There is a growing vegan population in the Czech Republic
A vegan butcher’s shop recently opened in Prague, in what’s thought to be a first for the eastern European city. The shop is called Bezmasna, and it recently opened in the Letná district of the Czech capital. It provides plant-based versions of popular Czech foods, including chlebíček (Czech sandwiches), cold cuts, and meat loaf. It also has animal-free takes on classic items like steaks, sausages, eggs, burgers, pates, and more. The shop will provide a seasonal offering with a changing menu.
Bezmasna hopes to work with both vegan and non-vegan restaurants to increase their plant-based offerings, as well as offer catering for events.
The butcher's features a number of plant-based meats and other animal products - Media Credit: Instagram/Bezmasna
Veganism in the Czech Republic
Traditional Czech cuisine tends to be very meat-heavy, but there is a growing vegan population in the country. According tostatsfrom 2020, the Czech Republic ranked as one of the most vegan-friendly places in Europe, due to its relatively high number of plant-based eateries compared to population size. It was placed third, just behind Portugal and Iceland.
In a statement at the time, a spokesperson for the Česká veganská společnost (Czech vegan society) said: “As the survey indicates the [vegan] market situation has improved significantly in the past years. I dare say that to some extent we have caught up with countries from the west (UK, Germany, …).”
Prague is regarded as a vegan-friendly city Adobe Stock
Prague, in particular, is regarded as a vegan-friendly city. There are a wide variety of completely plant-based eateries listed on theHappy Cowapp, and it’s relatively easy to find plant-based options in the area.
A vegan butcher’s shop recently opened in Prague, in what’s thought to be a first for the eastern European city.
The shop is called Bezmasna, and it recently opened in the Letná district of the Czech capital. It provides plant-based versions of popular Czech foods, including chlebíček (Czech sandwiches), cold cuts, and meat loaf. It also has animal-free takes on classic items like steaks, sausages, eggs, burgers, pates, and more. The shop will provide a seasonal offering with a changing menu.
Bezmasna hopes to work with both vegan and non-vegan restaurants to increase their plant-based offerings, as well as offer catering for events.
The butcher's features a number of plant-based meats and other animal products
Media Credit: Instagram/Bezmasna
Veganism in the Czech Republic
Traditional Czech cuisine tends to be very meat-heavy, but there is a growing vegan population in the country. According to stats from 2020, the Czech Republic ranked as one of the most vegan-friendly places in Europe, due to its relatively high number of plant-based eateries compared to population size. It was placed third, just behind Portugal and Iceland.
In a statement at the time, a spokesperson for the Česká veganská společnost (Czech vegan society) said: “As the survey indicates the [vegan] market situation has improved significantly in the past years. I dare say that to some extent we have caught up with countries from the west (UK, Germany, …).”
Prague, in particular, is regarded as a vegan-friendly city. There are a wide variety of completely plant-based eateries listed on the Happy Cow app, and it’s relatively easy to find plant-based options in the area.
Prague is regarded as a vegan-friendly city Adobe Stock
Vegan meat brand Heura has opened a travelling plant-based butcher in France, offering its products in branches of major supermarket Leclerc.
The Spanish company opened its first outlet at the Leclerc Saint Brice Courcelle in Reims from May 21-25. It then moved to Leclerc Levallois Perret on May 28, where it will be open until June 1. The next pop-up will open in Leclerc Clichy on June 3, shutting its doors on June 8. Heurawill then move its plant-based butcher to more stores over the coming months.
The brand’s products have been available in France (which marks its second-biggest market after Spain) since 2021, and are now sold at more than 1,500 outlets across the country.
The news comes after the French government reversed itsban on plant-based meat names, clearing the way for Heura to load its roaming butcher shop with transparently-named plant-based products.
Some of the ‘meaty’ products on offer at the Heura pop-up plant-based butcher arevegan burgers, mince, nuggets and ham among others. As well as offering its wares to plant-curious customers, Heura Head of Plant-Based Cuisine, Chef Clément Werbrouck, will be giving cooking demos, showing how to use plant-based meat in traditional French dishes.
