Food manufacturers, supermarket retailers, and foodservice operators continue to step up their plant-based offerings. UK branch of animal welfare charity PETA highlights some of the most ‘exciting’ and ‘new’ vegan products in its 2020 Vegan Food Awards. Scroll through the gallery to see who took out this year’s best fish, sausage, chicken, and dairy alternatives.
Image source: Pret A Manger
Food manufacturers, supermarket retailers, and foodservice operators continue to step up their plant-based offerings. UK branch of animal welfare charity PETA highlights some of the most ‘exciting’ and ‘new’ vegan products in its 2020 Vegan Food Awards. Scroll through the gallery to see who took out this year’s best fish, sausage, chicken, and dairy alternatives.
Image source: Pret A Manger
This year, the winner for the best meat alternative has gone to Meatless Farm for its Meat Free Mince.
The ‘new and improved’ recipe is ‘packed full of taste and texture’, according to the UK-based firm. The product is made from pea, soya and rice protein, alongside chicory root fibre, vegetable extracts and carrot concentrate.
It is high in protein, provides a source of fibre, and is both wheat- and gluten-free.
According to Meatless Farm, the plant-based mince helps consumers reduce their meat intake. “Our meat-free mince looks, cooks and tastes like beef mince, making it simple to swap into your favourite family recipes,” it noted.
The company has since followed up with its first entry into the frozen foods category: Frozen Free-Flow Mince. Made from the same recipe as its fresh mince alternative, the launch responds to growing demand for frozen food, said Meatless Farm’s chief growth officer Michael Hunter.
“Frozen food is having a real resurgence, with sales up over 19% year-on-year. Heightened by lockdown, increasingly more people are recognising the value in its long shelf-life and reduced food wastage. We’re bringing to market a frozen product that meets consumers demand from a sustainability, convenience and nutrition point of view.”
Image source: Meatless Farm
In 2019, Kerry Foods-owned Richmond made its first foray into the meat-free space. Now, one year on, the brand’s Meat-Free Sausages have been awarded PETA’s best vegan sausage award.
The sausages are made from soya-based protein and contain 57.5kcal per sausage.
The move into plant-based marks a deliberate attempt to cater to growing consumer needs – including those wanting to moderate their meat consumption and wanting more choice.
“Increasingly, consumers are looking for a broader range of options to choose from, and this includes alternatives to meat,” said Kerry Foods’ director Dawn Spencer at the time of launch.
“Richmond is one of Kerry Foods’ longest-standing brands, but we’re constantly looking for ways to innovate and meet the demands of consumers.”
Image source: Kerry Foods
A fast food chain and a restaurant have taken out the awards for best vegan chicken, and fish alternatives, respectively.
KFC’s chicken alternative, the Original Recipe Vegan Burger, is made by Quorn Foods. KFC then coats the patty in its 11 Herbs and Spices mix, before serving it in a sesame bun with lettuce and vegan mayonnaise.
The burger contains 450kcal, with an impressive 18.47g protein. On the fat, sugar, and salt side of things, the burger contains 18.7g fat, 5.7g sugar, and 2.91g salt.
Another prize-winning chicken alternative comes from Pukka, which sells a Vegan Chicken & Mushroom Pie. Soy protein vegan ‘chicken’ pieces are encased in puff pastry, alongside sliced mushrooms and a savoury vegan creamy sauce. The product is approved by The Vegetarian Society.
Forgan’s Broughty Ferry restaurant, located in Dundee, Scotland, serves up the best fish alternative, according to PETA. The ‘Battered Vegan’ is coated in beer batter and served with thick-cut chips, tartare sauce, lemon, and crushed peas.
Image source: KFC
It’s no longer all meat-free burgers and vegan sausages. Dairy alternatives are well and truly making their mark on the plant-based space.
In the vegan cheese category, PETA awarded its 2020 award to Violife Epic Mature Cheddar – which it describes as ‘a superb vegan take on mature Cheddar’.
For Violife, the product – made from ingredients such as coconut oil, ground sunflower kernels, and olive extract – performs well on taste, crumble, mouthfeel, packaging, and melt. Its ‘next generation’ dairy-free block is ‘closest to the real thing ever made’, noted the company.
A newcomer has been awarded the best vegan milk prize: Mighty Pea’s Pea M.lk Original.
The product is made from yellow split pea protein, with other ingredients including grape juice concentrate, sunflower oil, and tapioca starch. One glass contains 8g plant protein, and an impressive 50% more calcium that cow’s milk. It is also free from dairy, nuts and soya.
Another dairy alternative, Oatly’s Chocolate Fudge vegan ice cream, has come away with one of PETA’s awards.
Oatly is upfront about the product’s nutritional profile. “It could be said that this ice cream breaks all our own records for ‘unhealthiness’, imbalance and general reckless abandon,” it notes. “But hello. If you are going to have ice cream, why not do it properly?”
The products ingredients list include oats, coconut and rapeseed oils, UTZ-certified cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and 10% vanilla fudge.
Although not strictly dairy, it is worth mentioning that in Nando’s was awarded the best vegan mayonnaise award this year, for tis Vegan PERinaise. Its ingredients list includes rapeseed oil, vinegar, African Birds Eye chilli, paprika, potato protein, green chillis, and rosemary extract.
Nando’s claims the product has the ‘creaminess of mayonnaise’ alongside the ‘spiciness of PERi-PERi’. “Use it as a slightly spicy dip for chips and crisps, or give a creamy bit to sandwiches and salads,” it advises.
