Have we reached peak veganism? The future feels flexitarian

High prices and health fears about ultra-processed food are turning many Britons off plant-based 'meat'. But perhaps we have just come to prefer a more flexible diet, writes Rachael Healy

- Rachael Healy

After years of growth in the number of people calling themselves vegan and a boom in products and restaurants catering for them, some are shutting down, others are putting meat back on the menu, and the proportion of vegans in the UK has plateaued at 2%.

So what?

This could be peak veganism. If so, that would be good for the meat and dairy industries but bad for the environment. A 2023 study by researchers at Oxford University found that switching to a vegan diet from one that included more than 100g of meat per day would cut per capita climate-heating emissions by 75%, wildlife destruction by 66%, and water use by 54%.

Veganomics

In 2022 people consumed less meat than at any point since official UK records began in 1974. Meat is pricey and the cost-of-living crisis was thought to be a contributing factor.

Blame Putin, then? The Ukraine war was certainly behind the food price spike that year.

Vegans have tended to be better off than average in the US, but not in the UK. A 2022 YouGov poll found there were nearly twice as many American vegans earning double the median income as in the general population, whereas British vegans were over-represented in lower-income groups.

Tracking the trend

In 2006 there were only about 150,000 vegans in the UK. By 2018 this had increased fourfold, according to the Vegan Society. By the start of this year, that had more than tripled again to two million.

And yet...