Image: Veganuary press kit.
Veganuary has released its final figures for 2021, and it's another record. A total of 582,538 people signed up to try vegan for January, from 209 countries and territories.
That's up from 400,000 last year and well past the charity's own target of 500,000. Veganuary also points out that many more people take part without ever registering on the website, so the real number is likely to be far higher.
The campaign had some serious star power behind it this year. In December Jane Goodall, Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais, John Bishop and Sara Pascoe signed a joint letter urging people to take part, alongside more than 100 other celebrities, politicians, charities and businesses. MPs Henry Smith, Andrea Jenkyns and Tracey Crouch gave it a go, as did former Love Island star Eyal Booker.
Toni Vernelli, Veganuary's Head of Communications, told The Grocer:
We expected Veganuary 2021 to be the biggest yet but it exceeded all of our expectations.
It wasn't only individuals. More than 40 companies took part in the Veganuary Workplace Challenge, including PwC, EY, Bloomberg, Nestlé, M&S and Quorn, and hundreds of new plant-based products and menu items launched over the month.
The shops noticed. Pret's UK Trading Director Guy Meakin said "At Pret we've never seen a new product come in and shift our best sellers list", and vegconomist reports that Pret's new Meatless Meatball Hot Wrap was the first new product in the chain's history to become a top-five bestseller in its launch week. Michael Hunter, Managing Director of Meatless Farm, called it "an incredible month for us and the plant-based category as a whole."
The good news is that a month is long enough to feel the difference. Research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that plant protein builds muscle just as well as animal protein, and an Oxford University study in PNAS found that a global shift to vegan diets would save more than 8 million lives by 2050. If you signed up this year, you're part of the biggest wave yet.
The growth is staggering. Just two years ago a record 250,000 people signed up for Veganuary and The Economist declared 2019 the year of the vegan. Last January Veganuary hit 400,000 and KFC launched a vegan burger across the UK, and Tesco has since pledged to boost plant-based meat sales by 300%. Only a fortnight ago France awarded its first Michelin star to a vegan restaurant.
This is just the beginning.