There’s an interesting development from the supermarket Co-op which it says is now addressing the unfair price of vegan food.
The company has made a seven figure investment in the products in its Gro vegan range to bring them in line with their meat-based rivals.
In some instances this means slashing the price of sausages and burgers by as much as 50%.
The Co-op launched the Gro range in January 2019 and since then has offered a large and eclectic range of plant based products that includes; vegan curries, steak bakes and chick’n kievs.
The move addresses the anomaly of supermarkets trying to reduce their carbon footprint and helping their customers to do the same, but charging them extra over high carbon products to do this.
In the past some environmentalists have called for a meat tax to level prices up. Others have pinned their hopes on the scale of production that cultured (lab–grown) meat is said to be capable of achieving.
Eating plant-based food “shouldn’t cost you more money” said Jo Whitfield, the Co-op Food chief executive, of the move. “It’s an industry-wide standard that plant-based alternatives are usually priced higher than their meat and dairy counterparts … this disparity is unfair to those following vegetarian, vegan and flexitarian diets.”
According to market research firm Mintel Britons spent £549m on alt-meat burgers and sausages last year driven by the environmental benefits of eating less meat.
The reductions in the Gro range include vegan sausages down from £3 to £1.45 and the price of meat-free burgers slashed from £3.00 to £1.35. Meat-free mince is now £1.75 rather than £3.00. The reductions could save a family choosing vegan alternatives more than a hundred pounds a year, the Co-op said.
The supermarket unveiled some other innovations this week as it seeks to become carbon neutral within a decade,m These include switching its 200-strong home delivery fleet to electric vehicles and stopping selling plastic “bags for life.”
