Last week, fake meat makers THIS released a video showing vegans taste-testing what they were told were animal products for a “social experiment”. The bizarre advert was the latest in a disturbing anti-vegan marketing trend, following in the footsteps of plant-based brand Oatly, but was there something even more sinister going on? Andrew Gough writes.

First Oatly, now THIS? Vegans - feeling betrayed by yet another plant-based company that turned its back on its staunchest supporters to expand its marketing reach - were up in arms last week when THIS released a disturbing taste-test video on its Instagram, and rightly so. The offending video showed a number of vegans tasting sausages and meatballs that they were told contained animal flesh.

The outpouring of complaints in the comments was roundly dismissed by THIS’s snarky community manager as just a hundred or so, and therefore nothing to be concerned about: “16,000 views, 800 likes, 100ish angry comments. I think we’re ok. Lauren.” But as this was commented early on, they were certainly less “ok” by the end of things.

Think about that for a second: a company, that built itself on the support of a community that champions the animal-free lifestyle, being so arrogant as to openly disregard the most liked comments as if they’re totally inconsequential. Apparently, one of THIS’s co-CEOs stood by their community manager Lauren’s “flair for customer service”, a statement that is both paradoxical given they clearly don’t give a toss about their customers, and deliberately ignorant of the deeper issues at play.

We were contacted by a concerned member of the public about Lauren, her conduct on social media and her blatant hostility towards vegans. While we wouldn’t encourage anyone to visit someone’s personal account and we’ll not post her IG username, at the time the comments were made and the screenshots sent to us, her profile was public. In one post, Lauren uploaded a picture of “cheesy, creamy, bacon covered (sic) pierogi” which she said she enjoyed “after 24 hours as a vegan punching bag,” yet she had the audacity to deny that it was a revenge snack knowing full well that pigs died for it.

“Have u ever watched pigs being gassed to death? U (seem) to keep avoiding the question. Maybe if u did you wouldn’t be eating them,” wrote someone on her post, to which Lauren replied “Yes I have, I have also killed pigs. I can’t say I was bovved, they were delicious.”

Other replies of Lauren’s were deliberately rude and insulting, such as bragging about being paid “loads of f*cking money”. It may have been her personal profile and she wasn’t responding as THIS in an official sense, but how can we as ethical vegans be comfortable with supporting a company that knowingly employs such people? It’s one thing to employ non-vegans, but there has to be an expectation of professionalism, especially with someone paid “loads of f*cking money” to represent them publicly and interact with their customer base.

A community manager is after all someone tasked with nurturing a community, not insulting it. We’re not so naive as to expect plant-based companies to only employ plant-based let alone ethical vegans, but is it so much to ask them to choose a sensible community manager with a little decency, a little less arrogance, who actually believes in the core mission of their employer, who thinks a little before writing, and who isn’t so obviously hostile to a vocal section of THIS’s target demographic?

In one of Lauren’s more moderate responses to a vegan critic of the THIS video, she said “I’m sorry you feel we aren’t taking veganism seriously. As always, however, our goal is to appeal to meat reducers and those who are sceptical of plantbased. Lauren.” But then Lauren openly demonstrated her own scepticism for plant-based, and therefore her scepticism for THIS’s own mission, which surely makes her position there untenable. The fact that she said it on her personal account is a thin defence when it doesn’t erase how she truly feels about ethical plant-based principles.

As our concerned reader said in their email to us, “if a company behaves like this, I'm pretty sure they lack ethics and their core values are quite questionable. These people are not vegan, they're not ethically involved and, clearly, enjoy making fun of their customers and their beliefs. The same customers who, in three years, supported them and made them grow as a brand, whilst they were laughing behind our backs.”

We can’t say that we disagree with that appraisal. THIS, by standing by the conduct of its community manager in full knowledge of her at-the-time public comments, has revealed its disdain for the ethical vegan community for all to see. At least Oatly felt a pang of conscience and apologised… sort of.

Moving on from THIS’s criminally tone-deaf social media conduct to the video itself, most of the vegan invective seemed to be directed at the ‘test subjects’ featured in the video. Many said those people featured weren’t truly vegan, and never could have been, if they agreed to try what they were told was animal flesh even if it was for a social experiment. It’s very hard to judge them, we don’t know exactly what they were told, but from the hints and second-hand testimonies in the comments, something very fishy clearly took place.

