IKEA Goes All in on Veganuary

This week, IKEA’s United Kingdom branch announced its support for Veganuary, a campaign that challenges participants to go vegan for the month of January and beyond. Ellie Pniok, Commercial Food Leader for IKEA UK & Ireland, explained that IKEA’s alignment with Veganuary is timely as in the last two years, 15 percent more Brits are consuming meat-free foods. “Sustainability is integral to everything we do at IKEA,” Ellie Pniok, Commercial Food Leader for IKEA UK & Ireland, said. “From evolving our food offering and reducing our impact on the planet, to innovating the materials we use in our products and providing easy and affordable ways to reduce waste.” 

Vegan at IKEA
Pniok highlighted the vegan options available at IKEA to help shoppers stick with their Veganuary pledge and go vegan beyond January, including its KORVMOJ vegan hot dogs and HUVUDROLL vegan meatballs. “We want to inspire change and enable the many to make more sustainable choices every day,” Pniok said. “Veganuary is a wonderful opportunity for us to do so, highlighting both the environmental impact of making meat-free switches and the easy and affordable changes you can make to do so.”

Last year, IKEA introduced a new version of HUVUDROLL vegan meatballs—made from yellow pea protein, oats, potatoes, onions, and apples—which carry only four percent of the carbon footprint of IKEA’s traditional animal-based meatballs. “Plant-based foods need less resources, less water, and less land to feed just as many,” Pniok said. “By cutting out meat and dairy products from your diet, you could reduce the carbon footprint from your food by up to 73 percent. Changing eating habits can be daunting, so taking a gradual approach by committing to one vegan day a week can make this change much easier, being kinder to both yourself and the planet.”

In November 2020, IKEA announced that it aims to make 50 percent of its restaurant meals plant-based by 2025 and transition 80 percent of its packaged meals to be plant-based to give its 680,000,000 customers more sustainable options.