Dutch Company Dumps Its Meat Brand to Focus on Vegan Future 

At the end of May, Dutch company Vivera Foodgroup sold its meat brand Enkco to Dutch Van Loon Group in order to focus solely on expanding the footprint of its plant-based holdings. Last year, Vivera Foodgroup—which owns plant-based brands Vivera, Culifrost, and The Dutch Tofu Company—launched its popular vegan steaks at 400 locations of British supermarket chain Tesco. The company then expanded the product to Netherlands-based chains Albert Heijn and JUMBO Supermarkten and Carrefour locations in Belgium. “We are one of the first companies in the world’s meat industry to say [a] final goodbye to meat. From now on we only focus on plant-based foods which are really conquering the world,” Vivera Foodgroup CEO Willem van Weede said. “More and more consumers are discovering that plant-based products can be just as tasty as real meat and have many benefits for personal health, environmental impact, and animal welfare. As a result of the sale of our meat activities, we think we can boost even more Vivera’s rapid international growth.” Vivera Foodgroup will use the proceeds from the sale of Enkco to develop new plant-based products and substantially increase production capacity at its Netherlands facility by the end of 2019.