Co-op price matches vegan and meat products as part of new climate strategy

The convenience retailer will invest £1.7m to reduce prices of 29 fresh, chilled and ambient vegan products in a bid to give customers cheaper ‘flexitarian’ choices which are better for the planet. 

The retailer’s food boss Jo Whitfield said she wanted the Co-op to be a leader in this space and hoped that other grocers would follow suit. 

“No one has done this yet, and we’re hoping that other brands will follow suit. We’re very conscious that for vegetarian and vegan products there is a price premium and a price barrier to switching. So for us, it was about how we play our part in encouraging people to make the switch.

“We did some research that found that if every family in the UK switched one red meat meal to one vegetarian meal a week, the carbon saving would be the equivalent to about 16 million cars off the road. We want to make it easier for customers to make that switch.”

Whitfield also said the Co-op was on the road to being carbon neutral in its own operations by 2025, and had set out a roadmap to be completely carbon neutral by 2040. 

The retailer will use carbon offsetting to make its stores, buildings and logistics to neutralise its greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the year.

The Co-op have also pledged millions of pounds of proceeds from the carry bag levy to support UK natural restoration projects and fund innovations that will help it to achieve its target. 

Whitfield said: “Our 2040 target is an assessment based on that we’ve arrived at with the support and guidance of scientists in terms of what’s their expectation around emerging technologies,” she said. 

“Some of those technologies don’t exist yet. For the moment it’s about reducing as much as you can as quickly as you can, but then offsetting the last piece, so that you can mitigate your impact.”