UK diet trends

by Samuel Smith, UK Communications Executive

30 Jan 2019

The UK’s current diet vs UK diet intentions by the end of 2019

According to the survey, 88% of the population currently eat meat in their diets. Of the non-meat diets, the vegetarian diet is the most common (7%), followed by the pescatarian diet (4%) and then the vegan diet (1%). This means around 6.5 million British adults are currently eating meat-free.

The UK’s current diet

The UK’s diet intentions by the end of 2019

Despite the relatively low numbers of non-meat eaters currently, many intend to change their diets over 2019. Almost 12 million Brits (22%) say they will follow a vegetarian, vegan or pescatarian diet by the end of this year. If these people follow through with their plans, around 10% will be following a vegetarian diet, 7% will follow a pescatarian diet and 6% will be following a vegan diet.

Diet changes

The diet that will have the most new recruits in 2019 looks set to be veganism, as 2.2 million intend to take up this lifestyle. This would see the total number of vegans increase by a remarkable 327%, to a total of 2.9 million people.

Despite the potentially huge increase of vegans, vegetarianism remains the most popular of the major diets. It already has 3.6 million followers and an additional 1.5 million people are looking to ditch the steak in favour of greener pastures in 2019. This would bring the total vegetarian population up to 5.2 million.

Aspiring pescatarians are also on the rise. In fact, the pescatarian diet is likely to see numbers increase by a whopping 67 percent this year, bringing the total number of pescatarians to 3.6 million.

Cost of each diet

Many people embark on a new diet for health and lifestyle reasons and often forget to think through the financial implications of the change. The reality is that what you eat can have a direct impact on your wallet.

It’s good news for vegetarians who have a diet 26 percent cheaper than a meat-inclusive one, meaning they can pocket an extra £457 every year. It’s not so great for vegans who have the most expensive diet overall, coming in at £2,073 annually. Interestingly, a pescatarian diet is £29 cheaper than a diet that also includes meat.

Yearly cost of each diet per person

When you look at the costs on a national scale you can see the huge financial impact of changing consumer trends. If everyone followed through with their dietary plans in 2019, Brits would spend an additional £4.6bn on vegan diets, £2.8bn on pescatarian diets and £2.4bn on vegetarian diets over a year. This would equal a shift of £9.9bn from omnivore diets to meat-free ones.

UK total yearly cost of each diet

Which generations are ditching the meat?

Generationally, the percentage of people who eat meat, and don’t currently intend to change, increases with age. While 94 percent of those in the silent generation (born before 1945) and 86 percent of baby boomers eat meat, this figure drops to under two thirds (63%) for post-millennials (born after 1996).

Which regions of the UK are ditching the meat?

London (30%) and the North East (30%) of the UK see the highest proportion of residents either currently or intending to be meat-free by 2019. The survey suggests that three in every ten people in these locations will be meat-free by the end of the year. In contrast, East Anglia sees the lowest percentage of meat-free dieters, with only 13% of residents taking part in vegetarian, vegan or pescatarian diet.