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274- Morrisons drops "pig producers"
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Being a 'prok producer' can't be much fun as it is...so maybe it's just out of good grace that UK supermarket Morrisons is dropping several of its suppliers, citing a "challenging economic climate". As ever, we read behind the headlines and for this episode it's David, Paul & Dominic with their magnifying glasses out & analysing the week's animal rights & vegan headlines.
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Thanks to Neil, Shane & Alex for their continued Ko-Fi support!
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Week podcast, we aim to keep listeners (& ourselves) informed & up-to-date with the latest developments that affect vegans & non-human animals; giving insight, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we look through news stories from the past 7 days in the world of veganism & animal rights.
If you spot any news stories that might catch our fancy, or have an idea for a discussion topic, get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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This week's stories:
https://www.fgr.co.uk/news/partnership-vegan-trademark-26/
https://bnrnews.bg/en/post/469799/animal-rights-activists-demand-humane-treatment-of-newborn-calves
https://www.intrafish.com/salmon/cooke-again-accused-of-animal-welfare-violations/2-1-1990027
https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/lidl-two-kinds-of-vegan-caviar/
https://www.skiddle.com/news/all/You-can-get-a-free-tattoo-and-vegan-steak-sandwich-in-London-next-weekend/61653/
https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/meat-prices/morrisons-abattoir-serves-notice-to-pig-producers
https://www.theanimalreader.com/2026/05/11/joey-carbstrong-arrested-after-new-animal-cruelty-investigation/
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/country-and-farming/anger-at-deeply-insulting-ideological-attack-balmoral-show-billboard-from-animal-rights-activists-pushing-dairy-farmers-to-go-vegan-8541777
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/chris-packham-british-asa-b2975409.html & https://www.farmersguardian.com/news/4529588/ahdb-scores-victory-chris-packham-eat-balanced-campaign-row#:~:text=AHDB's%20Let's%20Eat%20Balanced%20campaign,from%20TV%20naturalist%20Chris%20Packham.
https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/meatly-raises-104m-to-build-europes-largest-cultivated-meat-facility/2135425.article
https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/ben-jerrys-doggy-desserts-accidentally-vegan/
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Dominic, David & Paul
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Transcript
Introduction and Vegan Week
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello everybody! Welcome to the place to come for vegan and animal rights news. My name is Dominic and joining me for this episode of Enough of the Falafel are Paul and David. Welcome one, welcome all, it's great to have you here. That's Enough of the Falafel, it is time for Vegan Week.
00:00:24
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butter's used for. Brrr! Take your flat-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:36
Speaker
Should I call the medium and say, hi, sorry. True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are. That leaves a lot of pizza delivery companies in problems with things.
00:00:48
Speaker
What is this? kind of movie is this? It's comedy gold, maybe. Any form of social injustice.
00:00:56
Speaker
with another. As long as you donna get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:01:06
Speaker
I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision.
Vegan News Highlights
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello everyone, my name's David and welcome, thank you for listening to the show. Hello everyone, this is Paul, this is our news show where we look through vegan and anim rights news for the last week or so. Yes and remember you can read the original news reports for all the stories we cover in the show this week. Just check the show notes in your podcast player and follow the link.
00:01:29
Speaker
But that's enough of the falafel, let's hear what's been going on this week. All right, people who listen to the show regularly will know that Anthony, who is one of our main people putting this all together, he's changed the format for the last few. And I'm hosting this with this new format where I've got a thousand trillion tabs on my laptop open. And I'm going to give you a quick rundown. but Tech permitting, tech permitting. I'm going to give you a quick rundown of ah some of the animal rights and vegan news going on in the world So let's see if my computer is up for reading so many tabs at once. Let's find out. Hey, let's find out. Here's the rundown.
00:02:10
Speaker
Are you folks aware of Forest Green Rovers? They are the all vegan football team. And it's great that they're continuing their partnership with the Vegan Society for their 2026-2027 campaign. That's really good news for them. Over in Bulgaria, we've got a story from Radio Bulgaria about animal rights activists demanding humane treatment of newborn calves.
