Veganism is over... and, as a vegan myself, I couldn’t be happier about it

No more ‘cheezly’ slices? Farewell, ‘beeph’ burgers? Good riddance, says meat-and-dairy-dodger Paul Clements – who wants mass-produced vegan sludge anyway?

Would some meat-substitute cheer up your salad? (Getty/iStock)

The collapse of VBites, the British food company that kept supermarket shoppers in “cheezly” slices and “beeph” mince for 30 years, whether they wanted it or not, is but the latest sign that the vegan bubble has not so much burst as de-natured into a weird-tasting, processed sludge.

Despite the reported ongoing fashionability of meat and dairy-free diets, VBites – which had been stewarded by celebrity vegan Heather Mills, and billed itself as the “original plant-based food pioneers” (although another Beatle wife, the late Linda McCartney, might have had a bone to pick with that…) – had struggled to turn a profit.

And if not now, after the plant-based food boom of 2018, around the time Waitrose became the first British supermarket to throw its significant weight behind a dedicated vegan section in its stores – and with another PR-supercharged Veganuary just a matter of weeks away (squee!) – then when?