A YORK vegan company is calling on the meat industry to 'come clean and then clean up'.

Vegan fried chick*n brand, VFC, issued the challenge after an independent impact assessment found that its meat-free range outperformed its meat equivalent across every environmental metric.

VFC was founded in the UK in December 2020 by York entrepreneur Matthew Glover, also co-founder of Veganuary, and Adam Lyons, York chef and restaurateur who owns Source in Castlegate.

The activist brand is an outspoken critic of intensive animal agriculture, and campaigns for more ethical, sustainable and just food systems.

Mondra, which analyses supply chain data to assess environmental performance in the food industry, compared its vegan fillets with generic meat-based southern fried chicken fillets, which are produced in the UK and available for sale in UK supermarkets.

York Press:

Gram for gram, the animal-based product was found to have twice the impact on climate breakdown, uses 24 times as much freshwater, and has a 20 times greater impact on biodiversity.

VFC was awarded an A grade by Foundation Earth - the non-profit organisation that issues front-of-pack environmental scores - for all three products in its range.

Mondra’s analysis concluded that, if the UK's entire meat-eating population ate VFC Fillets instead of southern fried chicken for one meal per week for one year, the amount of water saved would be equivalent to 99.8 million showers.

A further 9.3 tonnes of methane released from farming chickens would not be emitted, and 3.8 million chickens’ lives would be spared.

Meanwhile, the amount of emissions equivalent to driving 73.2 million miles in a car would be saved.

Matthew who commissioned the audit said: “We created VFC specifically to spare the lives of animals, but, as an ethical company, we also wanted to understand how our products impact the planet.

"So, to achieve an A grade across the entire range of VFC is fantastic news, and shows once again the powerful impact we can have when we choose vegan foods over animal-based foods.

"We know that the meat industry is causing significant and widespread damage to our climate, waterways, wild spaces and wild animal populations.

"Their commitments so far amount to little more than tinkering with the existing system, and that’s not good enough.

"We need these companies to be honest about their impacts, and then to expand their investment in, and their production and promotion of, meat-free foods.”

VFC is now available across the country in Tesco and Asda while seed funding has enabled rapid international expansion into the USA, France, the Netherlands, and Spain.

VFC achieved its first major listing at Tesco last October, with VFC Original Recipe Chick*n Fillets; VFC Original Recipe Popcorn Chick*n; and VFC Original Recipe Chick*n Bites all stocked in the frozen aisle.