00:02:40
Speaker
We have a story from Intrafish reviewing new allegations after Animal Outlook published an undercover video at a hatchery in Maine. So there are accusations of animal welfare violations, over in the us here in the uk one of our big supermarkets is little and little are now selling two different kinds of vegan caviar yeah not one two so i i don't think i've ever had any vegan caviar in my life paul paul have you ever tried vegan caviar i have several times yes uh at gouthier in london uh he does his own makes his own caviar And it's very nice. Yes, indeed. Very good. No way. No way. Well, there we are. There we are. I often say that people who go, oh, there's so little choice when you're vegan. Like until you've tried every single vegan option, it is moving. point say, oh, there's less choice. I've not tried every single vegan dish. I've never tried vegan caviar. So yeah, there's lots to be tried, lots to be enjoyed. I'll maybe get myself over to Lidl for that. Our final story on this quick run, and I'm very pleased that my computer has coped with having so many tabs open all at once. There's a story about getting a free vegan steak sandwich and
00:04:09
Speaker
Tattoo. If you're in London next weekend, ah there's a vegan tattoo parlor in Kentish Town opening up and they're giving out free vegan cowboy flash tattoos with their plant steak sandwiches. So that's quite the deal, isn't it? That's not just your standard crisps and a drink. A tattoo. What a thing. What a time to be alive. I'm very happy that my computer hasn't crashed for those things. That is very good indeed. Now, we are going to talk to Paul and David about some of the other news items going on in the week this week.
Food Industry and Activism
00:04:50
Speaker
One of the stories in the news this week we have got from Farmers Weekly. So Morrison's abattoir serves notice to pig producers. So there's this big old abattoir in Lincolnshire, owned by the supermarket chain Morrison's. It's been given notice to a significant number of pig producers, citing a challenging economic climate. So some producers are expected to be dropped entirely by the abattoir. while some may be asked to supply fewer pigs. A spokesman for the abattoir told Farmers Weekly and their sister title Pig World that it was consolidating its processing volumes and reducing the number of pig producers in its supply chain. Always really ah sobering and horrible stuff when we're hearing news about the stuff that happens with with abattoirs. David, what's going on here? So, yeah, here's a story that probably won't get huge national attention, but it says a lot about the state of British farming right now.
00:05:51
Speaker
So, um as Dominic said, Morrison's has reportedly given notice to a number of pig suppliers linked to its woodhead's abattoir in Lincolnshire, blaming what it calls a challenging economic climate. climate Some farmers are apparently being dropped altogether, while others are being told fewer pigs will be taken.
00:06:09
Speaker
What's interesting about this article is that it exposes how fragile the fruit food supply chain really is. Consumers see pork on supermarket shelves and assume the system is stable, but behind the scenes you've got falling pig prices, rising costs, supply backlogs and farmers operating at a loss.
00:06:27
Speaker
The really uncomfortable part is that supermarkets always talk about supporting British farmers, but when margins tighten, producers can suddenly become expendable. That creates a strange contradiction. Retailers market supporting British farming as part of their identity, while consolidation and contract cuts can push smaller or independent producers out of the industry.
00:06:51
Speaker
And timings matter here too, because new fair dealings regulations are coming into force this year to make pig contracts clearer and fairer. So this story almost feels like a collision between economic pressure and attempt at reform.
00:07:06
Speaker
Overall, this is less about one supermarket and more about the long-term sustainability of British agriculture. If producers keep operating on razor-thin margins while costs rise and contracts shrink, eventually people leave the industry. So I guess i guess the big ah question here is, you know what does it what does it mean for the animals? Yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
really there's a bit of a challenge here about you know is this well when I first read it I thought is this down to you know like the markets um which David's alluded to and he does sort of talk about that later on or you know is there something here about the ah the the the ah reduction in demand for pork and that's not really talked about but I think we have talked about fluctuations in demand for different types of meats before especially over Christmas but it doesn't really allude to that so it does seem to be very much a financial and political drive here um and and and nothing really to do with them with ethics obviously which is what you'd expect from Farmers Weekly or even the grocer that I've looked at for sort further information So it's, ah I don't know if, you know, if you say, is it a good news story from from the animal's perspective, which is obviously always what we what we ask. I think it's possible, but, you know, we don't really know what it means behind everything. Any closure of an abattoir or reduction seems like a good thing. um But, you know, people...
