April 27th, 2023, Lesley Simeon
Beyond Meat has expanded its range in Britain, and for the first time, launched its vegan chicken products with three chicken-style products - chicken burger patties, fillets and nuggets. While the brand’s ‘Burger Chicken-Style’ launched at select Waitrose outlets on 19 April 2023, all three items will make their way to select Sainsbury’s stores 3 May 2023 onwards.
We look at YouGov data to see how many Britons follow a vegan diet.
According to YouGov Profiles - which covers demographic, psychographic, attitudinal and behavioural consumer metrics - 66% of Britons are meat eaters. About 14% of them identify as flexitarians, 7% as vegetarian and 2% as vegans.
In addition to looking at their current eating habits, we also explore YouGov data to see which factors motivate Britons to adopt a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.
General health concerns, concerns over animal welfare and environmental reasons are some of the top factors encouraging the general population to adopt a vegan/vegetarian diet.
But when we look at motivation across age cohorts, we see significant proportions of consumers in each generation are not sure which factors might encourage them to adopt a vegan/vegetarian diet.
Among factors listed, prime motivations to potentially adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet differ across generation. For instance, around a third (31%) of Gen Z in Great Britain say concerns over health risks related to meat/fish production like bacterial infections might motivate them to go vegan or vegetarian. This is followed by environmental reasons (26%) - a factor that might motivate 23% of Millennials to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet as well. For 20% of Millennials, vegan or vegetarian food option are a way to eat more cheaply.
For slightly older generations, health concerns are an important factor - 22% of Gen X, 27% of Baby Boomers and 18% of the Silent Generation say general health concerns could encourage them to go vegan or vegetarian, followed by concerns over animal welfare (20%, 18% and 18% respectively).
Along with looking at what could motivate Britons across generations to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet, we also explore Profiles data to see what might motivate men and women in the UK.
Data also shows that 24% of women in the UK cite concerns over animal welfare and another 24% consider general health concerns as factors encouraging a vegan/vegetarian diet. In comparison, 17% and 19% of men would consider similar reasons respectively.
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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for Great Britain is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.
Photo by Beyond Meat on Unsplash