Wagamama veganuary

© Wagamama

Charity & Campaigns

Wagamama, Beyond Meat, and Wicked Kitchen Join New ’50 by 25′ Sustainable Dining Campaign

Animal rights charity Viva! and Emma Osborne, founder of Citizen Kind, have together launched a large-scale, two-year long initiative centred around sustainable dining called 50 by 25, which urges restaurants to make 50% of their menu plant-based by the end of 2025. Restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, food brands, distributors, wholesalers, professional chefs, and delivery services will all play an important role in kicking off this UK-based campaign. Brands Wagamama, Beyond Meat, and Wicked Kitchen have already pledged their support, joined by celebrities such as plant-based chef Derek Sarno, co-founder of Wicked Kitchen, and the multi-award-winning French chef (turned vegan) Alexis Gauthier. Wagamama’s menu is already 50% plant-based, and the 50 by 25 campaign is now calling for other restaurants to follow suit. As part of the …

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Two brown cows/ cattle

© Mosa Meat

Studies & Numbers

24% of Brits Willing to Cut Down on Dairy Due to Poor Treatment of Cows

Research by animal rights charity Viva! has found that most Brits are unaware of the treatment of cows in the dairy industry, with many saying they will cut down after learning the truth. 30% of respondents were unaware that around 1 in 5 dairy cows are kept indoors all year round, with no option to go outside. 69% said they opposed the practice, while 56% thought it should be banned and 49% said they would not buy dairy produced in this way. Just 41% of participants were aware that cows must give birth to produce milk, with only 27% knowing that calves are removed from their mothers shortly after being born. Once they had heard the facts, 24% were prepared to cut down on their …

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Piglet TV ad Viva! crowdfunding

©Viva!

Marketing & Media

Vegan Charity Viva! Launches Crowdfunding to Spread TV Message to 16M Viewers

Vegan charity Viva! has launched a crowdfunding campaign to broadcast its first vegan ad on UK television. Funds raised by the campaign will be used to show the impactful advert on Channel 4 and its associated networks in February 2022.  “Most people in the UK despise cruelty to animals, yet simply don’t make the connection between animal cruelty and what is on their plate”     Viva!’s TV message encourages the public to make the connection between animals they love and the animals they eat, with viewers invited to consider the morality of eating said animals. A raise of £40,000 through Crowdfunding, match-funded from a generous donor, in addition to a further grant from Channel 4 will enable the TV advert to reach a potential 16 …

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Kangaroo Viva!

Image: Ed Shephard courtesy of Viva!

Fashion, Design & Beauty

2 Million Kangaroos Are Slaughtered Every Year for Football Boots

A short film created by Hollywood producer Gavin Palone and director Derek Ambrosi, exposes the yearly massacre of two million kangaroos for football boots. The film comes as two US congressmen introduce a new kangaroo protection bill, the Kangaroo Protection Act, to ban the sale of kangaroo body parts in the US. If passed, the Kangaroo Protection Act will make it illegal to exploit kangaroos in the USA. “Nike officials are not pulling the trigger, but they might as well be,” says Wayne Pacelle, President of the Center for a Humane Economy. “Using spotlights and night-vision rifle scopes, hired guns kill entire kangaroo families in the dead of night so they can sell the skins to the world’s best-known athletic shoe company.” Display content from …

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©Waitrose

Agriculture / Agribusiness

Waitrose Trials App That “Assesses Emotional Wellbeing” of Farmed Animals

UK supermarket Waitrose has revealed what it calls a “pioneering”mobile app which it claims will “assess and begin to understand the emotional wellbeing” of animals that are bred and slaughtered to create products made of their flesh. Vegan charity Viva! says in response that “they seem to be missing a fundamental principle of animal sentience.”

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Victoria Park Food Bank

Image courtesy of Million Dollar Vegan

Society

Million Dollar Vegan & Viva! Provide 2,000 Meatfree Meals With Support of MPs and Massive Attack

A new project coordinated by international NGO Million Dollar Vegan and vegan charity Viva! is supported by prominent figures including vegan Labour MP Kerry McCarthy and Robert del Naja (known as 3D) of Massive Attack, to provide meals for 2,000 people in need and bring attention to the risks associated with animal products.

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Nathalie Crouch Photography

Fashion, Design & Beauty

Brighton Vegan Shoe Shop Wins Awards From UK’s leading Vegan Charity Viva!

Vegetarian shoes / Viva
Nathalie Crouch Photography

At vegan charity Viva!’s birthday fundraising dinner last month, Brighton-based Vegetarian Shoes founder Robin Webb was presented with two awards by Viva! Patrons Peter Egan and Jerome Flynn. Webb received the prestigious ‘Award for Outstanding Loyalty & Commitment as a Business Partner’ and the ‘Award for Excellence and Innovation: Best Vegan Footwear’.

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Michael Mansfield

Michael Mansfield QC, image courtesy of Viva!

Top Stories

Michael Mansfield QC: “I Have One, Singular Message – to Make Ecoside an International Crime”

Vegan charity Viva! launched its  Vegan Now campaign yesterday at the Labour Party Conference. The launch was fronted by Michael Mansfield QC, a leading barrister, who has been quoted in the popular press this week  including the Telegraph and the Independent, as saying that in future, eating meat could be made illegal, and should be banned like smoking in public.

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vegan now

©Viva

Fairs & Events

Vegan Now – International Launch at Labour Party Conference 2019

On Monday 23 September, international vegan charity Viva! will launch a headline new campaign at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, shedding new light on the devastating effects of industrial meat and dairy farming on global nature. The Vegan Now! campaign will for the first time make clear the dramatic environmental benefits of choosing to go vegan or electing to consume fewer animal-based products.

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