that investors had “written Sunfed off”, explaining that a lot of venture capitalists had jumped into the “plant-based gold rush thinking they could get fast valuation returns” as is the case in the digital space, but manufacturing and FMCG have a lot more complexity and moving parts, and are hence a longer-term play.
Courtesy: Sunfed Meats
Eventually, Sunfed was not able to become profitable, and Lee had to make the decision to shut down the company due to unfavourable market conditions. “It has been an edifying decade-long journey in starting, building and now closing Sunfed. I’ve been humbled by it and I’m grateful for it. Thank you for the adventure,” she said.
It is currently unclear how many jobs are affected, but LinkedIn indicates that the company has 14 employees.
Lee noted that it’s a “fact that the plant-based bubble burst” and the category has been “undergoing a reality check”. “Fuelled by easy VC money, the category became saturated with junk food masked as healthy, and people now see through that. This also made it more apparent just how different Sunfed is, and why customers value it,” she explained.
The plant-based meat sector has had a tough couple of years globally, with investment and sales on the decline, and startups like New School Foods, Ordinary Seafood and Nowadays ceasing operations. Within Asia-Pacific, while Australia and New Zealand overtook Singapore as the most well-funded alternative protein region in the first half of 2023, this only totalled to $20M, an 87% decrease from the previous year.
However, brands like Australia’s v2food are seeing revenue growth (at 6% per year), and between 2022 and 2023, the number of meat analogues in the country’s supermarkets grew by 14%. And to offer dissatisfied meat-eaters a novel take on meat, Vow is in the middle of a public consultation phase to receive regulatory approval for its cultivated quail product in Australia and New Zealand, following its greenlight in Singapore last week.
To memorialize the more than 25,000 young salmon who were killed when a tanker truck overturned near Lookingglass Creek on March 29, PETA plans to place a sky-high message near the site reminding everyone that the crash victims were thinking, feeling individuals who didn’t want to die.
“The fish who were killed in this crash felt the same terror and agony that any dog, cat, or human would feel if they were suffocated or crushed to death,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to have empathy for salmon and other fish and to go vegan.”
Fish feel pain, have long memories, share knowledge, and have cultural traditions. Some woo potential partners by creating intricate works of art in the sand on the ocean floor, yet more fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. They’re impaled, crushed, suffocated, or cut open and gutted—often while they’re still conscious. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint, and avoids ingesting the many toxic chemicals found in the flesh of fish, including mercury, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
Following news that yet another bird flu outbreak is sweeping the nation and that nearly 2 million chickens have been killed in 2024 by Texas-based egg seller Cal-Maine Foods Inc., PETA is hitting cities across the country with a multipronged campaign warning of the dangers of continuing to eat meat, eggs, and dairy from animals confined to filthy, severely crowded sheds or feedlots and encouraging people to take the simple and obvious step of going vegan.
We’re talking with ad companies about placing a stark, sky-high warning near Cal-Maine’s operation in Texas and in major cities across the country, reminding everyone that farms, feedlots, and slaughterhouses are breeding grounds for a host of deadly pathogens that can easily mutate and spread to humans.
On April 4, PETA supporters took action in the Lone Star State by flocking to Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, where they gave away dozens of delicious vegan hard-boiled WunderEggs and dished out free vegan starter kits with tips and recipes for eating vegan.
“Hell on Wheels”—PETA’s life-size, hyper-realistic chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to slaughter—is in the midst of a cross-country tour and is currently in Mississippi, near Cal-Maine’s headquarters, bombarding diners with actual recorded sounds of dying birds’ cries along with a subliminal message every 10 seconds suggesting that people go vegan.
In 2023 alone, at least 58 million birds confined on farms were systematically killed to limit the spread of avian flu, often using horrific methods, including the following:
Ventilation shutdown (VSD), a prolonged and terrifying process in which workers shut off all airflow to the sheds in which the animals are kept, slowly suffocating them
VSD Plus, which involves adding heat or gas to the air, depriving the animals of oxygen, and raising the temperature to as high as 120 degrees, essentially baking them alive
Slowly suffocating them with a substance similar to firefighting foam
The majority of serious disease outbreaks in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including COVID-19, AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika. Strains of avian flu have already spread, decimating wild bird populations around the globe.