00:08:26
Speaker
um might just shift to other meets as well. So yeah, we don't really know, I think, to be honest. Thank you, Paul. And thank you, David. Well, our next news item is from Newsletter. The headline is anger, a deeply insulting ideological attack.
00:08:43
Speaker
Balmoral show billboard. This is from animal rights activists pushing dairy farmers to go vegan. So I'm not familiar with this story. I know that immediately when I see article that's talking about people going vegan, I'm i'm going to be on board from the word go. But I'm going to ask David for a little bit more detail than this. David, what's this story all about? Thank you, Dominic. So here's another story that shows just how emotionally charged farming and animal activism has become in the UK.
00:09:15
Speaker
At the Balmoral Show in Northern Ireland, animal rights activists put up a billboard encouraging dairy farmers to go vegan, and the reaction from the farming community was immediate outrage.
00:09:26
Speaker
Farming representatives described it as deeply insulting as a deeply insulting ideological tack. What's interesting here is that this isn't really about one billboard, it's about identity.
00:09:38
Speaker
For a lot of farming families, dairy farming isn't just a business, it's heritage, culture and generations of work. So when activists frame dairy production as unethical, many farmers hear that as a direct attack on their way of life, not just criticism of an industry.
00:09:56
Speaker
At the same time, activists would argue the whole point of protest is to challenge normalised behaviour and force uncomfortable conversations. From their perspective, if you believe animal agriculture is harmful, Targeting a major agricultural event makes strategic sense.
00:10:12
Speaker
The article also highlights how impossible meaningful dialogue can become once both sides feel morally attacked. Farmers feel demonised, activists feel ignored, and the result is that everyone retreats further into their own camp.
00:10:28
Speaker
There's also a media angle here too. Stories like this thrive online because conflict gets attention. A billboard saying support local dairy farmers probably wouldn't go viral, but culture war confrontation absolutely will.
00:10:43
Speaker
And I think the broader question is whether campaigns like this actually persuade anyone. Do provocative tactics change minds, or do they just harden opposition?
00:10:54
Speaker
Because while outrage creates visibility, it doesn't necessarily create understanding. I think you've hit the nail on the head there, David, and it's something that we discuss so often on this show with various points about what is the best way to approach things and are we, to repeat what you just said, just making people retreat further back into their own camp? Is it creating a meaningful dialogue where, for the sake of the animals, for the sake of the world, we can move towards something that is kinder or is it just abrasive stuff that makes both sides shut down i don't know what do you make of it all paul um i think on reflection i think it's generally quite um it leans more towards a positive story i think for the animals um i think the farmers come across as you know the farming equivalent of snowflakes that they like to call out um to uh us left-leaning um vegans uh it's kind of bemoaning i think also And, you that's kind of what they're doing here really is, I mean, if I was them, I would probably have just kept Stum on this one. But by highlighting it and coming up with what I think are quite weak arguments, I think they don't really do a lot for their side of the debate. um They just kind of look like they're whinging. They, you know, and that that enforces the message, I think, really. They almost kind of ignore the, um to some degree, they ignore the,
00:12:17
Speaker
the billboard, what the focus is, because it talks about, and they focus on tradition and, you know, what's been done for generations. And it's kind of almost like, yeah, but that's not really what the board is saying. They're kind of trying to play that tradition card, And I think that looks quite weak and evasive for them. So I think they don't don't do themselves a lot of a lot of good there. And they talk about, you know, what farmers are to the economy and, you know the usual stuff we expect upholding the highest standards of animal welfare and environmental stewardship, which we know is bollocks. But yeah yeah they're going to churn that out. I suppose what we what we'd really say is, OK, great. Let's have that debate openly, if that's what you're saying. Let's have that debate openly because that's a throwaway comment. And we know those arguments are just nonsense. And and I think, you know, by just rehashing those, they're really, it feels quite desperate to me. So I think they can only take things like, you know, tradition, jobs, education, heritage etc so far and then the argument runs out when you start to talk about um killing of sentient animals that aren't needed for us to thrive as human beings thank you paul and thank you david so listeners we are getting towards the bit of the show that is more similar to what it's been like in in the past, those you who've been listening for ages know that we've been doing these for such a long time. We've had a format for, for, for one way of doing things. And, uh, long-term listeners will know me talking about my autism and out and proud autism guy. And oh my word, this change in format has been a bit of a challenge for me. And David and Paul, oh, you're both amazing. You do. You're fantastic. I'm pleased to say that this new format, we're only, uh, having one more story in this, and then we're going to return to what we usually do, where each of our contributors have a pick of the week. So a story that they are particularly of their eyes drawn to, they want to talk more about. So this final story before we get to the pick of the week is about the animal rights activist, Joey Carbstrong. Now, Joey Carbstrong says that he has been arrested. He has ah been making animal rights crimes.
