Tesco’s Vegan Steak Company Vivera ‘Can’t Keep Up With the Demand’

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Vivera, the company behind the wildly popular vegan steak selling 40,000 units in its first week at Tesco, is struggling to keep up with the demand for its new plant-based meat.

“Very happy with the plantbased steak and the rest of the Vivera range – extension at Albert Heijn,”  Gert Jan Gombert, the recently-appointed CCO of Vivera, said in a statement. “Unfortunately we are currently struggling to keep up with the high demand of Vivera in the United Kingdom and in Holland after the enormous amount of positive reviews on (social) media by both experts and the public. Incredibly grateful for that.”

“And we are working around the clock to solve this a.s.a.p,” he continued.

Late last month, the Netherlands-based company said that just under 40,000 of the vegan steaks had been sold at the 400 Tesco stores that carry it, within just a week of being stocked. Many branches sold out of the entire first shipment in the first day. And it seems the high demand has continued in the weeks since.

Vivera just added its steak to stores in Belgium and the Netherlands, where it’s headquartered.

“The consumers in England are almost without exception very enthusiastic about the taste and texture of the steak. The hashtag #Vivera almost explodes on Instagram,” Jan Gombert said of the vegan steak. “This ground-breaking product has also received a particularly positive reception from professional critics. We will do our utmost to meet market demand as much as possible by increasing our production faster than planned.” 

The vegan steak joined the plant-based market at a prime time; a researcher from the non-profit health organization PCRM recently released data that found people transitioning to a vegan or vegetarian diet frequently opt for plant-based alternatives to familiar dietary components such as the Vivera steak. And according to a recent press release, 86 percent of people buying vegan meat are meat-eaters.

Consumers in the U.K. can also get their hands on vegan meat products from Fry Family Food Co., a company that just expanded its range of chilled products, after being “delighted with the response” to its initial meat-free frozen meat launch last November. And the U.S.’s popular “bleeding” vegan meat by Beyond Meat is heading to Tesco stores this August.


Image Credit: Vivera

This post was last modified on December 15, 2020 5:53 am

Nadia Murray-Ragg

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Nadia Murray-Ragg