Added to this, because it is a capital-intensive industry requiring expensive technical equipment like bioreactors, lab-grown meat is likely to be dominated by big companies, like JBS. This means a further concentration of power in the hands of a few companies.

Made from fava beans, these do not require cooking. They have a strong curry flavour and are very similar to real fridge raiders. The vegetarians liked them as they weren't “challenging”. States its soya is sourced from France, North America and China and is not grown at the expense of rainforests 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. 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 productsBeyond burgers are made from peas and brown rice. Coconut oil adds moisture, while beetroot, apple juice and pomegranate imitate the bleeding ooziness of red meat. They look and taste much like a real beef burger, with a vaguely beefy flavour and moist texture. My lifelong vegetarian daughter refused to try one, declaring: “I’m a veggie, get me out of here.” 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." 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. YouGov found that 88% of people were vegan for animal rights reasons, 79% for environmental reasons and 40% for health reasons. Corporate control threatens to undermine gains from reducing reliance on animals by replicating some of the problems of the traditional meat industry, including mass-produced, monocultured ingredients and energy-consuming methods.

Below we highlight how the brands score for issues such as palm oil, carbon reporting, workers' rights and tax avoidance. Made from wheat protein, these look like McNuggets but only the outside texture is like the real deal. Although they have almost no flavour, the vegetarians liked them. 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. Best Buys Our Best Buys don't use palm oil or South American soya, and are from vegan organic companies: Clearspot, Clearspring, Taifun, and Tofoo. Tofoo is available in supermarkets. Except for Taifun, they all cost around the same as big brands like Quorn and Birds Eye.Fish fingers, burgers, sausages, nuggets, meatballs, pies. Vegetable fingers and burgers which are not vegan.

I've often bought these. You can boil them or fry them, but I find boiling works better. They have a slightly rubbery texture and not much flavour, but the panel quite liked them. The development of meat analogues is a response to growing mainstream concerns about the harmful consequences of meat production and a wider interest in reducing meat consumption, particularly for environmental reasons. With 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 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.

Just 7% of soya is used directly for human food products such as the ones rated here, and the amount has increased minimally over time compared to soya processed for animal feed, which has risen sharply over the last 30 years with the global demand for meat – from 88 million tonnes in 1990 to 227 million tonnes in 2013. The environmental impact of meat analogues is not the only ethical issue. A review of literature on meat alternatives by the Nuffield Foundation considers the health implications of plant-based meats, pointing out that meat analogues may contain similar levels of calories and saturated fat to beef burgers, and may be high in sodium and sugar. Plus they may contain a whole list of other industrially produced ingredients. But there are concerns that it is energy intensive to grow, so may still have a significant climate impact unless sustainable energy is used. Others have said that it opens the door to lab-grown human meat and the moral dilemmas that that might invoke. And it is still using animals which many people may object to.

So meat alternatives, such as tofu, tempeh and other products in this guide, have a tiny impact compared to meat. Brazil and the soya moratorium We asked our readers whether they would eat lab-grown meat. Here's a selection of the replies, some have been edited for length. States its products use: "100% plant-based ingredients and sustainable soy" but does not name source countries Squeaky Bean is owned by Compleat, which also owns Bowyers, Wall’s and Pork Farms which all sell non-organic pork products. 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 vegetablesGosh! – Efanor Investimentos is a Portuguese investment group which owns food retail, clothing, electronics and telecoms companies. It bought Gosh! in 2021. Developed as a collaboration between London’s Saatchi & Saatchi and Japanese agency Dentsu, the campaign will aim to drive brand awareness in the young adult category (18 to 34 years-old.) This award-winning soy-based product was the most similar to meat in flavour, texture and even smell. If you had it in a carbonara, you wouldn't know the difference. 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. 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.