Eating meat, eggs, and dairy from deplorable operations in which thousands or even millions of animals are confined amid their own waste not only is disgusting and cruel but also will unquestionably lead to more outbreaks. PETA urges everyone to go vegan now—before it’s too late.
For those looking to keep pathogens off their plates or simply avoid paying skyrocketing egg prices, we offer a roundup of delicious, animal-friendly, and safevegan egg options as well as a vegan egg replacer guide for home cooks.
Following news that yet another bird flu outbreak is sweeping the nation and that nearly 2 million chickens have been killed in 2024 by Texas-based egg seller Cal-Maine Foods Inc., PETA is hitting cities across the country with a multipronged campaign warning of the dangers of continuing to eat meat, eggs, and dairy from animals confined to filthy, severely crowded sheds or feedlots and encouraging people to take the simple and obvious step of going vegan.
We’re talking with ad companies about placing a stark, sky-high warning near Cal-Maine’s operation in Texas and in major cities across the country, reminding everyone that farms, feedlots, and slaughterhouses are breeding grounds for a host of deadly pathogens that can easily mutate and spread to humans.
On April 4, PETA supporters took action in the Lone Star State by flocking to Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, where they gave away dozens of delicious vegan hard-boiled WunderEggs and dished out free vegan starter kits with tips and recipes for eating vegan.
“Hell on Wheels”—PETA’s life-size, hyper-realistic chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to slaughter—is in the midst of a cross-country tour and is currently in Mississippi, near Cal-Maine’s headquarters, bombarding diners with actual recorded sounds of dying birds’ cries along with a subliminal message every 10 seconds suggesting that people go vegan.
In 2023 alone, at least 58 million birds confined on farms were systematically killed to limit the spread of avian flu, often using horrific methods, including the following:
Ventilation shutdown (VSD), a prolonged and terrifying process in which workers shut off all airflow to the sheds in which the animals are kept, slowly suffocating them
VSD Plus, which involves adding heat or gas to the air, depriving the animals of oxygen, and raising the temperature to as high as 120 degrees, essentially baking them alive
Slowly suffocating them with a substance similar to firefighting foam
The majority of serious disease outbreaks in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including COVID-19, AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika. Strains of avian flu have already spread, decimating wild bird populations around the globe.
Eating meat, eggs, and dairy from deplorable operations in which thousands or even millions of animals are confined amid their own waste not only is disgusting and cruel but also will unquestionably lead to more outbreaks. PETA urges everyone to go vegan now—before it’s too late.
For those looking to keep pathogens off their plates or simply avoid paying skyrocketing egg prices, we offer a roundup of delicious, animal-friendly, and safevegan egg options as well as a vegan egg replacer guide for home cooks.
“I mean, it’s one lie for the dairy industry, Michael. What could it cost—a cease and desist letter?” As major Hollywood stars face a backlash for promoting what turned out to be cryptocurrency scams, a lawyer for PETA fired off a letter to Arrested Development actor Jason Bateman informing him of the cruelty to mother cows and their calves that’s inherent in the dairy industry and calling on him to stop misleading listeners of the podcast SmartLess, which he cohosts with actors Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, by making false marketing claims on behalf of Organic Valley dairy.
Organic Valley is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by a California resident, who accuses the company of luring her into buying its products at premium prices because it falsely claims to provide cows with the “highest standards” of animal care—despite relying on the same cruel practices typical of the commercial dairy industry, including removing newborn calves from their anguished mothers. In his ad for Organic Valley featured on a recent episode of the podcast with guest John Oliver, Bateman propagates the company’s deceptive marketing claims that its products are “ethically sourced.”
“There’s nothing ‘ethical’ about artificial insemination or tearing newborn calves away from their mothers so that the milk produced for them can be sold to humans,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Bateman to stop shilling for the dairy industry and is warning consumers to recognize humane washing claims—because the reality is that the only humane milk and cheese is vegan.”
As PETA notes in its letter to Bateman, cows used by the dairy industry are forcibly inseminated repeatedly—often on what the industry itself calls a “rape rack”—to ensure a steady supply of milk, which a cow produces only after she gives birth. It’s common practice to tear their beloved newborn calves away from them shortly after birth so that the milk meant to nourish the calves—who end up in veal crates if they’re male—can be sold for human consumption. Once cows’ bodies wear out after repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter.
