Sainsbury’s introduced 25 new vegan and vegetarian lines last week, boosting its current range by 10%.
The new range is made up of 14 meat alternative meals, seven vegetarian ready meals and four redeveloped Sainsbury’s favourites in vegan format. It includes the Naturli’ beef mince alternative (rsp: £3/400g) and Naturli’ ‘bleeding’ mushroom patties (rsp: £2.50/200g), which are designed to look and taste like meat thanks to the addition of beetroot helping the patties retain a ‘redness’ when cooked.
These have been exclusively available in Sainsbury’s stores and online since 27 June, and are part of Sainsbury’s vegetarian and vegan lines that will be stocked in the meat aisle as opposed to their own dedicated sections - a first for UK supermarkets.
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Other new meat alternative lines include the Linda McCartney Vegetarian Duck Kit (rsp: £4/350g), Tofurky Smoky Maple Bacon Tempeh (rsp: £3.50/198g), and Vivera Veggie Chicken Pieces (rsp: £2.50/175g).
Sainsbury’s has also launched an expanded Love Veg range, comprised of new vegetarian and vegan ready meals developed to make eating plant-based even easier for customers. New lines include Sainsbury’s Sweet Potato Katsu Curry & Rice (rsp: £3/400g) and Sainsbury’s Chickpea and Potato Masala with Cauliflower Pilau Rice (rsp: £2.75/400g).
Some of the supermarket’s most popular dishes reformatted for vegans are Sainsbury’s Vegan Spiced Cauli Burger (rsp: £2/225g), Sainsbury’s Vegan Caramelised Onion Sausages and Sainsbury’s Vegan Cumberland Shroomdog, both with an rsp of £2.25 for 350g.
Sainsbury’s increased its range to meet growing vegan and vegetarian demand, as its meat alternative product sales have been growing at 20% each week.
“There are already over 22 million flexitarians in the UK and we’re seeing more and more of our customers making plant-based foods a key part of their diet,” said Rachael Matthews, Sainsbury’s meat-free product development manager. “We have a dedicated team at Sainsbury’s working on how we diversify our range of vegetarian and vegan products, across many different supermarket aisles - from exclusive chilled products through to Love Veg ready meals and even quick options for on the go.”
She added that breadth of choice is “extremely important to Sainsbury’s and its customers and we want to provide the same variety for meat lovers and plant lovers alike”.
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