Iconic beef brand launches vegan Bovril made with beets

For the past 120-years, football fans have been warming themselves with a hot cup of Bovril at half-time. Now the brand has teamed up with the world’s first vegan football club, Forest Green Rovers, to launch the first-ever vegan version of the popular British half-time drink.

Traditional Bovril is a thick and salty meat extract paste similar to a yeast extra that is added to hot drinks, but the new high-protein vegan Bovril is completely meat-free and is made from beets instead of beef.

Vegan Bovril will be available exclusively at Forest Green Rovers’ football stadium, The New Lawn, in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire when they return in 2021 to kick off the 2021/2022 season.

Keen that all of their fans can enjoy the traditional pie with their hot mug of vegan Bovril this winter, Forest Green Rovers is also selling award-winning vegan Q Pies and delicious vegan beers in its half time menu.

‘Plant Bovril is a fab idea’

Giving fans the insider scoop on the partnership in a statement sent to Vegan Food & Living, Forest Green Rovers chairman, Dale Vince, said: “We’re famously not fans of tradition but – a pie and a mug of Bovril are for many people a football tradition – and while we have great pies without animals in them, we’ve no Bovril alternative.  That may be about to change, with the advent of plant Bovril.  I think that would be fantastic.

“There are so many benefits to a plant-based diet – not least athletic performance and as it happens, beetroot is renowned for its enhancing properties. It’s definitely something for our players, another edge to our game. Make no bones about it – plant Bovril is a fab idea.”

‘Ensuring all fans can get in on the action’

Discussing the new product launch, Sophie Allan, Brand Manager at Bovril, added: “Bovril has long been known as traditional football fare. We’ve been warming the terraces since 1886. But times and appetites are changing, and we would never want to leave any football fans out in the cold.

“Seeing Forest Green make major moves in the vegan space made us realise that there has never been a better time to explore the prospect of a new, one off formula that simply can’t be beet – ensuring that all fans can get in on the action.”