Marc Coloma, CEO and co-founder of Heura, said in a statement: “As a champion of Mediterranean, healthy, and plant-based cuisine, Heura is proud of the positive impact we have had in France since our arrival three years ago, a testament to the universal appeal of our products. This recognition inspires us to continue innovating and implementing initiatives such as the plant-based butcher shop that allow us to interact directly with our consumers, strengthening our connection with them.”
Revealing more about Heura’s future plans in a post on LinkedIn, Heura’s Head of Content & Social Laurent Gubbels, said: “Something that saddens me as a vegan is seeing so many butcher shops close their doors over the past few decades.
“This leads people to believe that eating plant-based means giving up meat, feeling deprived, and facing restrictions. It’s the opposite, you can eat more meat. Knowing that half of the French butcher shops have closed in the last twenty years, we atHeura Foodsdecided to make a change. We opened four temporary butcher shops in France and Spain to demonstrate that butcher shops can be plant-based.
“We launched in Barcelona last year, in Reims last week, and now in Paris! You can visit us at Leclerc Levallois-Perret this week and Leclerc Clichy next week to see first-hand the future of butcher shops.”
As The Little Vegan Butcher opens its doors in Norwich, UK, we take a look at plant-based butcher shops on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Little Vegan Butcher
The Little Vegan Butcher opened its doors in January, offering meat alternatives handmade by the store’s owners. These include plant-based ribs and bacon, soy burgers containing Applewood smoky vegan cheese, and “vishcakes” made with white beans.
A lunch counter will soon open in-store, serving options such as wraps, salads, and sandwiches. There is also a deli counter and a coffee machine.
Maciel’s Plant-Based Butcher & Deli
Los Angeles’ first ever vegan butcher shop, Maciel’s, opened in July 2022. The store offers Mexican-inspired plant-based meats, cheeses, and sandwiches, all handmade from scratch. Options include pastrami, Mexican ribs, chicharrones, turkey, chorizo, Camembert, and jalapeno cheddar.
Die Vegane Fleischerei (The Vegan Butcher) opened this January in Dresden, Germany, offering schnitzel, meatloaf rolls, salami, and aspic. The store has proved hugely popular, despite being banned from using certain meat-like terms by food inspectors. Die Vegane Fleischerei manufactures 70% of its products, with the remaining 30% bought from vegan wholesalers.
Yamchops
Toronto-based Yamchops has been operating a vegan butcher and deli for well over a decade, offering products such as Tunaless Tuna, Chick*n Schnitzel, Szechuan Beef, and Montreal Style Steak. In 2021, Yamchops was acquired by Plant&Co Brands, which said it planned to franchise the store across North America.
The Herbivorous Butcher
Minneapolis-based The Herbivorous Butcher launched as a farmers’ market stall in 2014, before opening a storefront in 2016 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The store offers alternatives to poultry, sausages, jerky, cheeses, and more. In 2021, the brother-sister team took on Nestle after it tried to trademark the phrase “vegan butcher”, leading the corporation to drop the application.
Faux opened its doors in Nottingham in 2021. Demand was so huge that queues formed outside on opening day, with all stock selling out for three days in a row. Options include alternatives to bacon, brisket, chicken thighs, pork belly, salami, and more. The store also offers cheeses, coffee, and a deli counter with sandwiches and baked goods.
Rudy’s Vegan Butcher
Rudy’s Vegan Butcheropened in London in 2020. Like Faux, it saw queues on opening day, with all stock sold out. The store offers sliced meats, ingredients for an English breakfast, burger patties, pulled pork, and more. Following extensive success in its first few months, Rudy’s opened asecond locationinside luxury department store Selfridges in 2021.
However idiomatic the concept of visiting a vegan butcher may sound, it seems to be working. As storefronts arise around the world, taking a meat-free approach to a traditionally meat-full business model, queues stretch out the doors, and deli cases run empty. As it turns out, vegans also enjoy the experience of visiting a specialty butcher, even if the meats are mocked.
