Veggies Cheese burgers are evolving

Many of our customers and supporters care about who owns who and, like us, follow the guidance of the Ethical Consumer Magazine​.

On May 26, 2021 vegconomist.com report that “Global Dairy Giant Saputo Acquires Bute Island, Producer of UK’s Heritage “Scheese” Brand“.

Bute Island have been an all vegan & vegan-owned company since 1988, part of a very small band of pioneering vegan companies, including Veggies Catering Campaign​ which formed in 1984.

Bute Island make pretty much all the supermarket own brand cheese in the UK – so now the own-brand cheeses of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons (as well as Bute’s own brand, Sheese) are owned by a dairy giant. Their Ethical Score is likely to drop from [15] to the [11] scored by $7.8 billion Canadian dairy giants Saputo Inc.

Higher on Ethical Consumers’ ratings are UK companies Tyne Chease Ltd (available from Alternative Stores, Lembas Wholefoods and Suma Wholefoods)​ and Mouse’s Favourite (also available from Alternative Stores)​. These hand-made artisan cheeses are amazing but not as affordable or widely available as Bute Island.

New Roots – Vegan Creamery​ and Happy Cheeze​ also score well, but they are from Switzerland & Germany respectively.

Not far below are GreenVie Foods [ethical score 14] from Greece and the widely available Cheezly [13.5] from UK vegan company VBites Foods.

Many of these brands of vegan cheese are available in the UK from the Vegan Wholesaler.

Ethical Consumer Guide to Vegan cheese

In their February 2020 guide by Ruth Strange, Ethical Consumer investigate, score and rank the ethical and environmental record of 19 vegan cheese brands.

The company ratings may not yet have been updated to reflect the sale of Bute Island to Saputo, but note that Sapuro’s rating is scored at 10.5.

They also look at non-vegan companies making vegan cheese, vegan cheese ingredients and palm oil and give our Best Buy recommendations.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/vegan-cheese

See also the EC report on $7.8 billion Canadian dairy giants Saputo Inc.

 


References

Visible links
1. https://www.veggies.org.uk/about/ethical-green/product-info/vegan-cheeses/
2. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/
3. https://vegconomist.com/
4. https://vegconomist.com/companies-and-portraits/global-dairy-giant-saputo-acquires-bute-island-producer-of-uks-heritage-scheese-brand/amp/
5. https://www.facebook.com/sheeseuk
6. https://www.buteisland.com/get-to-know-us/our-story/
7. https://www.veggies.org.uk/about/history-of-veggies/
8. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/saputo-inc
9. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/vegan-cheese
10. https://www.tynechease.com/
11. https://www.alternativestores.com/tyne-chease-en-gb/
12. https://www.lembas.co.uk/catalogue/brand/tne
13. https://mousesfavourite.com/
14. https://www.alternativestores.com/mouse-s-favourite-en-gb/
15. https://www.facebook.com/newrootscreamery/
16. https://happy-cheeze.com/
17. https://www.greenviefoods.com/
18. https://www.vbites.com/
19. https://veganwholesaler.com/
20. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/vegan-cheese
21. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/vegan-cheese
22. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/saputo-inc
23. http://www.veggies.org.uk/
24. http://twitter.com/VeggiesNottm
25. https://www.facebook.com/VeggiesCatering