Waitrose Editor Quits After Joking About Killing Vegans

Editor William Sitwell of United Kingdom-based food magazine Waitrose resigned this week after coming under fire for suggesting vegans should be killed. Vegan freelance journalist Selene Nelson recently pitched Sitwell a vegan cooking series via email, to which he responded: “Hi Selene. Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?” In a follow-up email, he added: “I like the idea of a column called The Honest Vegan; a millennial’s diary of earnest endeavor and bacon sandwiches … ” John Brown Media, the production agency behind Waitrose, announced Sitwell’s resignation two days after the comments were made public by BuzzFeed News. Sitwell used an Instagram post to pay tribute to his time at the magazine and reiterate his “apology to any food- and life-loving vegan who was genuinely offended by remarks written by me as an ill-judged joke in a private email and now widely reported.” Coincidentally, last month, the company’s Waitrose supermarket chain reported that sales of its vegan and vegetarian products had increased by 85 percent from last year. To celebrate the growing trend, the chain expanded its offering with the launch of a private-label line of more than 40 meatless products, including holiday meals such as a Vegan Nut Roast and Vegan Beet Wellington.