00:14:31
Speaker
videos, are sharing videos regarding slaughterhouses in England. So David, what's this story all about? Yes, thank you, Dominic. So another huge culture war flashpoint this week involves Jerry Carbstrong, who says he was arrested after releasing undercover footage from a British slaughterhouse investigation.
00:14:53
Speaker
The footage allegedly showed serious animal welfare breaches, including ineffective stunning and animals showing signs of consciousness during slaughter. What makes this story fascinating is that the debate immediately stops being just about the footage itself and becomes about activism, policing and how far campaign campaigners should be allowed to go.
00:15:17
Speaker
Supporters of Joey Carbstrong see him as exposing abuse the public would never normally see. Critics see him as a provocative activist who deliberately pushes legal and ethical boundaries.
00:15:29
Speaker
The article also highlights something that happens a lot with modern activism. The arrest itself almost becomes part of the campaign. Whether intentionally or not, it shifts the conversation from just animal welfare to questions like why was the activist arrested before anyone in the foot before anyone in the footage and does exposing alleged cruelty justify covert investigations?
00:15:55
Speaker
There's also a broader media angle here. Stories like this tend to create two completely different emotional reactions, depending on the audience. Some people see horrifying evidence of systematic cruelty.
00:16:08
Speaker
Others see activists targeting farmers and slaughterhouses to generate outrage and online attention. Very few people sit neutrally in the middle. What's interesting is that this story isn't really about one individual activist. It's about transparency.
00:16:24
Speaker
Most people never see inside slaughterhouses, so whenever footage like this emerges, it creates a battle over who controls the narrative, the industry, regulators or activists with hidden cameras. Thank you so much, David. Well, I'm always emotionally charged of about almost all of our stories we do, whether it's about something really harrowing like slaughterhouses or even if it's about lovely footballers doing vegan things like the Forest Rovers, everything gets me emotional. Paul, what is your reaction to this particular story?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think what's quite interesting about it, and I think David touched on this, is it doesn't actually say why he was arrested. And I don't that's kind of a bit of an oversight in the article, but That would seem, don't know if they'd left it out as a bit of a mystery, bit of like, ooh, why has he been arrested? But really, that should be part of the article. I assume it's because of, it'll be for taking covert information, probably breaking into somewhere. But they don't say that. So it's a bit odd, bit of an oversight, I think. What does this show us again? I think we've talked quite a few times before in the past about the fact that, you know, from a vegan perspective, I think it's fair to say that the law is not always moral.
00:17:39
Speaker
And I think that's, you know, one of these philosophical conundrums we have is that people look to the law as something that's going to be good. But I think often we find the law is He's not in favour of supporting animals and is in favour of protecting know business interests and and cruelty to animals ultimately. So yeah, that's so that was my main take from it. As David said as well, it does become a bit like... who controls information. We've had other stories recently where I think ah footage was taken and essentially the ah the organisation involved kind of argued, and I think this was maybe in the States, a slightly differently, that they they owned that they owned that footage because it was taken within there you know within their ah organisation
Podcast Accessibility and Support
00:18:20
Speaker
and therefore um that it couldn't be presented as evidence. So I think it is quite interesting from that perspective as well.
