Judging by the headlines, you may believe that veganism is all about soya burgers and meat free chicken nuggets, however, Kirsty’s, one of the nation’s favourite free-from brands, have found that classic meals minus the meat also have their part to play in the rise of veganism.
The meteoric rise of meat free products continues to show no sign of stopping in 2021, and like many food manufacturers Kirsty’s have seen some enormous growth figures for their vegan meals in particular.
Kirsty Henshaw, founder of Kirsty’s comments: “The popularity of vegan products is ever growing, especially over the last year and this is evident in the dramatic rise in sales of our Lentil Cottage Pie where sales are up 2000% YOY.”
However, this is only part of the story, more surprisingly Kirsty’s vegan meals are outperforming their non-vegan equivalents by 15%.
Kirsty continues: “Our Cottage Pie has been our best-selling meal for nearly 10 years, it really is a household staple that our customers love, however this January our Lentil Cottage Pie has been outselling it’s classic counterpart by 15% as it seems people are looking to reduce their meat consumption in easy ways.”
Kirsty Henshaw, who started the brand Kirsty’s after finding out her son was allergic to nuts and intolerant to gluten and dairy, believes that the sales of vegan products and free-from products will continue to rise throughout 2021.
Kirsty said: “Although I personally eat a pescatarian diet, we aren’t solely a vegan brand, instead we believe in offering customers easy ways to reduce their meat consumption, and being that our products are always dairy free, this means we are often ‘accidentally’ vegan.
“Many vegan products seem to be aimed at the under 30’s, but actually we know that the over 50’s are one of the key driving forces in the growth of the flexitarian. The over 50’s don’t want fast-food options they want their favourite meals, just without the meat.”
The rise in popularity of these homely meat free alternative meals led to Kirsty’s recently introducing the vegan friendly Lentil Lasagne to their range, which has already been as popular as Kirsty’s classic free-from Rich Beef Lasagne.
During this year customers can expect to see several other new products developed by Kirsty’s on the shelves and these new introductions will include vegan meals. This was made possible after Kirsty’s recently invested £2M in a new factory that will help the brand focus on new product development and achieve their target of doubling the size of the business within three years.