Mock meats have a history that traces back to the Han Dynasty in China, where they were first eaten by Mayahana Buddhist monks. After making their way across Japan and Indonesia, mock meats were first brought to the West in the 1800s, when it was recommended by doctors to diabetics, and gained popularity in the US during the 19th century when the Christian denomination, the Seventh Day Adventists, promoted them.
What was then named seitan, a wheat gluten-based meat substitute, is still widely consumed today — only now, the mock meats trend has become even more experimental. The modern-day rise of vegan butcheries and their shelves of meat-less bacon, meatballs, and steaks has allowed a change of attitude toward plant-based eating: One that sees veganism as a lifestyle change that no longer has to compromise your favourite food.
History and key locations
The first plant-based butchery in history began with Jaap Korteweg, who opened his shop, The Vegetarian Butcher, in the heart of the Hague, South Holland, in 2010. Today, you can find their vegan meats on the menus of big retailers like Burger King, Dominos, and Starbucks locations across the U.K. Six years later, just across the pond, the first vegan butcher shop appeared in the U.S. — and no, it wasn't in Los Angeles or Portland, but in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city ranked 18th on Forbes' list of vegan cities.
Starting in Minneapolis, The Herbivorous Butcher pioneered the vegan butcher movement in North America in 2016 and was followed by the opening of The Very Good Butchers, another vegan butcher shop in Victoria, Canada, a year later. In the years since, dozens of plant-based butchers have opened in cities from Yamchops in Toronto to Monks Meats in Brooklyn, and No Evil Foods in Asheville, North Carolina, to The Butcher's Son in Berkley, California.
What you'll find
There are a few differences when shopping at a vegan butcher — besides the obvious fact that the meat is made from plants, not animals. Like a typical butcher shop, vegan butchers have a range of selections, including ribs, chicken, salmon, or burger patties. There are seasoned and unseasoned options, seasonal grill kits, and artisanal vegan cheeses. However, when shopping for vegan meat, don't expect an exact replica of the animal meat.
When creating their plant-based cuts, vegan butchers look at animal meat as the "North Star," as the owner of Abbot's Butcher in California, Kerry Song, told USA Today. The goal is to recreate the flavour profiles, textures, mouthfeels, and smells associated with animal meat and make a vegan counterpart that stands up to traditional culinary processes and techniques. As Chris Kim, co-founder of Monks Meat, told USA Today, "Our flavour profiles are designed to work with different spices and traditions and our 'cuts' are meant to stand up to smoking, grilling, braising, stewing, brining, etc."
Therefore, shopping for meat at a vegan butcher varies from a traditional one because you shouldn't base your preference on the cut of the meat — as those don't exist. Instead, what tastes good depends on the butcher's process. For example, The Herbivorous Butcher in Minnesota is best known for the Korean ribs and Italian sausages (via The Beet), while The Butcher's Son in Berkley's top-selling item is chicken, and Yamchops in Toronto is famous for their lox.
Ask the butcher or butcheress
One thing that is the same when shopping at a vegan butcher is the community feeling you get from shopping at a small, artisanal deli. In this way, you can get to know your local vegan butcher or butcheress by asking them questions about themselves or even how they became a vegan butcher in the first place — FYI, they were most likely meat eaters at one point in their lives. But it's also helpful to speak to them and get some tips on the cooking methods for each vegan selection.
For instance, when barbecuing with vegan meat, Kale Walch, an owner of The Herbivorous Butcher, recommends that you "either implement a low-and-slow or hot-and-fast strategy". While most vegan meats work fabulously on a grill, vegan chicken is known for being delicate and could easily fall apart if not treated correctly. Other notes, like the fact that vegan meat requires a touch more cooking oil, also come in handy — especially if you're a vegan meat newbie.
Vegan butcher shops are becoming increasingly popular, with shops opening in Chicago, Minneapolis, and the UK among other places.