00:18:26
Speaker
Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Okay, so we are coming up to where we're going to ask David and Paul what their Pick of the Weeks are, but before we talk about that, let's alert everyone to the fact that this show, and indeed all of our Enough of the Falafels, have transcripts. Paul, what tell us about our transcripts. Yeah, so essentially, if you head over to our Zencaster site, so it's Zencaster, that's Z-E-N-C-A-S-T-R dot com slash vegan. I think it's hyphen wheat. My eyes are failing me. Yeah, and from there, you can... That's right. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you. And yeah, you can click on any show and you'll get a written transcript beneath it. Those transcripts are... um generated on our behalf and obviously it's a bit like when you watch uh the old subtitles on television they're not always necessarily 100 but i think when i've looked at them they're pretty good so yeah if you if you need that sort of support in listening to the show that is available and we're obviously trying to make them more accessible to people and we're we're really glad that that facility exists for us definitely thank you very much paul
00:19:30
Speaker
All right, so we've got David's pick of the week, then Paul's pick of the week, and we've got one final story that we'll cover in this show. Now, David, I am aware of Chris Packham. He's a television personality who's ah been on the screens for for all of my lifetime. ah There is a...
00:19:53
Speaker
big conflict between him and folks making ads for for for british beef and milk i believe that's been what's going on david would you care to tell us about your pick of the week thank you dominic um yes so here's a story that feels very 2026 it's a story where both sides could essentially claim victory So on one hand, the Advertising Standards Authority, the ASA, upheld part of Chris Packham's complaint against the Agriculture and Horticultural Development Board, the AHDB, their campaign, the Let's Eat Balance campaign. Specifically, the ASA ruled that adverts claiming British beef and milk had much lower carbon footprints than global averages were misleading because they didn't include the product's full life cycle emissions, things like cooking, waste and disposable.
00:20:45
Speaker
So Packham's core argument was basically, if you make environmental claims, you can't cherry pick the data that makes your product look good. But at the same time, the AHDB is presenting this as a major win for them because the ASA rejected rejected most of the wider complaints and allowed the overall campaign to continue.
00:21:05
Speaker
And honestly, that's where the debate gets really interesting, because this isn't just about advertising standards, it's about a much bigger cultural argument over meat, farming, climate change and public trust.
00:21:18
Speaker
Supporters of the AHDB will say British farming is constantly demonised, despite UK standards often being higher than many other countries. that argue consumers deserve context and that responsibly produced British meat may genuinely compare favourably internationally.
00:21:37
Speaker
Critics, meanwhile, would say the campaign still risks greenwashing livestock production by focusing narrowly on carbon comparisons without acknowledging the wider environmental impacts of intensive animal agriculture.
00:21:49
Speaker
One thing I think is important here is the ASA didn't say meat and dairy are inherently bad, nor did it ban the campaign entirely. It ruled on how the environmental claims were framed.
00:22:02
Speaker
That distinction matters. There's also a political layer to this. Farming organisations increasingly feel under attack from environmental campaigners, while environmental groups feel agriculture gets protected from scrutiny because of its cultural importance and government support. So in many ways, this ruling in many ways this ruling becomes symbolic.
00:22:23
Speaker
Both sides can walk away claiming validation. Packham can say the regulator agreed the adverts were misleading and the AHDB can say most of the campaign was cleared and we're continuing.
00:22:36
Speaker
And that probably tells you how divided the public conversation about food and sustainability has become in 2026. I mentioned that I grew up with the shows of Chris Packham. It's possible that um our listeners overseas might not be as familiar with him as he is very much an English-based, England-based personality. When I was a kid, he was on a children's TV show, The Really Wild Show. And some people, this is back in the 1980s, and some people, they have their moment and then they kind of... um fade out of being seen as regularly. But Chris Packham, ah since ah the turn of this decade, has really been very prevalent. Like myself, I outed myself as autistic. He's done a lot of talk on his own neuro neurodiversity. He's been really great, in my opinion. as somebody talking about autism and his own relationship with with his own brain, his own his own labels. And he he has been vegan since 2019. And he's this isn't an isolated thing of him using his platform to campaign for for what he really believes in. In my view, and he's ah he's a real force for good, in my opinion. I'm ah i'm a great admirer.
00:23:52
Speaker
of what he does. So that's my views on Chris Packham, but I don't know, Paul might have completely different ones on him and indeed this story. Paul, what what's your take on all this?
