'Vegans lost the battle, but they won the war': The truth about the anti-vegan backlash

Cem Yildiz had to close his vegan restaurants. But he still thinks he’s won, in a way.

In September, Yildiz shut the last of his What the Pitta restaurants, which had served vegan kebabs for almost a decade, spanning Manchester, Brighton and London. As news of the closures spread on social media, it brought genuine sadness from customers.

But was What the Pitta the victim of the widely-heralded anti-vegan backlash?

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“Honestly, I think it’s very tough, if not impossible, to run a vegan-only fast casual restaurant nowadays. That said, many independents across hospitality are struggling too. Without more government support, our high streets risk becoming nothing but Prezzo and Nando’s,” Yildiz tells Big Issue.

“I think vegan restaurants still won in a bigger way. They might’ve lost the battle to stay in business, but they won the war by getting vegan food onto almost every menu in the country, and that can only be a good thing.”

Britain is back in love with meat, thanks to an anti-vegan backlash, one headline claimed this year. Vegans themselves are to blame, another said. Finally, it seemed, the preachy, self-righteous and – let’s be frank here – tediously left-wing vegans had found something they couldn’t turn into hummus: common sense.

The backlash was backed up by a mix of data and vibes. Miley Cyrus and Lizzo turned their backs on veganism. Bone broth and tallow became the key to wellness. Young people were eating more meat, it seemed. Yet Eating Better, the apparent source behind the Telegraph’s claims that young people were turning back to meat, followed up by saying meat eating has been on a consistent downward trend in the UK for more than a decade. Yes, 19% of 18-24-year-olds had started eating more meat – but how remarkable was that next to the 16% who cut down, or the 55% who were nugget-neutral? Another stat showed veganism apparently back to 2020 levels, though this was based on Google Trends data, which measures how much people are searching for something, rather than how much steak they are actually eating.

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But there is enough to give the anti-vegan backlash some credence. The UK has bucked a Europe-wide trend (along with the Netherlands) of seeing plant-based sales increase in 2024. In financial markets, stocks in Oatly and Beyond Meat have tanked, with weak consumer demand blamed. Veggie Pret shuffled off the scene. The backing of Lewis Hamilton and Leonardo DiCaprio couldn’t save Neat Burger.

“We built our business model before the pandemic, back when the vegan movement was booming,” Yildiz says. “Then Covid hit, and everything really changed. Lunch trade disappeared as people started working from home. Everyone jumped on delivery apps and competition exploded, which meant the biggest discount often won.”

As it became easier to find vegan products outside of specialist outlets, competition grew stiffer. “The big chains started taking their vegan options seriously too, which squeezed vegan-only businesses even more,” Yildiz says. “For us, the sites we picked just had too high operational costs. We had an amazing, loyal fan base but it wasn’t enough to sustain us.”

Not all vegan restaurants are suffering, however. Ross Mundy set up The Hogless Roast just before the pandemic, and believes lockdown came just as veganism was growing and businesses were expanding. He frames the ‘backlash’ more as hype settling down.

“Industry bubbles, they don’t necessarily burst, but they find the natural equilibrium,” Mundy tells Big Issue. “I’ve seen a lot of vegan restaurants close recently, I do think the industry has been hit hard. But for us personally, our sales are better than ever.”

“It definitely concerned me, maybe about two years ago. Because we saw bigger companies like McDonald’s and Domino’s jumping onto it. As a vegan myself, I loved that. But there was part of me that was worried,” he says. Now, he says, as companies scale back their plant-based offerings, there is an opportunity: “What that does is drive more customers to restaurants like us.”

Mundy has also noticed attempts to make vegan food seem unhealthy, ultra-processed and bad for the environment, “which I think comes from – to be honest – a lot of lobbying from the meat industry, the dairy industry, who are looking to derail the movement a little bit.”

He adds: “I see it constantly all over social media, posts and adverts paid for by certain lobbying groups.”

Yet Mundy believes the biggest struggles have very little to do with being plant-based, as inflation poses a challenge to keep prices down. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a vegan-specific problem,” he says. 

Selling people food is a chaotic sector. Statistics suggest 60% of restaurants fail in their first year, and 80% within five years. Across the board, one in 10 restaurants in the UK are at “imminent” risk of closure, with insolvencies rising. It can be easy to cite failed businesses as indicative of a trend. The truth is often more chaotic.

Take the award-winning Glasvegan in Glasgow. Did a backlash against veganism kill it?

When staff were laid off and the business closed in November 2022, the restaurant’s owner said it was due to the “current economic situation”, with people having little spare money and rising bills. An employment tribunal found the owner did “minimal and sporadic” work at the restaurant.

But staff who launched an employment tribunal claim say the owner posted that the business’s lease was up for sale two days after their complaint about poor working conditions. The former head chef said he was left on universal credit, having worked in a kitchen with no ventilation or breaks. Their employment tribunal claims were struck out after their solicitor stopped replying to the court. The owner said she should have addressed concerns earlier, and that the timing was a coincidence – in fairness, she did close the business, and its last accounts showed £78,193 in immediate debts. 

A second bite at the falafel came in January 2023, when Glasvegan reopened under new management. Tyler Lewington, a first-time business owner, said he was a long-time customer. Under his management, Glasvegan won Scottish vegetarian restaurant of the year in 2023 and was shortlisted again the following year. But by February 2024, Lewington had put it up for sale. It remains closed, and emails go undelivered. Lewington told Big Issue the closure was “personal between myself and a poor business partner”.

But he said, in Glasgow, bigger chains had made life difficult for smaller outlets catering to only vegan customers. “If a vegan is taking a non-vegan on a first date, they’ll probably go to Wagamama because they can guarantee both of them are going to get something good, and they’re not going to talk about veganism,” said Lewington. “You initially have a niche, and then you are no longer a niche. That niche is taken by something much bigger.”

How well does its story fit into a neat anti-vegan narrative?

We might also be ignoring the cost of living crisis. “Consumer behaviour has significantly changed in response to the cost of living crisis. Consumers think about needs more than wants, and for many veganism isn’t necessarily a need,” says Amna Khan, a senior lecturer in consumer behaviour and retailing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Khan adds: “A lot of things happened in the cost of living crisis, as consumers realised it was cheaper to have meat than vegan products. Hence, they went back to meat.”

Bryan Roberts, a retail futures senior partner at the Institute of Grocery Distribution, says the cost of living crisis has added to health and convenience factors in tamping down the tempeh trend. “The final major blow has been cost: it is often simply cheaper to eat meat iterations of burgers and sausages, and the cost of living crisis has not helped here,” says Roberts.

“It’s therefore of little surprise that some conglomerates have divested vegan operations and other specialist suppliers have been struggling around the world.”

The ‘health halo’ vegan foods enjoyed may be breaking down, under a deluge of puck-shaped freezer food, Khan says: “I think they have actually not done themselves many favours, because what they’ve done is actually create a perception that you can buy vegan, but you’re not necessarily buying healthy anymore. 

“I think there’s been a distortion of what has happened, as a result of many brands trying to make vegan alternatives, for the consumer to sit up and think this isn’t healthy anymore, and vegan isn’t naturally healthy.”

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