Most recently, France decided to get in on the trend and has opened its very first vegan butcher counter! The vegan butcher shop will be opened in a corner of the supermarket chainCarrefourand will feature vegan options mechanized in a butcher shop-style manner.
The products for the shop will be supplied by Unilever's Dutch vegan meat brand, The Vegetarian Butcher.
The Very Good Butchers’ second vegan butcher shop location will offer a retail and restaurant space in one
On October 6, Canadian vegan meat company The Very Good Butchers (VGB) will open a second plant-based butcher shop in downtown Victoria, BC. The shop will serve as a restaurant, vegan butcher shop, and retail space, offering sit-in and patio dining with brunch, lunch, dinner, bar, and bakery menus as well as a deli case so consumers can purchase vegan deli-style meats to eat at home. The new shop opening is just the beginning for the brand as they’re on a mission to expand across North America.
Created by VGB chef and co-founder James Davison, the butcher shop’s restaurant menu will feature dishes made with the brand’s plant-based meats as well as vegan fish and chips, charcuterie boards, bakery items, and a bar menu with beer and wine. The shop’s deli case will feature VGB’s full product line, including its newest Butcher’s Select line of products such as MMM…Meatballs, Flippin’ Good Burger, Cajun Sausage, Bratwurst Sausage, and Breakfast Sausage.
“Our goal has always been to make plant-based eating as easy and accessible as possible, and we realized the need for a sit-down restaurant with delicious vegan dishes,” VBG Co-founder and CEO Mitchell Scott said in a statement. “As more and more people are turning to plant-based foods, we’re excited to continue growing and opening more butcher shops and restaurants across North America. With our outdoor patio and the ability to serve an extended beverage menu including beer and wine, we’re hopeful our new butcher shop will become a local favourite.”
Vegan butcher shop takeover
VGB launched in 2016 as a provider of handcrafted vegan cheese and meats made with whole food ingredients such as beans, grains, vegetables, and spices, and sold its products at local farmers markets before opening a storefront in Victoria. The company quickly expanded its offerings to include plant-based burgers, hot dogs, pepperoni, bacon, and steaks through various Canadian retailers and grew into a larger location at the Victoria Public Market.
In 2018, the company appeared on Canadian investment reality show Dragon'sDen, where Davison and Scott pitched their business to six dragons (investors) and served them an all-vegan Christmas dinner featuring their meatless products, such as Glaze Roast Beast, Bacon-Wrapped Cocktail Bangers, Truffled Mac, Brussels sprouts with maple and bacon, and a charcuterie board with Grilled Smokin’ Sausage, Pepperoni, and Bangers in Blankets.
The Very Good Butchers go public
Last year, VGB’s parent company, The Very Good Food Company Inc, began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker “VERY,” and within days its stock skyrocketed by 800 percent. By the end of 2020, the company reported a spike in sales of 582 percent—due to a 1,686-percent increase in orders year-over-year—compared to sales it recorded the previous year.
Building on its success as a publicly traded company, VGB built out a new Vancouver production facility earlier this year to increase production capacity by 2,690 percent with 37 million pounds of product expected for 2021. The company also recently signed a US distribution agreement with wholesale distributor United Natural Foods to boost its presence in the United States.
“Our growth is guided by our simple mission, which is lofty, badass but beautifully simple: Get millions to rethink their food choices while helping them do the world a world of good,” Scott said. “And we are doing this by offering plant-based food options [that are] so delicious and nutritious; we’re helping this kind of diet become the norm.”
This shop is serving Western New York’s Jewish community with plant-based meats!
A new certified kosher and vegan butcher shop has opened in Rochester, New York. The shop, Grass Fed, serves products like slab bacon, savoury breakfast sausage, beer brats, and chicken cutlets—all made entirely from plants! The owners, husband-and-wife duo Rob Nipe and Nora Rubel, decided to set up shop just a few blocks away from an Orthodox synagogue, as a way to introduce the Jewish community to vegan meats that serve as alternatives to animal-based counterparts that they normally abstain from.