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, what I thought was interesting about this story is I think it shows that, you know, as we talk about promoting veganism and trying to fight in a non-vegan world, it's important to challenge organisations like this on their marketing and advertising because it you know it can be very powerful. And as you've seen with some vegan campaigns as well, sometimes you do wonder whether some adverts are kind of almost made purposely a bit controversial to then get bit ah knuckles wrapped by the ASA to then draw more attention to the advert in itself. So, you know, I don't i don't think that was the case here necessarily, but I think what is important to do is to challenge when organisations like this come up with come up with claims that we don't think are a true and to challenge him through those routes on it. It's another, it's another battle to have another battlefield to fight on. And obviously and it kind of started off pretty good in terms of the fight, but then um sort of faded off a little bit, I guess with the the follow-up. So, you know, I've had my own runnings with the ASA trying to complain about, cancer research UK adverts. And I had some very interesting answers from them about his cancer research. Obviously sort of say, Oh, we are beating cancer. Where's the evidence for this? But I got very interesting answers back from that center. Well, we don't need evidence. We know this is the case. And like, okay.
00:25:24
Speaker
So yeah, it's a, I think it's interesting to try and fight. on on this front with the with advertising being so prevalent and and and powerful. You two are so great on all your opinions. This is great. What a lot good old thing. We've got one more pick of the week to go and that is indeed from Paul. So Paul's pick of the week involves meatly. Meatly are a company who are being talked about in New Food magazine. That's where we've got the news article for this. And they have raised £10.4 million pounds to build Europe's largest cultivated meat facility.
00:26:07
Speaker
Paul, do you give us more details on this story? Yeah, I mean, on ah on the surface, it might not look like a very vegan story, but we've we've debated lab meat several times on many stories, I think, on on the show. And I think there's a there's a range of views on this, you know, full transparency. My own view on this is that this is, if you look at things in a kind of overall view, this is a good thing. for animals it's a progressive know if you take a progressive view rather than a perfection view this is a good thing so that's my view you might not agree with it and that's fine and and would encourage people to contact us and write in with what their view is on it as well as we always do with these stories so yeah i picked i picked this one because i think often it's good to kind of you know follow the money as they say i think and You know, if if people are investing such vast amounts of money into these sorts of operations, it really tells you where the future might be with some of these products. So it is important, I think, to consider these. So it's very interesting. This is to be a London-based company. as the The labs that are going to grow this or the for the production, rather. So that's kind of quite local to us as a country. I guess what I'm thinking is, you know, does this mean if this is successful and starts to produce a range of food where for pets, because obviously this is only like animal grade food, will...
00:27:34
Speaker
the UK ah become a leader in producing yeah human consumable ah meat in this case and that's quite an interesting thing as well because as I say it's not it's not perfect it's not clean and it's not going to remove the the consumption of meat but it could massively reduce the pain and suffering and death of animals so it's a I think it's exciting from that perspective. It really, it really does say, you know, when you've got big venture capital foot funds, chucking up money, I think in total now they've raised 17.4 million. That really tells you what the future might be because these people don't put up this sort of money for stuff. They think that's going to fail. They want, they want a return back more than what they've put in. So they've got faith in this working.
00:28:23
Speaker
They think it's the future. And as much as what we think as vegans, they were going to have probably have a lot more in influence on it at the end of the day, unfortunately. So yeah, really interesting. I think from that perspective, I don't know, maybe you and David got a slightly different view on it.
00:28:35
Speaker
Thank you, Paul. um Yes, um I agree with everything that you say, really. um And to expand on it, I think. So, that yeah, I find this story is really interesting because it shows cultivated meat continuing to move from science experiment territory into serious commercial infrastructure, mainly raising the 10.4 million to build what it claims will be Europe's largest cultivated meat facility is a significant milestone for the industry.
00:29:01
Speaker
What stands out most is that they're focusing on pet food first, rather than trying to go directly into human consumption. That's actually a really clever strategy. Pet food regulation is currently easier to navigate, and consumers may psychologically accept cultivated meat for pets before they're willing to eat it themselves.
00:29:21
Speaker
The company is also heavily pushing the environmental and ethical angle. Real meat without slaughter, reduced land use, and potentially lower emissions, That's the big promise of cultivated meat overall.
00:29:33
Speaker
However, there are still big questions the article doesn't fully address. The first is scalability. Cultivated meat companies have been talking for years about bringing costs down and scaling up production, but very few have proven they can do it profitably at industrial scale.
00:29:50
Speaker
but Building a facility is one thing. Making affordable making affordable products consistently is another thing. Another issue is consumer acceptance.
