Central Foods offers a fantastic range of tasty vegan options, including easy-to-serve, pre-prepared items, plus ingredients to help chefs and food service professionals prepare their own meat-free dishes.

Try the vegan-friendly, gluten-free KaterVeg! Moroccan-style cauliflower bites or the Menuserve Indian snack selection as takeaway or delivery snacks, starters or tapas… they’re quick and simple to prepare and travel well in a box.

For a more substantial meal, how about the newly launched premium Menuserve beetroot and thyme tarte tatin, which is perfect for vegan customers but delicious for all.

Also recently introduced to our vegan range are the KaterVeg! vegan quarterpounder, the KaterVeg! vegan sausage and the KaterVeg! vegan meatballs made with seasoned textured soya protein – all popular and traditional catering options, but now available in vegan versions too.  Serve the burger in a gourmet bun with crunchy salad, use the vegan sausages in a hot dog, and add the vegan meatballs as a pizza topping or to a sub roll for a delicious hot snack.  All great-tasting options for your vegan customers that are sure to go down with meat-reducers too!

If you’re looking for superb vegan-friendly ingredients look no further than the KaterVeg! vegan mince, which is also gluten-free, and can be used as a meat-free option in a wide range of customer favourites from spaghetti bolognaise, tacos and chilli to lasagne, shepherd’s pie and pizza toppings.  It’s simple to use, straight from the freezer, directly into recipes and it doesn’t need browning or frying beforehand. Incredibly versatile, the vegan mince comes in a free-flow format to allow caterers to use as much or as little as they like, which helps to avoid wastage.  It’s also high in protein, low in fat, low in sugar, a source of fibre and has salt levels below the PHE 2024 targets.

Other new vegan ingredients we have recently launched include the White Rabbit Pizza Company vegan and gluten-free Nudies pizza bases in two sizes, 10 inch and 12 inch, and the Jack & Bry jackfruit pepperoni slices, which make superb toppings for vegan pizzas, and the jackfruit sausage coins, both of which are ideal for making a meat-free feast.  They join the Jack & Bry sizzling jackfruit sausages and juicy burger patties, which are also part of our vegan range.

To round things off with a sweet treat, we have a number of vegan-friendly desserts, which also happen to be gluten-free too, including the show-stopping, creamy-crunchy Menuserve pumpkin dessert, which is a superb addition to any Winter takeaway or delivery menu.

“By halfway through the first week of January, Veganuary 2021 has already had more than half a million sign ups,” explains Gordon Lauder, MD of frozen food distributor Central Foods. “It reflects the growing interest in plant-based and vegan options.  The number of vegans quadrupled from 2014 to 2019 and vegans and vegetarians are set to make up 25% of the population by 2025 and flexitarians just under 50%, according to the Vegan Society.

“Recent events may well have accelerated the trend.  According to Mintel, a quarter of young British millennials say that the coronavirus pandemic has made a vegan diet more appealing, while the June 2020 survey also revealed that since the start of the pandemic, a vegan diet was proving more attractive to around 12% of Brits, rising to more than 20% of Londoners.

“#Veganuary has had more than one million posts on Instagram alone and the charity that runs the annual event in January to inspire people to try vegan options for a month has more than a quarter of a million followers on Instagram and nearly 60,000 on Twitter.

“We believe that vegan and plant-based options will continue to be one of the top trends for 2021, fuelled not only by the increasing number of vegans but also by those who are reducing their meat intake and choosing a flexitarian diet.  Central Foods offers an exciting and extensive frozen range for food service operators across all sectors and we’re delighted to be able to supply our customers with a superb selection of products so that they in turn can meet the demands of their customers even during lockdown.”