Since 2014, the U.K.-based group Veganuary has asked people to pledge to eat a vegan diet for the month of January. In 2018, 170,000 took the pledge, and this year, the number has grown to more than 400,000.
KFC said it sold 1 million vegan burgers in the first month they were on sale, while the food delivery service Deliveroo said orders of vegan dishes had increased by 78% compared with last year. Pret a Manger launched its first vegan croissant in stores in early January and is now selling twice as many a day as the nonvegan jam croissant.
At Tesco, sales of Hellmann’s vegan mayonnaise soared nearly 400% during January, while M&S said its vegan chicken Kiev sold at a rate of four every minute since going on sale in early January.
So while we cannot give all the credit to the Veganuary campaign for these increases in sales, what we should learn is that supermarkets and their grocerants have unique opportunities to create their own campaigns. Meatless Monday has been around since 2003 and has been very effective. Campaigns like "Dry January" and "Sober Spring" are also popping up and have an enormous millennial following and is changing alcohol consumption and offerings in our stores.
Expect more campaigns that are focused on food and health.