00:30:01
Speaker
A lot of people still hear phrases like lab-grown meat and immediately feel uneasy. If the science is sound, there's still a psychological barrier around food technology that companies like Meatly will have to overcome.
00:30:15
Speaker
There's also the question of whether cultivated meat genuinely becomes more sustainable once you factor in the huge energy requirements needed for large-scale bioreactors. Critics argue the environmental claims sometimes get ahead of the real-world evidence.
00:30:30
Speaker
What I do think is important, though, this isn't science fiction anymore. The yeah UK already approved cultivated meat for pet food. and products have already gone on sale in limited form.
00:30:42
Speaker
So regardless of whether people love the idea or hate it, cultivated meat is becoming a real commercial industry, and Britain seems determined to position itself at the centre of it.
00:30:53
Speaker
Well, those are our views, but what are the views of our listeners? As Paul mentioned before, we really enjoy having people message us. We don't pretend to be experts in anything. We're just a group of friends, some of us based in the UK. Sometimes we have people on this show from other countries. It's wonderful to just have a group of people say what they think, and your views are very, very welcome. So if you wanted to email in, Paul, do you have our email address for this show? Yes, so email addresses. So it is enoughofthefalafel, which is all one word, at gmail.com. We read and respond to each email that you send in and we will look to feature... Certainly some of them on our mailbag shows, unless, of course, you don't want us to. So, yeah, if you email us, it should make an impact. Yeah, thank you, Paul. So these vegan news shows are more topical with what's going on here and now. But then we've got our other show in which we have more general topics, topics that you can easily dip back into and listen to at any old time. And we often have our mailbag episodes in there. So we really do welcome you to send online.
00:32:06
Speaker
what you think. Now we've got just one more news story for this show and that is from Ben and Jerry's. Now I'll tell you a little bit about my own journey into veganism. It was very much that I wanted to lose weight initially like I was really slow into veganism and I was becoming aware of how things like cheese and ice cream were really fatty foods and I was cutting them out for reasons of trying to be a bit healthier ah before then being exposed to some animal rights
00:32:46
Speaker
information and some really shocking facts about how animals are treated what happens to our environment so for a long long time i definitely didn't have any Desserts like ice cream because they weren't around. I've been a vegan for a long, old time, like about 20 years, I think. And yeah, over those 20 years, more and more desserts for vegans have become more readily available, which has been wonderful for the world at large, maybe less wonderful for my waistline. But we got a story from Plant Based News about Ben and Jerry's making desserts for
00:33:27
Speaker
dogs. So they're launching a range which apparently is accidentally vegan. So the intent is not for them to be eaten by people. The idea is that these are dog desserts. People have been joking around on the internet being like, oh, but you know, they're really delicious. They're good enough for people.
00:33:49
Speaker
And folks have realized that they're accidentally vegan. So but I think there's a larger question about what is and isn't good to feed our animal companions anyway, and whether dogs need animals.
00:34:12
Speaker
d so Do dogs need anything from Ben and Jerry's? Do humans need anything from Ben and Jerry's? I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure. I always think that the greatest gift you can give to any living being, whether it's family member or a family member,
00:34:31
Speaker
or ah non-human companion is your time, is your time being with them. And I do sometimes feel, as it says Dominic, with his judgmental hat on, that it's really, really easy to give a kid a treat if you're not really seeing them as much as you'd like to, you know, maybe through no fault of your own. And the same with animals. People have really, really demanding lives, really a lot placed on their shoulders. And I do feel that sometimes these things are got as...