A PETA video shows the shocked reactions of supermarket shoppers when they’re invited to compare the marketing images used by Organic Valley and other self-proclaimed “humane” milk companies to real-life footage from standard dairy farms. Their comments include, “This is terrible,” “It’s very sad,” “Cruel,” and “It seems like it really doesn’t make too much of a difference in terms of the welfare of cows.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
At the inaugural THAIFEX-HOREC Asia in Bangkok last month, representation for veganism was strong, particularly for plant-based milk, with a host of startups presenting new innovations in the space.
March brought with it scorching heat in Bangkok. 35°C really felt like 45°C, and it was on one of those days that I made my way to the Impact Arena in the Thai capital’s Muang Thong Thani development. And boy was I thankful, for there were exhibitors with vegan-friendly slushies, iced drinks and ice creams that as much quenched your thirst as they piqued your curiosity.
My eye was, of course, on all things plant-based. And in the giant hall, there were plenty of options that caught my eye. Not least from Thai J.Tip Food, which bedazzled me with a ham made from – wait for it – lotus root. It was unveiling its new vegan ready-meal brand Sun N Moon, which also happened to become the source of my lunch (a vegan massaman curry with quinoa).
But really, plant-based milk was the star of the show, with several different stalls dedicated to championing dairy alternatives in new and innovative ways, including powdered forms and barista milks specifically crafted for specialty coffee.
Oat milk powders evoke childhood nostalgia
Courtesy: Green Queen
Plant-based milk already exists in several forms outside the traditional liquid version, including nut milk pastes, frozen concentrates and oat milk powders. But Singapore-based Oatbedient is focusing on something completely novel: a range of malted oat milk powders that you can drink straight up, a la Ovaltine.
Launched in 2022, Oatbedient offers four products: plain, chocolate, an oat and chia blend, and a sugar-free Lite version. All you do is add the specified amount of hot water to the mix, and voila! You’re living your childhood again.
“We felt there was a gap in the market, because most of the oat milks are all in liquid form, so we wanted to offer another alternative to give consumers some form of convenience,” Oatbedient co-founder and senior business development manager Alex Seh told me. “Some of the consumers we met say it tastes like Horlicks. That wasn’t an intentional thing – we just wanted to find the right ingredient that’s good enough for human consumption, but can bring up the taste to an optimal level, so you can enjoy a cup of delicious oat milk.”
Many plant-based foods can be processed, which has become a turnoff for many consumers. But while there’s definitely a health play here, taste remains king. “The product itself has no palm oil, less sugar, non-GMO, etc. But at the same time, it has to taste delicious. Because what’s the point if we give you all the health benefits, but sacrifice the taste?” he noted. After taste, he believed price is the leading consumption driver for plant-based food in Asia. Sustainability continues to be increasingly important too.
“We have forecast the rise of waterless plant milks some time back, making products more eco-friendly, reducing packaging waste and cutting down on CO2 production and shipping emissions,” said Rachel Tan, food and drink strategist at WGSN. “Opportunities around frozen, shelf-stable and refrigerated are huge, alongside different formats including pastes and concentrates.”
She added: “These new formats will not only appeal to climatarians who value sustainability, but also a larger cost- and convenience-conscious consumer base when you think about longer shelf-lives, portability, customisability and food waste reduction.”
Clean-label and barista milks take the cake
Courtesy: Green Queen
For all the talk about convenience, it wasn’t just the malted oat milk powders Oatbedient was showcasing at THAIFEX-HOREC Asia. The company has just entered the liquid space with barista and Zero oat milk varieties. “To be a full-fledged plant-based milk player, I think inevitably, you need to offer what is already out there in the market,” Seh explained.
He alluded to how consumers want more clean-label products. “The Zero milk is the cleanest oat milk you can find on the market, because it’s just three ingredients: oats, water and Himalayan salt. That’s it,” he said. “The very positive feedback we’ve gotten is: ‘It’s amazing you guys have this alternative. I like oat milk but I don’t like the oil.’”
“Health-minded consumers are becoming increasingly concerned with how products are made, with plant-based options particularly under scrutiny,” explained Tan. “A recent slump in the sales of plant-based products in the US was partly attributed to a desire for more ‘clean labels’. Pioneer brands are prioritising natural ingredients and scrapping alienating processing methods to increase transparency, enhance health credentials and build consumer trust.”