Photo credit: Shira Hanau
Making Meat from Plants
Nipe and Rubel have been vegan for six years. The idea for a vegan butcher shop was born when Nipe, who formerly worked as an analyst for American Red Cross, began to experiment with making meat from plants. After perfecting his recipe for tofu eggs and Philly cheesesteak, both Nipe and Rubel decided to share their plant-based recipes with the community by opening their own vegan business. While Nipe now works as a full-time butcher at Grass Fed, Nobel still attends to her job as a Jewish studies professor at the University of Rochester, and works part-time at the shop.
A Certified Kosher Vegan Butcher Shop
Grass Fed is a certified kosher vegan butcher shop, which means that the restaurant only uses ingredients that adhere to the dietary standards of traditional Jewish law. In order to maintain Grass Fed’s kosher certification, Rabbi Avi Kilimnick, who serves as the rabbi at the shop’s neighbouring synagogue—Congregation Beth Sholom—supervises the restaurant.
The Grass Fed Menu
Grass Fed offers a rotating weekly menu that features a variety of vegan meats such as slab bacon, beer brats, savoury breakfast sausage, and chicken cutlets. In addition, the butcher shop also serves deli slices like bologna, corned beef, ham, turkey, and pastrami, as well as freshly made sriracha-lime cheese balls.
There are several sights and smells that you associate with a butcher’s shop. The white tiled walls, glass display cabinets and chalk board displays are equally present at Rudy’s – the only thing missing is meat
Rudy’s Vegan Butcher opened in the North London borough of Islington in 2020, alongside its vegan diner next door, which serves everything from Dirty Dogz (made from seitan) to Pulled Porc.
“We started seeing a big interest from customers as to what was inside the burgers and sandwiches – people asking, ‘Oh, do you sell them in the store?’” explained Danai Davatzis, Community Manager at Rudy’s Vegan.
“So, something started working in the back of our minds – there was an interest. People really want to do this at home. With the whole pandemic, it just made total sense for people to be able to buy the pastrami, buy the Baycon, buy the Ribz and be able to cook them at home.
“Initially, we came up with some DIY kits to gauge their success with customers. Then, when we saw the response, we were confident it was something that people would enjoy long term.”
An immediate contradiction
Many of you will have read the words “vegan” and “butcher” alongside each other and had to take a second look. You’d be forgiven too, as the term is an immediate contradiction. The English term “Butcher’s”, or perhaps more accurately “Butcher’s Shop”, is exactly that. It’s a place where someone skilled in the art of butchering animal carcasses prepares and sells meat. The term would be no less confusing in Spanish (‘carnicería’) or German (‘metzgerei’) – both translating roughly to a ‘meatery’. The name of a premises where meat is prepared and sold seems fairly fixed.
As Davatzis admitted, naming Rudy’s Vegan Butcher’s as such was a risk – but is it paying off? “It was a courageous jump because the name Vegan Butcher can work really well, but it can also work against the odds because it’s a butcher – but it’s not a butcher! So, I think we took the brave step of trying and then if it didn’t work, it didn’t work. But it is working. People are loving it and they have a really good reaction to it,” she said.
Rudy's opened in Islington in 2020
The contradictions don’t end with the sign above the door either. Take one step inside Rudy’s and you could well be inside a traditional butcher’s. The white tiling is familiar, as are the wooden chopping boards behind the glass-fronted display counter where the wholly vegan products are laid out just as they might be at nearby Smithfield market.
But all of that is deliberate, as Davatzis explained. “We’re bringing you an experience. When you walk through the door, we want you to feel like becoming vegan doesn’t mean that you need to give up your rituals of visiting the grocery stores. You can still have that experience without harming any animals, reducing your carbon footprint and helping the planet. We’re all human. We all want to carry on with our rituals. So, the reason we call it the Vegan Butcher is because we wanted to keep it as an experience.