00:34:59
Speaker
guilt relievers if people are like oh let's give you know the dog a treat i don't know i'm a little bit skeptical i feel like as a vegan i should be going yay what a cool thing there's a new vegan product on the shelves but i don't know i'm kind of feeling maybe paul or david might perhaps persuade me otherwise Yeah, I wasn't sure about the story, to be honest. It felt a bit like one of those end of news comical stories, I suppose, really. But really, focus seems to be more on a kind of, oh, humans are talking about eating dog food. I think that's kind of the attention grabbing here. And then it's like, oh, and some of them happen to be vegan as well so you know humans can eat uh vegan dog food you know okay fine whatever but i i think i don't know it just feels a bit a bit of a non-story to me if i'm being being honest it does like you say open up the question about whether dogs really do need um meat in their diet because you know these are these are treats i guess like you say we all know that there are vegan pet foods out there for dogs and cats i've tried my own cat uh that i had before with uh vegan cat food she didn't like it and i spoke to the company actually about it and they said yeah it's about 50 50 and they said that's what we find and they're quite honest about it i think i've heard people with dogs have more success so maybe like you say dom maybe there's a bit of a thing here saying well actually you know if they enjoy and they really like like it then maybe maybe you can move away completely from meat for pets in some cases. that would be, that be great. But in the meantime, we have got similar stories to what we've just talked about, about, well, they are going to have it, then,
00:36:44
Speaker
manufactured rather than slaughtered meat or predominantly slaughtered meat seems to be a a good halfway house there. I have varying thoughts on this. I think there's there's a lot to this. I personally don't agree with giving sugary products to humans, let alone to animals. It's not part of their natural diet. Having had a dog when I was a child that sadly had to be put down because of diabetes, I think yeah We live in a world now where there is so much refined sugar. Diabetes in humans is a real problem, and now we're talking about giving it to our pets. And I don't mean the desserts, I mean giving them diabetes. Something like a doggy dessert full of sugar is only going to give our pets diabetes. Speaking as a diabetic myself, I'm definitely against adding more sugar in anyone's diet um and being vegan.
00:37:38
Speaker
I definitely agree with having less meat in anyone's diet, but where animals are concerned, also being a cat dad myself, knowing that cats can't live without meat in their diet, I definitely don't agree with vegan food for any animals, cats or dogs, because their diet does need to include meat. It does open up another debate of whether we should have pets that eat meat if we're vegan.
00:38:07
Speaker
But I already have these cats that I love and adore and I will give them anything. And that does mean that I choose to give them meat because I want to keep them alive as long as possible.
00:38:18
Speaker
I won't give them sugar. I won't give them desserts with refined sugar in as I try not to have it in my diet. But I'm human. I treat myself. But I am a responsible cat um a responsible cat dad and I wouldn't give the cats the sugar on that. But yeah, that's all I have to say on this one.
00:38:37
Speaker
Really big thank you to David and Paul for talking so much about the news this week. Really, really value it. I am going to say to our listeners that this format that we've had going in for a few weeks now, but it's my first one. I was still with it.
00:38:51
Speaker
Oh, my word. It has messed with my melon to use a Manchesterism. It's twisted my melon, man. So thank you, listeners, for bearing with me while I fumbled my way through this new format. Woo!
00:39:05
Speaker
Autistic change, autistic change. Anyway, I'll tell you what we do like. We do like it when people check out our Ko-Fi, K-O-F-I, Ko-Fi or coffee. Is that how you say it? What i do know is it's a way that people can donate to us. And some of our listeners have done, and I'm really appreciative of that. So some people give something like, you know, a pound a month or, you know, one-off donations. It's something that, enables us to try and make our podcast a bit better with better equipment it's a great thing because we don't have any marketing budget we just do what we do with what we have as we mentioned we're just a group of friends so if you'd like to give us a bit of cash to help us out there is a link
00:39:51
Speaker
ko-fi that's ko-fi.com forward slash enough of the falafel all one word we would love it if you wanted to donate thank you dominic um yes there are plenty of ways that people can help our show um you can rate us on your podcast player and you can tell people about the show spread the word and share it Thank you everyone for listening. The next of the Enough of the Falafel episode coming will be out um on the 21st of May and that's ah one of our Vegan Talk episodes and that'll be featuring Julie, Mark and Anthony and we'll be looking at are companion animals even possible when looking at things from a strictly animal rights perspective. So ah a very interesting one and I think that'll be a a really interesting one to listen to.
00:40:43
Speaker
Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thanks to Dominic and Paul for your contributions. Thanks again everyone for listening. I've been David and you've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:40:59
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster.
00:41:10
Speaker
We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com. And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:41:40
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course...
00:42:01
Speaker
around a dozen news items from around the world each week. So check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes. And remember to get an alert for each new episode, simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show.
00:42:16
Speaker
Thanks for your ongoing support wherever you listen to us from.