Buyer's guide to meat-free products

This is a free buyer's guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK's leading alternative consumer organisation. We research the social and environmental records of companies.

More detailed versions of this guide are available. See the links at the bottom of the page.

Best Buys as of November 2006

As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.

The Dragonfly, Fry's, Taifun, Goodlife and Redwood brands (Cheatin', Making Waves and VegiDeli) all come out best.

Brand	Rating
Dragonfly Beany [A,O]	17
Dragonfly Soysage [A,O]	17
Fry's meat-free foods [A]	16
Taifun meat-free foods [A,O]	15.5
Cheatin' meat alternatives [A]	15
Goodlife meat alternatives [A]	15
Making Waves fish alternatives [A]	15
VegiDeli meat alternatives [A]	15
Wicken Fen meat alternatives [A]	13.5
Granovita meat alternatives [A]	12.5
Burgamix meat alternatives [A]	12
Linda McCartney meat alternatives	12
Sosmix meat alternative [A]	12
Granose meat alternatives	11
Protoveg meat alternatives	11
Realeat meat alternatives	11
Cauldron organic meat alternatives [A,O]	8.5
Birds Eye vegetable fingers	7.5
Cauldron meat alternatives [A]	7.5
Dalepak Vegetarian Society approved [A]	7.5
Quorn meat alternatives [A]	7.5
Dalepak meat alternatives	6.5
Tivall meat alternatives	0.5

The higher the rating the more ethical the brand. This whole scorecard was last updated from our database on 14 October 2009 but some individual company ratings may have changed since then. Up to the minute information can be seen by subscribers using Ethiscore.
Learn more about our ratings.

Meat-free foods

A number of health scares, along with concern for animal welfare and the environment, have made vegetarian products mainstream. Unfortunately, this has also meant the consolidation of the industry and increasing ownership of well-known brands by big corporations with poor ethical records, with Cauldron and Quorn being snapped up by Premier Foods, purveyors of Angel Delight and Oxo. Despite rumours of a sale to Nestle early in 2006, however, Heinz has passed its Linda McCartney brand on to wholefood and vegetarian specialist Hain Celestial Group.

While vegetarian products may not have the same problems as meat, the environmental impacts of soya production, key to many meat substitutes, is increasingly recognised, and one of the main things differentiating the best companies on the table are good policies on avoiding GM soya and endeavouring to obtain raw materials from organic or other sustainable sources.

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