Vivera, Fridge Raiders and Richmond are owned by JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, some of whose suppliers have been accused of animal cruelty and which, in the case of JBS USA, had the highest total number of animal welfare violations at its slaughter houses of any meat company in the USA between 2016 and 2018. JBS bought plant based brand Vivera in 2021 and in May 2022 it became the majority shareholder in cultured meat company BioTech. A report in 2023 found that Barclays was the biggest financier of JBS over the last eight years. But we already know that preparing our own food from scratch using fresh vegetables, beans and pulses and wholegrains and being moderate with salt and sugar is better for us. So, if you’re concerned about your health, it’s better to look for minimally processed meat-free products, like tofu, tempeh, or ones where you can still see the beans and the vegetables rather than the ones that look like meat. Vegetable / bean burgers (broad bean, edamame bean, beetroot, mushroom, sweet potato), jars of tempeh.

But overall, people in the UK are eating less meat. In 2022, YouGov found that 2-3% of respondents said they were vegan whereas in 2019, the Vegan Society estimated that just over 1% of the population were vegan. Oumph!, No Meat, Fry’s, THIS and Beyond Meat are made to taste and feel like meat. You can find them in some supermarkets. But in a recent ‘Politics of Protein’ report, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food) calls fake meat “a silver bullet technology” that may not be as sustainable as advocates claim. It argues that claims about alternative meats focus on greenhouse gas emissions and ignore other aspects of environmental sustainability, in particular biodiversity, with many meat analogues sourcing ingredients from industrial, chemical intensive monoculture systems of soya, palm oil and wheat. (See the table above for which companies use soya and where it’s from and further below for who scores best for palm oil).

Score table

Made from wheat protein, these do not need cooking either and again have a curry flavour. The texture – tougher than others – is close to meat, and surprisingly the vegetarians liked them too. Many of the meat analogues such as Beyond Meat, Squeaky Bean and Birds Eye are made from pea protein which is extracted from yellow and green split peas. It can be processed to create products with a chewy, meaty texture. It contains the full range of essential amino acids but is slightly low in one so you shouldn’t make it your only source. Beans and vegetables The products in this guide vary considerably, from the very simple, such as plain tofu, to the meat analogues which tend to have long lists of ingredients and are more likely to be highly processed. In the context of an otherwise healthy diet, the occasional convenient, highly processed fake meat burger isn’t a problem. Brands that got a best rating for soya sourcing were awarded a whole Product Sustainability mark and those that got a middle, got half a Product Sustainability mark. Table 1: Best rating for soya sourcing policy. Brand does not use soya or states clearly it does not source from South America. Company The campaign, set to run nationally, will be pushed across video-on-demand, TV and social media platforms, alongside digital out-of-home activations at 19 train stations across the country.

Minimum life based on 'use-by' date of product. Average life based on last week's deliveries. Life guarantee shown based on delivery tomorrow with the Life guarantee starting the following day.Only three companies, Nestlé (Garden Gourmet, Tivall), Nomad Foods (Birds Eye) and Unilever (Vegetarian Butcher) received our best rating for their carbon management and reporting. Fish fingers, burgers, sausages, nuggets, meatballs, pies. Vegetable fingers and burgers which are not vegan. Sources soya from European farmers and states: “we work with plant breeders to create new tofu soybean varieties that are suitable for cultivation in our climes”

The companies developing lab-grown meat say it is useful for weaning committed meat eaters off animal sources if they’re not convinced by the taste and texture of meat-free products. Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet. Steve: "I half-welcome lab grown meat; I know the facts of climate impact of animal consumption, and plant based meat alternatives are highly processed and have problems of their own."

Are vegan burgers and sausages healthy?

This company is an interesting example of a vegan company owned by an investment firm. It looks more like an investment vehicle for those wanting to cash in on the new vegan market than a company fit for the challenge of fixing a broken food system. No Meat, Oumph! and Fry’s – Blue Horizon Ventures is a Swiss ‘mission-driven’ venture capital fund that has been a controlling shareholder of the Livekindly vegan collective since 2020. See Companies behind the brands box at the end for Livekindly Collective. Goodlife – Egeria Capital Management is a Dutch private equity firm that invests in land and buildings (real estate), and companies. It has had a controlling interest in Goodlife since 2014. Despite selling vegan brands, many of the companies in this guide also sell meat products and therefore lost marks under our Animal Rights and Factory Farming categories. Meat companies selling meat-free products Gosh! – Efanor Investimentos is a Portuguese investment group which owns food retail, clothing, electronics and telecoms companies. It bought Gosh! in 2021.

The cells to start the process can be taken from biopsies of live animals. The cells are fed nutrients such as amino acids, glucose, vitamins and other growth factors. Is it that brands think that ‘vegan’ has negative connotations of extremism and holier-than-thou ism? Veganism definitely denotes a more holistic or hard-line philosophy of avoiding all animal products, including clothing and non-cruelty-free cosmetics, for example. Plant-based is generally just applied to food. Kantar Take Home FMCG – fastest growing brands based on value sales 48 w/e 29-Nov-20 vs. w/e 28-Nov-21With so much choice available, how do you know which brand make what vegan and fake meat alternatives? In the table below brands are listed alphabetically and the products are vegan unless otherwise stated. Brand Is it vegan? Meat-free products may still contain dairy or other animal products, which may have been produced through factory farming. Opt for vegan to reduce your carbon footprint and protect animal rights.