Following a survey showing that 64% of people find the discussion around food to be too polarised in its domestic territory, Finnish vegan brand Beanit is to launch a marketing campaign encouraging tolerance of different eating habits.
Beanit is a plant-based company making meat alternatives out of Nordic fava beans. Its new campaign, “Meat Saturday”, encourages meat-lovers to reserve eating meat for one day of the week. The company points out that meat used to be considered a treat for special occasions rather than something to eat every day, and returning to this mindset could make a huge difference in fighting climate change.
In the words of Jukka Kajan, Head of Stakeholder Relations at Beanit, “Meat should be more highly appreciated [as] the rather precious ingredient it is.” The company says big changes will happen if the majority of people make small changes, rather than the minority becoming entirely plant-based.
Beanit was inspired to launch the campaign after it carried out a survey in Finland showing that the majority of people felt judged for their food choices. This included both meat-eaters and vegetarians. 58% of participants said they would like people to be more tolerant of different dietary choices.
According to the survey, 44% of Finns want to eat more plant-based food and 40% believe it’s important to reduce meat consumption. Last year, Finland invested EUR 2.1M in creating globally competitive plant protein foods.
But Beanit believes that conflict and lack of tolerance can make people defensive and prevent them from trying plant-based foods. It hopes that being less judgemental of meat-eaters and creating a more respectful atmosphere could actually make them more likely to change.
“The polarized food discussion does not serve anyone. We were sad to learn that a quarter of the respondents are outright stressed because of the current discussion climate where only extreme opinions seem to get space. We believe it is our responsibility among all other actors in the food system to create a more favourable environment for eating habits to change.” says Jukka Kajan.
