Greggs beefs up its vegan range with launch of meat-free steak bake - CNN

In what is quickly emerging as something of a New Year's tradition, popular UK bakery chain Greggs has unveiled a vegan version of its much-loved steak bake.

And, in a perfectly proportional response, British consumers camped out in the cold to get a first taste.

Greggs' new offering uses Quorn pieces in place of meat, and includes diced onions and a gravy filling wrapped in 96 layers of puff pastry. Quorn is a meat substitute that gets its protein content from a fermented fungus.

The drive to expand Gregg's vegan range illustrates the growing clamor among the public for vegan foods, and efforts by big corporate chains to meet demand. A big part of the push is offering meat alternatives.

Barclays predicts the alternative meat sector could reach about $140 billion in sales over the next decade, capturing about 10% of the global meat industry, up from $14 billion currently.

Greggs' original steak bake is one of the most popular products at the main street chain, which has built something of a cult following among hungry Brits.

For those who couldn't wait, a Greggs store in Newcastle put on a preview on New Year's Day.

More than 100 people braved the chilly temperatures to be among the first to try the vegan steak bake on Wednesday night, the UK's PA Media news agency reports.

One customer tweeted that she was let into the store shortly after 10 p.m., before reviewing the bake as a thing of "beauty" and "grace."

The snack was widely rolled out in 1,300 stores on Thursday and will be available in another 700 in two weeks' time.

Why do Brits care so much about a vegan stake bake?

Greggs' vegan sausage roll was one of the company's best-selling new products of the last six years, the chain said.

The release of the vegan sausage roll last January helped boost the company's sales in the first six months of 2019 by 15% over the previous year.

"Our Vegan Sausage Roll launch was a huge success and we've been working tirelessly to expand our vegan friendly offering," Greggs' chief executive Roger Whiteside said in a press release.

"The launch of our Vegan Steak Bake is another key milestone on our journey to become our customers' favourite for food-on-the-go," he added.

The new snack was revealed with a flashy promotional video, hinting that it might just be "the greatest vegan creation ever."

The release coincides with the start of "Veganuary," during which thousands of people take up a vegan diet in January.

The nonprofit group of the same name, which promotes veganism, claims that a quarter of a million Brits pledged to ditch meat, eggs and dairy in January last year.

CNN Business' Danielle Wiener-Bronner contributed reporting.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Steak" - Google News
January 02, 2020 at 07:53PM
https://ift.tt/2SNYeoK

Greggs beefs up its vegan range with launch of meat-free steak bake - CNN
"Steak" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38fhwJ2
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Britain's Greggs follows vegan sausage roll success with meatless steak bake - Reuters

FILE PHOTO: A Greggs vegan sausage roll is pictured in Liverpool, Britain, July 30, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Greggs launched a vegan version of its popular steak bake on Thursday, aiming to capitalize on the success of the meatless sausage roll that has boosted the baker’s profits and helped fuel an 80% rise in its share price last year.

Greggs said the new product mirrored the original but used meat substitute Quorn instead of steak in its filling.

The launch, which was trailed on social media, comes a year after it introduced its vegan sausage roll, which it said was one of its fastest selling products of the last six years.

Chief Executive Roger Whiteside said: “Our Vegan Sausage Roll launch was a huge success and we’ve been working tirelessly to expand our vegan friendly offering and provide more delicious savory food on-the-go options for people looking to reduce their meat intake.”

A growing number of Britons are either reducing their consumption of meat or are cutting it out of their diets altogether.

Sales of red meat in Britain fell by 185 million pounds ($244 million) last year, although sales of poultry and fish increased slightly, according to The Grocer, which cited research by Nielsen.

Retailers and supermarkets are responding to the trend by introducing more vegan and vegetarian ranges and menu options.

Greggs said its vegan steak bake will cost from 1.55 pounds ($2.05), initially across 1,300 shops from Thursday and a further 700 on Jan. 16.

The company will update on Christmas trading on Jan. 8.

Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Steak" - Google News
January 02, 2020 at 06:49PM
https://ift.tt/36sK6FD

Britain's Greggs follows vegan sausage roll success with meatless steak bake - Reuters
"Steak" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38fhwJ2
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Greggs Vegan Steak Bake and KFC Vegan Burger Launch on Menus - Eater London

The decade starts not with a bang, but with a meat-free face off. Greggs and KFC both launch new vegan facsimiles of two popular products today: the legendary high street pastry-slinger in the steak bake corner; the American chicken giant with a chicken fillet burger. Both use a bespoke Quorn-branded mycoprotein for the filling; both have a numerical signature hook — KFC with the 11 herbs and spices; Greggs with 96 layers of pastry.

Engineered by some ferocious social media marketing, coveted product label sightings, and bankable consumer goodwill behind its vegan sausage roll, Greggs’ launch has all the fervour of a fashion drop, testament to the space it has engineered itself as a communal, accessible high street bakery that actually knows how to function online. Serving a £1.55 vegan pastry with such fanfare might appear nauseating, but this is the only high street bakery in the country to openly, noisily troll Piers Morgan. Afford some respect, even though it will have lost the glow of “firstness” its vegan sausage roll exuded.

KFC’s burger, meanwhile, didn’t launch with its full chest, but a product trial in one London store was enough to get The Imposter, which is its real name, to market. Comparing this approach to Greggs’ new hot item is an instructive route to understanding the two companies’ priorities. Both naming conventions are predicated on fealty to an existing product, but while Greggs emphasises difference and newness, KFC wants everyone to remember the thing being imitated: its chicken.

This is also a significant coup for Quorn, yer Da’s normcore meat substitute that faces an existential threat from VC-funded tech companies, with their hubristic names and ceaseless desire to publicly recycle their environmental credentials. With McDonald’s staking its claim on vegan dippers straight from the 1980s and Burger King waiting for Impossible Burger’s EU regulation like a ... Greggs stan waiting for its vegan steak bake ... the fast food industry reckoning with plant-based profitability that bubbled through 2019 looks set to define product strategy in 2020.

The kicker will be to what extent consumers weigh the environmental and moral valency of not eating meat against participating in a market whose existence is built on systemic exploitation of workers, animals, and laws in the name of profit, whose structural inequalities disenfranchise and marginalise communities that then turn to those companies, and their spaces, for essential, genuine refuge. As more and more food companies sow their moral credentials into 2020, it’s necessary to question what, and how they reap.

Sign up for the newsletter Eater London

Sign up for our newsletter.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Steak" - Google News
January 02, 2020 at 03:08PM
https://ift.tt/2FalGVa

Greggs Vegan Steak Bake and KFC Vegan Burger Launch on Menus - Eater London
"Steak" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38fhwJ2
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update