Courtesy: Green Queen
As for barista milks, there was Australian representation in this space from the likes of Milklab and The Alternative Dairy Co. Both exclusively work on milks for coffee, with the former having just launched in Thailand. With a portfolio of oat, soy, coconut, almond and macadamia milks (alongside a UHT dairy option too), Milklab is in 29 countries, and has accounts with industry giants like Starbucks in India, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, and McDonald’s in Australia.
A brand representative for Milklab told me that while soy milk remains the most popular alt-milk in Thailand, oat is now the leading consumption driver of plant-based dairy – playing to the country’s affinity for coffee mocktails, its stall was all about highlighting its milks in iced beverages.
Courtesy: Green Queen
The Alternative Dairy Co., meanwhile, is owned by Sanitarium, the parent company of So Good. But this is geared exclusively towards foodservice, with So Good spearheading the business’s retail market in Autralia. It makes oat, soy, coconut and almond milk – the latter is the most neutral-tasting almond milk I’ve ever tasted. A company spokesperson told me that Australia’s alt-milk culture is similar to the US’s, in that almond milk has always reigned supreme, but oat is catching up, and is the future of the sector.
Interestingly, she added that plant-based milks now make up about a third of the market in Australia’s coffee industry, and in areas like Melbourne and Bondi Beach, they make up over half of the total. This means that in certain areas, it’s dairy that’s the alternative. How about that?
Oat milk goes in on the granular
Courtesy: Green Queen
The barista milk party didn’t end there. The most intriguing player at THAIFEX-HOREC Asia was Singapore’s Noomoo, which was launched last year and is working on a full range of plant-based milks. While almond and soy are slated for the future, the current lineup – which is in over 250 cafés in Singapore and Malaysia – comprises coconut and two oat milks. You read that right.
The coconut milk, which is combined with pea protein, is the freshest-tasting coconut milk I’ve had, and might just be one of my favourite plant-based milks overall, given it works as a standalone, in teas like hojicha and genmaicha, and in coffee too.
As for the dual barista oat milk range, the idea is to create products that have specific functions for different kinds of coffee. The milk titled ‘Barista’ is crafted from Australian oats and high-oleic canola oil, and geared towards medium to dark roasts. “The Australia one is created for when the cups are bigger. In some countries, they like ice and a lot of milk, so it needs to be a bit lighter and goes with darker roasts, which are chocolatey and nutty. This will help to round it and balance it,” co-founder and chief action officer Nick Chan told me.
He explained that the milk’s formulation isn’t heavy enough to mask the acidity of very light-roasted coffees: “If you’re a coffee connoisseur, you might not like or appreciate the acidity of coffee.” If you are one, though, the Artisan oat milk is for you.
Courtesy: Green Queen
Based on Mongolian oats, which he said are naturally higher in protein and enhance the frothability of the milk, this one is a bit heavier on the oats (11%, versus 10% for the Barista blend) and contains low-sodium lake salt, creating a creamy element without interfering too much with the flavour. Adding more oats to make the coffee shine more might feel counterintuitive, but it works.
Chan explained that given its neutrality and creaminess, oat milk complements coffee better than other milks, and is fast capturing Asia’s plant-based milk market. “If you just go to oat milk for two weeks, you cannot go back to milk,” he suggested.
“This trend towards barista milk is in line with the rise of fourth-wave coffee which democratises quality, encompasses sustainability and bottom-up creativity. Coffee consumers are becoming more sophisticated, seeking greater sensory engagement, and wanting to participate in the home café trend,” noted Tan. “This will have legs beyond food service to new RTD styles and at-home consumption. Complementary categories like dairy, nut milk, syrups and condiments can create products that elevate drinking rituals at home – including speciality barista milk.”
Noomoo will be looking to take market share from Asia’s oat milk market leader, Oatside. Oatly, which will also release a light-roast-friendly barista milk this year, is the other major player in the region. Noomoo is already in over 250 cafes in Singapore and Malaysia. Now, it’s launching in Thailand, and aims to target Indonesia and South Korea next. “At the moment, I’m trying to get professional endorsements for the products, which is why I’m working with baristas,” he said.
As a former barista, I can safely say the endorsement would be universal.