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The whole approach of the video was bizarre. According to the lovely Lauren, having done many similar videos with omnivores in the past, they wanted to try something new - that is to try to show that their fake meats are so realistic that vegans would baulk and have a physical and emotional reaction. The problem is, the vegans had no reason to disbelieve the production team (presumably they didn’t reveal themselves to be THIS until the end of filming) when they said the food was made from dead animals, so any true vegan would have a visceral reaction however it tasted. It could have tasted like cardboard, a vegan would still have felt uncomfortable eating it. Some did admit to the apparent animal flesh tasting “good”, but we all know that we don’t go vegan because we don’t like the taste of flesh, eggs and dairy - this is in fact irrelevant - but because we believe animals shouldn’t be used and die needlessly.

It’s very obvious that some of the vegans featured were disturbed by what they were doing. So this begs the question: how were they convinced to eat animals? If we give them the benefit of the doubt, then THIS must have told them something very manipulative. Take as evidence this secondhand testimony, left as a comment by someone who appears to be very closely connected to one of the people in the video:

“I know someone in this ad and he is most definitely vegan. They were told it was to help promote veganism or (the) ditching (of) animal products. They were also told they didn’t have to swallow it and could spit it out. He struggled over it but then decided if he could spit it out (worried he’d be sick on camera) then it was worth it to try and help make a change. He couldn’t believe how close to meat it tasted and was so relieved that he hadn’t had to consume animal products. I don’t think it’s fair to punch down on the people in the video and I get the point of the ad, there have been times where I’ve tasted plant products so close to meat I’ve had to check and I hope this shows meat-eaters that their argument that meat tastes better is a load of crock. I also understand why some vegans are worried that they were actors.”

In reply, someone rightly said “That's coercive as fuck. Eat animals for the 'greater good',” while another asked how much the people were paid and that THIS had admitted to paying them. In response, our witness said this:

“I believe they got expenses. They were pitched it was to help promote a vegan campaign for Veganuary. I can’t believe THIS would punch down and suggest they were paying them to eat meat when they had to promise they didn’t have to swallow it. Pretty bad if they are. Especially knowing how much he struggled with it and wanted to do something to help push ditching meat. (I) Hope THIS isn’t chucking them under the bus.”

Chucking them under the bus? It would appear so, and to drag the Veganuary campaign into it in the process. THIS has no qualms about portraying vegans as having questionable beliefs thus eroding our core principles. They even go as far as to say that definitions can be changed - especially if it helps them make more money while maintaining a facade of being a conscious, responsible company.

On the topic of the definition of veganism, the fact that Lauren, commenting on behalf of THIS, should say with such assumed authority that every vegan who criticised the video just needed to adjust their principles, beggars belief. Lauren - who is not vegan herself, has a clear disdain for vegans and thinks THIS bacon is so tasty and indistinguishable from pigs’ flesh that she doesn’t even eat it herself, as we saw from her pierogi post - is telling vegans that our current definition is wrong. The only authority Lauren has to tell us to change what it means to be vegan is that she’s employed by a company that just happens to make plant-based food. THIS isn’t a vegan company, its founders aren’t vegan, yet they so arrogantly tell us we’ve got it wrong. The irony is staggering.

THIS was probably only setting out to create a marketing stunt that they hoped would cause a stir, as opposed to anything vaguely strategic. But if they were smarter, they would have done this as an attempt to broaden their reach because all the signs are there that the plant-based bubble is about to burst. Beyond Meat missed its earnings target and its share price slumped 11 per cent this week as a result, and there are predictions that plant-based food companies - including all the many innovative startups - will soon go through a period of consolidation that will see big players swallow up the most promising tech before we then reach a new period of stability. This is natural, we’ve seen it time and time again in other industries. Perhaps we’re giving too much credit to Rude Health in 2017, Oatly and now THIS, by saying that their money-grubbing marketing is actually part of a considered strategy to ride out the next phase in the plant-based revolution by appealing to meat-eaters - instead, they all chose to insult veganism for cheap marketing kicks and misguided short-term objectives. The whole thing smacks of desperation, and desperate people do strange things.

Veganism is after all a protected belief. It’s not a religion, but people who maintain vegan principles are safeguarded - by law - from prejudice in the same way. Imagine if instead of vegans, THIS convinced people of the Muslim and Jewish faiths to eat what they were told were sausages made of pig by telling them it would literally save lives. If even one of the vegans shown in the video truly felt that they were doing it for the greater good of animals, then the villain in this story is undoubtedly THIS, and for THIS to use a vegan’s belief to promote a product in such as cynical way is utterly despicable.

With shoddy community management and thinly veiled callousness towards people with real principles, vegan or otherwise, we would encourage everyone to think carefully about whether or not to support a company like THIS.

UPDATE (16/03): A statement from Andy Shovel, THIS co-CEO, was left as a comment on the Surge Instagram post for this article, but was followed up soon after by an official apology on the THIS Instagram account. The ‘vegan meat tasting’ video was also taken down:

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.

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