“We know that some people are going to ask ‘why call it a butcher’s?’. But we’re not harming any animals – it’s just the name. We could have called it a Vegan Deli. It’s just the name – we like it and we hope many others will like it as well. Once you explain that it’s about giving options, people understand,” she added.
Who to aim for?
That word ‘options’ is perhaps the most crucial aspect to the Rudys story. If we want people to switch out their bacon sandwich for a Baycon sandwich, it befits the cause to offer a wide variety of options. It strikes some as odd that plant-based alternatives exist at all – a common question being ‘why would you want to eat a product that looks like bacon if you are opposed to the slaughtering of pigs?’.
This may be true for some consumers, but for many the option to partake in a barbecue with friends with similar-looking food (a concept which could explain the growth in low and no alcoholic beverages), or switch out some breakfast favourites for familiar-looking plant-based alternatives, is important.
“The reason we create products that mimic the appearance of meat is because it might make that step from meat eater to non-meat eater easier,” explained Davatzis.
“For example, we had a very interesting response with the barbecue box, because we took some pictures of the ribs on the grill, but there were some people that almost unfollowed us on social media before they realised it was all vegan! That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. We’re recreating something that doesn’t do any harm, and tastes really freaking good!”
Aiming for both steadfast vegans, as well as flexitarians and even firm meat eaters wanting to try something different, is clearly important to Rudy’s as a business. “I think people feel intimidated entering the vegan community,” said Davatzis.
“It’s a very sensitive entrance, because when you’re vegan, you’re so aware of certain things that are happening; you’re aware of what goes in your body. You’re aware of why becoming vegan is such an impactful choice.
“But I think also, being on the other side of the spectrum, it can be intimidating because people think they will have to learn so much information. For example, when I first became vegan, I remember that I had to switch from certain cereals to other cereals because they contain honey and I didn’t think it through.
“We’re giving you the tools to understand what’s vegan, and what’s not. We’re giving you the tools to take this move slowly. It doesn’t have to be so aggressive and everyone needs to feel welcomed. And that’s why, well, we don’t want to restrict our community to just vegans. We want to be able to welcome people that may not be vegan, but want to try vegan today and be surprised. Maybe it just flicks a switch in your brain to think ‘I can do this in the long run’.”
The chance for everyone to join in at a barbecue is something Rudy’s is looking to offer
Learning from the community
A criticism levelled at many plant-based alternatives, including by this writer, is cost. For many families, buying plant-based alternatives for five or six mouths is not always feasible – an issue we discussed at length in one of our recent episodes of Food to Go. Of course, pricing plant-based products is always tricky when the consumer base is much smaller than that of its meaty counterparts. Put simply, if more people buy vegan sausages, they will get cheaper.
It’s an issue that Rudy’s was all too aware of, and Davatzis explained that the business would be looking to its community for feedback on aspects such as price. “Obviously, we’re very new,” she explained, “so we’re still trying to figure out how to price things while keeping them accessible.
“Using all-natural products can be a little more expensive. We’re still trying to find out what the market is demanding and what they are willing to spend.
“As a community manager, I’m always working side-by-side with our team to tell them about the response from our followers or the website.“If our community, at some point, says ‘this is very expensive’, then we will have a look and see what we can do to change that and make it better.”
One-off gimmick or here to stay?
There will be many that see Rudy’s Vegan Butcher’s as a gimmick – a one off that may do well because of that very fact, but is unlikely to set a trend.
The jury is still out on this, yet its recent expansion into world-famous department store Selfridges suggests there is an appetite for what Rudy’s is offering. If we are to reduce our reliance on meat, then it is imperative to entice meat eaters to try something new and, most importantly, plant-based. If familiarity is the key to achieving that, then clearly Rudy’s is on to something.
The choice for a completely meat-free retailer to adopt the characteristics of a shop that has sold meat for decades, maybe even centuries, will probably continue to be questioned. It’s an interesting sensory experience that sets it apart from competitors. The reaction of the butchery sector will be interesting – particularly if Rudy’s inspires the emergence of other vegan butchers’ – as it may claim the unfair use of a name associated with a well-respected historic trade.