It looks like Jason Bateman is playing a new role, starring as a deceptive cheese shill. On a recent episode of the podcast Smartless, Bateman endorsed Organic Valley, prompting PETA lawyers to send him a letter regarding the company’s false marketing claim that its products are “ethically sourced”—a claim he propagated in his ad read.
Public figures are responsible for ensuring their endorsements’ authenticity and integrity. Celebrities have a duty to their audiences to thoroughly vet the products and companies they promote, ensuring they align with ethical standards and deliver on their promises.
Organic Valley’s Deception
In the dairy industry, companies like Organic Valley—whether they use “organic,” “grass-fed,” “ethically raised,” or any other such label (these labels are also common in the meat industry)—repeatedly impregnate cows to keep them lactating, only to rip newborn calves away from their mothers shortly after birth. This separation inflicts immense trauma on the mother and her calf, so it’s impossible for Organic Valley’s milk or cheese—or any dairy product—to be “ethically sourced.”
What Is Humane Washing?
Organic Valley’s marketing is an example of humane washing, a tactic companies use to appeal to consumers’ desire for ethically produced items while conveniently sidestepping the grim reality of animal agriculture. By labeling their products with deceptively positive claims, they trick consumers into thinking they’re making ethical choices when they’re actually supporting animal abuse.
Were You Duped by ‘Humane’ Dairy Claims? Let Us Know!
If you bought milk, cheese, or another dairy item advertised with “humane” logos, slogans, or images of cows on lush green pastures and believe that a company misled you about how the item was produced, we want to hear from you. You have a right to know the truth about what you buy and consume. Please contact us to share your concerns:
It looks like Jason Bateman is playing a new role, starring as a deceptive cheese shill. On a recent episode of the podcast Smartless, Bateman endorsed Organic Valley, prompting PETA lawyers to send him a letter regarding the company’s false marketing claim that its products are “ethically sourced”—a claim he propagated in his ad read.
Public figures are responsible for ensuring their endorsements’ authenticity and integrity. Celebrities have a duty to their audiences to thoroughly vet the products and companies they promote, ensuring they align with ethical standards and deliver on their promises.
In the dairy industry, companies like Organic Valley—whether they use “organic,” “grass-fed,” “ethically raised,” or any other such label (these labels are also common in the meat industry)—repeatedly impregnate cows to keep them lactating, only to rip newborn calves away from their mothers shortly after birth. This separation inflicts immense trauma on the mother and her calf, so it’s impossible for Organic Valley’s milk or cheese—or any dairy product—to be “ethically sourced.”
What Is Humane Washing?
Organic Valley’s marketing is an example of humane washing, a tactic companies use to appeal to consumers’ desire for ethically produced items while conveniently sidestepping the grim reality of animal agriculture. By labeling their products with deceptively positive claims, they trick consumers into thinking they’re making ethical choices when they’re actually supporting animal abuse.
Were You Duped by ‘Humane’ Dairy Claims? Let Us Know!
If you bought milk, cheese, or another dairy item advertised with “humane” logos, slogans, or images of cows on lush green pastures and believe that a company misled you about how the item was produced, we want to hear from you. You have a right to know the truth about what you buy and consume. Please contact us to share your concerns:
Following news that yet another bird flu outbreak is sweeping the nation and nearly 2 million chickens have been killed by Texas-based egg seller Cal-Maine Foods Inc., PETA is hitting cities across the country with a multipronged campaign warning of the dangers of continuing to eat meat, eggs, and dairy from animals confined to filthy, severely crowded sheds or feedlots and encouraging people to take the simple and obvious step of going vegan.
PETA is talking with ad companies about placing a stark, sky-high warning near Cal-Maine’s Texas operation and in major cities across the country, reminding everyone that farms, feedlots, and slaughterhouses are breeding grounds for a host of deadly pathogens that can easily mutate and spread to humans.
PETA’s sky-high warning
PETA supporters took action in the Lone Star State yesterday by flocking to Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, where they gave away dozens of delicious vegan hard-boiled WunderEggs and dished out free vegan starter kits with tips and recipes for eating vegan.
Credit: PETA
“Hell on Wheels”—PETA’s life-size, hyper-realistic chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to slaughter—is in the midst of a cross-country tour and is currently in Mississippi, near Cal-Maine’s headquarters, bombarding diners with actual recorded sounds of dying birds’ cries along with a subliminal message every 10 seconds suggesting that people go vegan. The vexatious vehicle delivers the horrors of the slaughterhouse straight to restaurant patrons who may be thinking of chowing down on fried chicken during lunch and will soon be on its way to Arkansas and Louisiana.
