The only way was up for The Vegan Food Group when The Grocer carried out a Big Interview with the brand in 2024. at the time, the business said it was going to be a “vegan Unilever”, positioning itself as the David that would beat the Goliath of the meat industry.

Alas, veggie food has been having a difficult time of late and earlier this week it was confirmed that these hopes and dreams have failed to materialise.

Although the business is yet to officially sell up or enter formal administration, it has quietly made all its UK staff redundant over the past couple of months. With no core members of staff remaining, The Vegan Food Group is now essentially defunct in the UK.

It would be easy to assume this is just another casualty of the plant-based slowdown, just one more meat-free business that couldn’t survive in today’s market. And while that is partially true, many of the problems faced by The Vegan Food Group were of its own making.

What went wrong?

The company had strong brands under its belt, including Meatless Farm and Clive’s Purely Plants. It had acquired substantial manufacturing facilities in both the UK and Germany, allowing it to produce its branded and own label lines for each market. And it had a team of very passionate people and a very willing investor behind it.

Now, though, the business has been effectively stripped for parts. Clive’s has gone (as first reported in British Baker), with 32 members of staff made redundant from its Dartmouth site and rumours swirling that it is being set up for sale.

Flagship brands VFC, an alternative chicken brand, and Meatless Farm, have been rescued from the scrapheap by subsidiary VFC Foods co-founder Adam Lyons. He has already announced new product development under Meatless and hopes to return a new and improved version of VFC to retailer shelves in 2027.

Meanwhile, the company’s latest acquisition, TofuTown in Germany, has also had its fair share of issues. The Vegan Food Group sold the main manufacturing site less than a year after buying the business and has since wound down all production of TofuTown-branded products in Germany. Now, 60% of staff at its remaining site in Lüneburg have also lost their jobs.

Back in the UK, its latest passion project was Just Egg, a US brand owned by Eat Just that The Vegan Food Group had the licence to produce and distribute in Europe. The mung-bean based egg replacement was due to hit UK shelves in August last year, but, even now, is still nowhere to be seen. 

Privately, the business knew that that would be the case. In April it had not yet receieved sign off from the Food Standards Agency and by August, although it had been found to be safe for consumption, it was still waiting for the ministerial sign-off required to launch a novel food in this country.

Yes, the plant-based category is a tough space in which to operate, but in this case the business was simply setting itself up for failure. 

Too much, too soon

And even putting Just Egg to one side, the business was taking on far too much.

The Vegan Food Group was still in its infancy, but the promise of a seemingly endless pot of money saw it plunging headfirst into multiple brands, businesses and markets before any of its early ventures were even close to profitability.

VFC Foods, where this all started, and the original business founded by Matthew Glover and Lyons, has racked up losses of £18m so far. But instead of trying to focus on turning those brands around, the business embarked on a spending spree.

There was, understandably, a great deal of excitement around the business, especially as it promised to deliver so much. This makes its UK collapse all the more disappointing – especially for the dozens of dedicated food industry professionals who have lost their jobs in the past few months.

Rumours continue to swirl about the future of the business in Europe and the fate of its leadership. But for now at least, David has been struck down – perhaps not by Goliath, but by himself.

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