It’s the end of Veganuary, but food retailers need to support vegans all year round and not treat them like just another trend

January is often a month when we try new things, and attempt to abstain from old habits. It started with new year’s resolutions. Then people started to try “Dry January”, forgoing alcohol for the whole month to make up for overindulging at Christmas.

The concept has evolved, and now we have “Veganuary”, where people challenge themselves to live on a vegetarian or even completely vegan diet.

While you’ve probably heard of Veganuary in previous years, the movement has recently become a much bigger deal. It is far more noticeable this year – mainly because so many brands have suddenly decided to jump on the vegan bandwagon.

Pizza Hut and McDonalds added vegan options to their menus. Marks and Spencer launched Plant Kitchen, its range of vegan-friendly products.

And, of course, Gregg’s released that infamous vegan sausage roll which polarised social media.

Some welcomed the product. Others (notably ITV presenter Piers Morgan) were outraged by its very existence – Morgan’s decision to criticise it on national day-time television certainly helped to raise awareness and demand for the baked good. The controversy paid off for the bakery chain: its share price has risen almost a quarter since the beginning of the year.

Major brands are finally catering to the UK’s growing vegan population, which is certainly a good thing in terms of consumer choice, but why has it taken them so long? Or, to flip the question, why have so many brands decided that 2019 will be the year of the vegetable?

You have to wonder whether, with so many brands suddenly trying to capitalise on Veganuary, this has become simply a cynical marketing exercise, one that reduces veganism to just another consumer trend.

After all, veganism is more than just a dietary choice. It is a lifestyle and set of deeply-held beliefs. Look at the controversy around Waitrose last year, when the editor of its magazine, William Sitwell, jokingly told a freelance journalist that she should write about “killing vegans, one by one”. Sitwell had to quit his role, after the supermarket took a major PR hit.

In fact, it may soon be a crime to discriminate against vegans in this manner, as veganism is likely to become a protected characteristic like religion or sexual orientation.

An employment tribunal taking place in March will decide whether veganism is a “philosophical belief” protected by law, based on the case of Jordi Casamitjana, who claims that his employer dismissed him because he was a self-proclaimed “ethical vegan”. Somewhat ironically, he was employed by the League Against Cruel Sports – an animal welfare charity.

So does this explain why brands are jumping on the Veganuary bandwagon? Are they trying to widen their product range to avoid appearing to “discriminate” against their vegan customers?

Or is this a coldly commercial move? There are more vegans in the UK now than ever before – membership of the Vegan Society increased by 24 per cent from 2017 to 2018 – and many people are trying to reduce their meat and dairy consumption, increasing the demand for animal-free alternatives.

This is because veganism sits at the intersection of two growing trends, both of which are ripe with marketing opportunities: wellness, and environmentalism.

The wellness trend has grown massively in the last few years. Jessie Hewitson’s recent article in The Times exposed some of the ludicrous ways in which people are trying to live more healthily, from using so-called HumanChargers and measuring the pH levels of their urine, to eating “activated charcoal”.

Consumers are similarly more conscious about their environmental impact. Veganism is no longer just about animal welfare – many people likely tried Veganuary this month in order to try to reduce their carbon footprint.

But while veganism is generally considered to be a more environmentally sustainable diet – the Carbon Trust claims that Quorn meat-free mince has a carbon footprint up to 13 times lower than beef – one does wonder whether flying in avocados and exotic vegetables from overseas to cater for this audience is actually “greener” than selling locally-sourced meat.

And not only is the sustainability of this latest push for veganism up for question, consumers can’t be certain that this new range of products are even made in vegan conditions.

Look at what happened to Marks and Spencer when it jumped on the Veganuary bandwagon.

“M&S came under fire for having small print on its new vegan range saying ‘not suitable for milk or egg allergy sufferers’, because it is produced in factories which handle products containing animal derived allergens including egg and milk,” warns Amelia Boothman, director of brand and innovation strategy at agency 1HQ. “Some consumers took to social media to complain about the ‘misleading’ vegan labels.”

So it’s clear that trying to be trendy can backfire.

There is a risk that veganism is being reduced to yet another fad, one that even many celebrities are jumping on: musicians Jay-Z and Beyonce “challenged” their fans this month to go vegan for 22 days, and launched a website with meal plans and tips.

On the one hand, sure, they’re encouraging people to try veganism, but on the other, it’s yet another opportunity for them to grow their personal brand.

While I’m sure that many vegans and vegetarians will welcome the wider range of choices at their local restaurants and supermarkets, let’s not forget that, fundamentally, brands are trying to turn the ethics and morality of veganism into yet another commodity to sell – even if, as Gregg’s showed this month, it’s marketed by some very clever campaigns.

Food retailers are trying to guilt us into buying their products and market the Veganuary trend back to us.

All of us can admit that we’ve probably broken our new year’s resolutions soon after setting them. As we reach the end of Veganuary, perhaps brands should make another resolution to commit to supporting their vegan customers all year round – even if these new products stop selling after Veganuary ends.