Credit: PETA
Hell on Wheels. Credit: PETA
“Eating meat, eggs, and dairy from deplorable operations where thousands or even millions of animals are confined amid their own waste not only is disgusting but also will unquestionably lead to another pandemic,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to go vegan now, before it’s too late.”
PETA points out that the majority of diseases that have caused the pandemic or epidemics in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including COVID-19, AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika. Strains of avian flu have already spread, decimating wild bird populations around the globe.
For those looking to keep pathogens off their plates or simply avoid paying skyrocketing egg prices, PETA offers a roundup of delicious, animal-friendly, and safevegan egg options as well as a vegan egg replacer guide for home cooks.
Last year alone, at least 58 million birds confined on farms were systematically killed to limit the spread of the virus, often using horrific methods, including ventilation shutdown (VSD), a prolonged and terrifying process in which workers shut off all airflow to the sheds in which the animals are kept, slowly suffocating them; VSD Plus, which involves adding heat or gas to the air, depriving the animals of oxygen, and raising the temperature to as high as 120 degrees, essentially baking them alive; and slowly suffocating them with a substance similar to firefighting foam.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
Following the news that Cal-Maine Foods Inc. killed almost 2 million chickens at an egg factory in Parmer County due to a bird flu outbreak, PETA plans to place a sky-high warning near the plant, reminding everyone that slaughterhouses and filthy, severely crowded sheds where chickens are confined in the egg industry are breeding grounds for a host of deadly pathogens that can easily mutate and spread to humans.
“Eating meat, eggs, and dairy from deplorable operations where thousands or even millions of animals are confined amid their own waste not only is disgusting but also will unquestionably lead to another pandemic,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The only solution is to go vegan, and PETA stands ready with free vegan starter kits to help everyone make the switch—before it’s too late.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently revealed that highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected in cows used for dairy in Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, and Texas; is present in the milk of infected cows; and has been transmitted from a cow to a human at least once in the Texas Panhandle—the region where Cal-Maine Foods’ Parmer County egg factory is located. PETA points out that the majority of diseases that have caused epidemics or pandemics in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19. Strains of avian flu have already spread, decimating wild bird populations around the globe. Last year alone, at least 58 million birds confined on farms were systematically killed to limit the spread of the virus.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
Diners on their way into Chick-fil-A on E. County Line Road are in for an earful on Saturday, when “Hell on Wheels”—PETA’s life-size, hyper-realistic chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to slaughter—will bombard them with actual recorded sounds of the birds’ cries along with a subliminal message every 10 seconds suggesting that people go vegan. The vexatious vehicle will deliver the horrors of the slaughterhouse straight to any patron thinking of chowing down on fried chicken during lunch.
When: Saturday, April 6, 12 noon
Where: Outside Chick-fil-A, 1065 E. County Line Rd., Jackson
Credit: PETA
“Behind every hot wing or bucket of fried chicken is a once-living, sensitive individual who was crammed onto a truck for a terrifying, miserable journey to their death,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ‘Hell on Wheels’ truck is an appeal to anyone who eats chicken to remember that the meat industry is cruel to birds and the only kind meal is a vegan one.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone
and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.
Following the news that egg seller Cal-Maine Foods Inc. killed over 1.6 million chickens at a Parmer County facility on Tuesday due to a bird flu outbreak, PETA supporters will flock to Klyde Warren Park today to give away samples of the vegan hard-boiled WunderEggs along with free vegan starter kits. The group will be dishing out food for thought about why, even amid outbreaks of zoonotic diseases that threaten to spark the next global pandemic, the egg industry continues to pack chickens into filthy, severely crowded, windowless sheds that are perfect breeding grounds for a host of deadly pathogens that can easily mutate and spread to humans.
When: Thursday, April 4, 12 noon
Where: Nancy Best Fountain at Klyde Warren Park, 2012 Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Dallas
Credit: PETA
“Disease, misery, and death flourish at these factories of filth, which pack chickens in by the thousands and treat them like egg-producing machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges anyone concerned about avian flu outbreaks to try nutritious and delicious vegan eggs, which never spread deadly viruses.”
PETA—whose motto reads in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