Three supermarket retailers have walked away with awards from the animal welfare charity: Tesco, the Co-op, and Aldi.
Tesco, according to PETA, has the best range of vegan offerings in its Plant Chef line. Launching around this time last year, the range was developed to bring ‘affordable’ plant-based foods to shoppers.
The range includes plant-based ‘family favourites’, including Battered Fish-Free Fillets made from soy in tempura batter, and Mushroom Pizza.
At the time, head of plant-based innovation at Tesco, Derek Sarno, told FoodNavigator the launch responded to a gap in the supermarket’s own-branded offering following the launch of its successful Wicked Kitchen line.
“While developing Wicked Kitchen, there was a clear opportunity to be working on another line that would be focused on more affordable more familiar dishes.” Sarno added that Plant Chef should make it ‘easier than ever’ to make ‘better choices’.
Co-op is another retailer pushing boundaries in plant-based. The supermarket announced the launch of a new own-brand range, GRO, at the beginning of the year, with the ‘busy’ and ‘on-the-go’ shopper in mind.
The retailer won PETA’s best vegan burger award with The Incredible Burger. For the animal welfare campaigner, the products is ‘win, win win’: “It’s delicious, high in protein, and kind to cows.”
The best vegan ready meal has also been awarded to a supermarket retailer – in this case, Aldi. The company’s Plant Menu No Chicken Masala contains vegan chicken-style pieces that have been cooked in a ‘slightly spiced, aromatic masala sauce’ with brown rice.
Image source: Tesco
For PETA, the best vegan pizza, pasty, and sandwich all come from the foodservice sector.
Papa John’s has won the award for the best vegan pizza for its plant-based offering The Vegan Works. The pizza is ‘loaded’ with vegan sausage, slices of jackfruit ‘pepperoni’, mushrooms, peppers, onions, olives, tomato sauce, and vegan cheese.
The best vegan sandwich awarded has gone to Subway for its Meatless Meatball Marinara – which champions the chain’s vegan meatballs and marinara sauce, together with vegan cheese.
Unsurprisingly, the award for the best vegan pasty goes to the very popular Greggs Vegan Steak Bake. The product – made up of 96 layers of puff pastry filled with Quorn pieces, diced onions, and a gravy filling – was launched in January this year, following the successful launch of Greggs’ vegan sausage roll in 2019.
Image source: Greggs
Where to start? A swathe of innovations in plant-based eating have been rewarded by PETA this year in categories from chocolate to pastry and doughnuts.
The best vegan chocolate award for 2020, according to PETA, goes to Moo Free’s Cinder Toffee bars. Made from organic cocoa sourced from the San Francisco de Macois area of Dominican Republic, the chocolate is mixed with honeycomb toffee in Moo Free’s dedicated free-from factories.
The award for the best vegan cake goes to OGGS’ Victoria Sponge Cakes, which are filled with raspberry jam and covered with vanilla-flavoured frosting. The cakes are made with aquafaba instead of eggs.
And Pret A Manger has taken home two awards in the sweets category, one for the best vegan pastry (Very Berry Croissant) and the other for the best vegan cookies (Dark Chocolate & Almond Butter Cookie).
The former is made from flaky pastry with layers of berry jam, and sprinkled with sugar crystals. Instead of butter, Pret uses shea butter and sunflower oil.
The vegan cookie is ‘enriched with almond butter’ and sprinkled with sea salt. Its ingredients list also includes coconut oil, golden syrup, cocoa powder, dark chocolate pieces, and almonds.
The full list of winners of PETA’s 2020 Vegan Food Awards:
Best vegan meat: Meatless Farm, Meat Free Mince
Best vegan chicken: KFC, Original Recipe Vegan Burger
Best vegan sausage: Richmond, Meat-Free Sausages
Best vegan cheese: Violife, Epic Mature Cheddar Flavour
Best vegan mayo: Nando’s, Vegan PERinaise
Best vegan milk: Mighty Pea, M.lk Original
Best vegan burger: Co-op GRO, The Incredible Burger
Best vegan fish: Forgan’s Broughty Ferry, Beer’s Battered Vegan
Best vegan ready meal: Aldi Plant Menu, No Chicken Masala
Best vegan pizza: Papa John’s, The Vegan Works
Best vegan pasty: Greggs, Vegan Steak Bake
Best vegan pie: Pukka, Vegan Chicken & Mushroom Pie
Best vegan sandwich: Subway, Meatless Meatball Marinara
Best vegan mac & cheese: Eat of Eden, Macaroni pie
Best vegan chocolate: Moo Free, Cinder Toffee
Best vegan cookie: Pret A Manger, Dark Chocolate & Almond Butter Cookie
Best vegan cake: OGGS, Victoria Sponge Cakes
Best vegan doughnuts: Considerit
Best vegan dessert: Caffè Nero, Salted Caramel and Chocolate Vegan Cheesecake
Best vegan ice cream: Oatly, Chocolate Fudge
Best vegan pastry: Pret A Manger, Very Berry Croissant
Best vegan range: Tesco, Plant Chef
Best vegan cookbook: Speedy BOSH! By Henry Firth and Ian Theasby
Best vegan luxury product: I AM NUT OK: Foiegeddaboutit Truffle & Mushroom Faux Gras Pâté
Image source: Pret A Manger
