The butcher who turned vegan overnight: ‘Suddenly the idea of putting something dead inside my body didn’t feel right’
Sgaia’s is one of a rising number of food manufacturers branding their products not as vegan alternatives, but as a radical new type of 'mheat'.
HAZEL SHEFFIELD: ‘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. “Suddenly the idea of putting something dead inside my body didn’t feel right.” Kavanagh was working as a manager on the meat counter at Morrisons. He had a young family and bills to pay. He kept his feelings to himself. But going into work became harder each day. Eventually he found work at a small pizza chain.
When that closed down the owner of the business introduced him to Hilary Masin and Alberto Casotto, the founders of a vegan meat company called Sgaia’s Vegan Meats. Since 2017, Kavanagh has been working with the firm at its Glasgow base, producing vegan meat for its suppliers and working on new recipes to meet demand. “I am a lot happier – it’s like night and day,” Kavanagh says. Sgaia’s is one of a rising number of food manufacturers branding their products not as vegan alternatives, but as a radical new type of meat. The size of the market for alternatives is still tiny compared with the global meat market, but there are signs the meat industry is watching closely…
At Sgaia’s, Kavanagh is in charge of running the kitchen, keeping up with orders and experimenting with new recipes. He has just developed a square sausage recipe using similar spices he used to use in meat sausages, but switching out the animal protein for gluten and soy. Next, the company is working on vegan black pudding to add to its growing range of vegan burgers, bacon, pepperoni slices and even steak…. After two decades in the meat industry, Kavanagh is enjoying working with a much smaller company. He mostly keeps his veganism to himself, apart from when he is manning the pop-up kitchen at vegan festivals, where customers are amazed by his butcher past: “If you’re working for a supermarket, it’s all about profits, basically – whereas this is about making a difference”.’ SOURCE…
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