IKEA Roll Out Vegan Meatballs

8 April 2015

PETA Petitions Precede Furniture Giant’s New Cruelty-Free Option at Their In-Store Restaurants

Leiden, Netherlands – Starting today, IKEA shoppers can take a break from picking out their new flat-pack furniture and chow down on the international retailer’s famous Swedish meatballs – with a cruelty-free twist. After working with PETA US for three years and receiving numerous petitions showing support for vegan options from IKEA fans around the world, the company are officially launching a Veggie Ball – a delicious vegan meatball that’s available at select stores today and will soon roll out to their more than 350 stores. Photos are available here and here.

“With the demand for vegan options higher than ever, IKEA’s meat-free meatballs are right on trend”, says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA are happy to work with any retailer or restaurant that’s eager to feed diners’ hunger for food that’s healthy, humane and eco-friendly.”

Recent studies reveal that one person in eight living in the UK is vegetarian or vegan and that 20 per cent of Britons between the ages of 16 and 24 do not eat animals. As documented by PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – vegan options spare animals immense suffering, and vegan meals also have smaller carbon footprints, as the meat industry is a major producer of the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. Vegan options give diners’ health a break, too: vegans are less prone to suffering from heart disease, diabetes, strokes, obesity and cancer than meat-eaters are.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.