Ultimately though it’s unlikely to harm the trade of traditional butcher’s shops, which will continue to provide their expertise and skill for those shopping for a Sunday joint of beef. But what if the familiarity of both the shopping experience and the products on sale inspires a few more people to give plant-based a go? Is that such a bad thing?
Rudy's Vegan Butchers is the latest addition to Selfridges as the vegan business opens its second location in London
Vegan steak at Selfridges? That’s right, Rudy’s Vegan Butcher is moving in!
Rudy’s made waves when it opened its first location in London last year, selling out on the first day after serving a never-ending queue.
Now, the iconic vegan butcher shop has opened in Selfridges’ flagship store on Oxford Street.
This is a huge step up for Rudy’s and presents the business with the opportunity to appeal to a whole new audience.
The plant-based meat producer is now serving up vegan meats in the store’s famous food hall, with a range of charcuterie including Pastrami, Salami, and Mortadella, and meaty classics such as Meatballs, Ribz, Burgers and Baycon.
At the deli, you can also find specials such as the Pie of the Day, Rudy’s famous Ruben’z, Mac & Cheeze, and a Veatball Sub.
‘A new step’
Announcing the news on Instagram, Rudy’s wrote: “We are so excited for this new step and we can’t wait for you to visit us and see all the surprises we have for you!”
This is certainly a big step for the vegan butcher, and their success demonstrates the huge demand for vegan meat alternatives in the UK.
In fact, a vegan butcher in Nottingham received the same level of enthusiasm for its products upon opening in March this year.
Named Faux, the vegan butcher shop wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming demand and sold out for three consecutive days.
‘The bigger picture of veganism’
Speaking to Vegconomist, Rudy’s founder Ruth Mumma explained:
“Our aim has always been to start a conversation about the bigger picture of veganism, as well as get customers excited for Rudy’s. Our concept and our food is both a celebration and education of all things vegan.”
People queue for an hour for ‘cuts’ at the latest start-ups – and now supermarkets are opening meat-free counters
Ritchie Stainsby has spent most of the past week in the kitchen making as much vegan meat as possible to satisfy the hordes of customers who have flocked to the vegan butcher he opened earlier this month.
Faux, in Nottingham, has already seen hour-long queues of customers outside its premises and has been struggling to keep up with demand. It has sold out every day last week.
“It’s blown us away,” said Stainsby, Faux’s director and chef, of his first few days of trading. “We couldn’t tackle the demand – it was amazing. We’re used to cooking for big scale, but this was bordering on factory production. It was very intense.”
Faux, based in Sherwood, north of Nottingham city centre, is the second permanent vegan butcher to have opened in the UK in the last six months. On offer is a range of 12 to 15 products, including plant-based alternatives to bacon, brisket, chicken thighs, pork belly, meatballs and more.
Everything is made by Stainsby and a small team of chefs who use flour, pea proteins, soy proteins, raw vegetables, tapioca, potato starches and grains as some of the core ingredients. Faux follows Rudy’s Vegan Butcher, which started business in Islington, London, in November last year. Like Faux, it was started by a team behind an existing vegan restaurant who make their own products. Rudy’s specialises in vegan versions of American diner food.
Some of Rudy’s products on display. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images
They, too, have experienced high demand. “We are so overwhelmed at how people have responded to our vegan meat,” said its operations manager, Max Patel. “We had a sell-out launch day and, since then, we have been selling out online and in store constantly.”
Asda, meanwhile, is trialling a supermarket vegan butcher counter – Veelicious – for six months in its Watford store. It opened in January, to coincide with Veganuary, and sells “facon”, bean burgers and meat-free meatballs, as well as jackfruit wings and mock lamb. The supermarket said the vegan butcher counter was launched in response to an increase in online searches for “vegan” on Asda’s website of 175% year on year. It has also added 22 new meat-free alternatives to its Plant Based range.
