‘Suddenly the idea of putting something dead inside my body didn’t feel right’: The butcher who turned vegan overnight

Sgaia’s Vegan Meats is one of a growing crop of cruelty-free companies branding their products as a new type of meat. Hazel Sheffield reports

Brian Kavanagh had been a butcher in Glasgow for more than 20 years when one night, everything changed.

His wife, a committed vegan, showed him the film Earthlings, a 2005 documentary narrated by Joaquin Phoenix about the suffering endured by animals at factory farms and research labs.

“The next morning I went into work and nothing felt right,” Kavanagh says.