As the vegan population of the UK grows, as does the demand for vegan food options.
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It is great to see the vegan food industry flourishing in the last year, with more and more people choosing to go vegan for health and environmental reasons, the demand for vegan options does not seem to be slowing down with multinational businesses competing to file trademarks.
The number of vegans living in the UK has grown from 140,000 in 2014 to 600,000 in 2019, this has caused the rise in demand and has boosted sales by 40% to £816m last year and one in four new food products launched was vegan. The boom can be seen with KFC who sold an impressive one million vegan burgers during their first month of sales in January 2020.
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According to a report by the EMW law firm, there was an increase of 128% in new trademarks registered for vegan food in the UK in 2019. That year saw 107 trademarks registered compared to just 47 in 2018.
The companies to trademark vegan items in the past few years include Unilever, owner of big-name brands including Ben & Jerry, Magnum and Pot Noodle. UK Restaurants that have trademarked items include Honest Burger and Leon including sauces and vegan burgers.
Daisy Divoka, an associate at EMW stated, “There are now more vegan products on supermarket shelves than ever before. Multi-national corporations have identified this as a fast-growing sector and are competing to register their trademarks with the aim of capturing and defending a share of the market. With a record number of people participating in Veganuary year on year, the trend towards vegan food shows no sign of abating anytime soon.”