Francine Jordan, PR officer for the Vegan Society, thinks this is the start of a new trend of vegan butchers appearing on high streets across the UK. She said: “I think we’re going to see more and more of these popping up … I think this will be the next thing.”
She added: “The vegan butchers offer something that wasn’t there before. You can buy frozen vegan burgers and hotdogs but there wasn’t an element of going into a shop like a butcher’s and picking out what you wanted to eat that night for dinner.”
The early success of Rudy’s and Faux during a pandemic suggests demand exists and is growing. A report by the Smart Protein Project stated that the sales value of plant-based meat in the UK increased 63% between 2018 and 2020.
Sign-ups for the Veganuary campaign – where people eat vegan for the month of January – hit record highs in 2021, with nearly 600,000 people taking part. By comparison, there were 400,000 participants in 2020. And the number of vegans in Britain quadrupled between 2014 and 2019, according to surveys carried out by Ipsos Mori and commissioned by the Vegan Society. In 2019, there were 600,000 vegans, or 1.16% of the population. That number is expected to grow, said Jordan.
It’s not just vegans who are buying plant-based products, however. Back at Faux in Nottingham, Stainsby believes a proportion of his customers are meat-eaters wanting to try something different, or reduce their meat and dairy intake for environmental or health reasons. A survey conducted by the Vegan Society last year found that one in five Brits cut down on meat consumption during the pandemic.
Along the same street in Sherwood, Johnny Pusztai, who runs the Snobby Butcher, which won an Observer Food Monthly Award in 2011, has noticed the long queues outside Faux.
He is a bit puzzled by the concept of a vegan butcher. “I think everyone has a right to be somewhere, so it’s not for me to judge what they’re doing. However, why would you call them vegan butchers?” he asked. “At the end of the day, they’re doing vegetables … I don’t know where the butchering term comes into it.”
He said his customers have “been tickled by it” but that he admired and appreciated a new business that might bring more customers to the area. “They’ve obviously connected into a niche market, which is definitely growing. Saying that, we’ve never been so busy,” he said.
Not all feedback has been positive. Stainsby said: “We’ve had the usual trolls online saying, “Are you a greengrocers, is it just going to be a load of fresh fruit and veg?” We try and ignore that as much as we can. It does get you down when you’ve put a vast amount of time and money and effort into a new product.
“It is strange for people, it’s alien. I do understand it.”
But no one thinks negative perceptions are going to stop a possible tide of vegan butchers in future. Rudy’s has plans to expand, as does Stainsby who thinks more vegan butchers will appear. “If you look at it on a commercial level,” he said, “there’s an enormous demand. Based on that notion alone, I believe more and more will pop up.”
When vegan butcher Faux opened its doors for the first time last week, it wasn’t prepared for the demand. Queues formed outside the store in Nottingham, UK, with customers eager to sample its plant-based meats.
The rise of vegan butchers
Plant-based butchers are an increasingly popular concept around Europe and the US. In the UK, Rudy’s Vegan Butcher — London’s first plant-based butcher — had to move to a new kitchen within a few months of opening to keep up with demand. America’s first vegan butcher, The Herbivorous Butcher, recently won a court dispute against Nestle and announced the opening of a new vegan chicken shop, Herbie Butcher’s Fried Chicken.
In Canada, Plant&Co announced plans to franchise newly acquired vegan butcher shop YamChops across North America, and The Very Good Butchers continue to go from strength to strength, following the phenomenal stock market launch, and has acquired a vegan cheese company which will soon re-launch as The Very Good Cheese Company.
Faux offers plant-based alternatives to bacon, brisket, chicken thighs, pork belly, salami, and more. It also has cheeses, coffee, and a deli counter with sandwiches and baked goods. By the end of its opening day, Faux had completely sold out of all products. By the following day, it had restocked, only to sell out again — and then a third time the day after.
“Thank you so much so everyone who waited in the queue today, we have been overwhelmed by your love and support,” Faux said on Instagram after selling out for the second time. “We will be stocked up again tomorrow ready for you!”
