Fucking horrendus
As you know, previously-vegan range Goodlife now contains a few products with dairy.
Like many compassionate consumers, I am appalled that a company claiming to be ethical would take this huge step backwards.
Look below to see a Twitter conversation from earlier today between me and Goodlife.
This might very well be the worst attempt at recovering from a product scandal that I have seen in years.
Goodlife are sorry that I am upset? Don’t worry about me, mate. I’ll be fine.
Worry about the poor fucking cows that will be used, abused and left for dead when they are no longer productive. Think about the contribution you are making to the constant cycle of exploitation every time you send a pallet of products out to stores. As you receive payment from customers, know that those funds are yours only because baby cows are being ripped from their mothers every single day in the UK and sent to veal crates or factory farms.
No, don’t worry about upsetting me. It’s your tragic family I feel sorry for with its need to earn money any way possible. What an absolutely fucked up thing to know your bills are being paid because animals are being impregnated constantly and killed when they are spent.
Look at this quote from the Viva! White Lies website.
Dairy cows are portrayed as having an idyllic life but the reality is that cows (like all mammals) only produce milk for their young after giving birth. Dairy cows are kept in a cycle of near constant pregnancy and lactation (meaning huge physical and psychological stress, often leading to disease and exhaustion). Every year, dairy cows also suffer the separation from their young just a day or two after giving birth, calling for each other desperately – the trauma and stress have been studied and even the dairy industry admit it causes emotional stress. The fundamentals of dairy farming – removing newborn calves to sell the cow’s milk – always conflicts the animals’ physical and emotional welfare.
Goodlife. Reverse your ridiculous decision to include dairy in your products. Make them vegan again. If not for the individual cows suffering through the dairy process, for your family. Don’t make the horror of dairy farming be your family legacy.
I urge all concerned readers to reach out to Goodlife via Facebook and Twitter.
Uh, I’m still set to see any evidence which suggests adding dairy increases product sales. THERE IS A WAY YOU CAN JUST MAKE TASTIER STUFF WITHOUT ADDING CHEESE EVERYWHERE
Couldn’t agree more. I find it offensive that they use ‘needs of family & employees’ as their excuse for exploitation & abuse of another species, whilst all the time claiming ‘create a good life’! Terrible cop-out.
I think they’ve just made the situation worse.
There are hundreds of vegan businesses, most of them small &/or ‘family-run’, worldwide, proving there’s no need to exploit animals in order to thrive.
We ourselves run a small vegan business at Loaf b&b; we’ve only been open just over a year, yet we already create extra work in the local economy, using a couple of self-employed people for some of our services on a regular basis. The vegan economy is alive & healthy!
Even if we had employees directly, I still can’t see how we’d need to resort to the use of dairy products in order to afford to ‘look after’ them & ‘guarantee a future’!
Dreadful excuse, & what a legacy for their family..!
Several of us have already commented to them on their social media sites that, if they really wanted a cheesy taste, it could simply have been done by using one of the many vegan, cruelty-free brands on the market, thus not upsetting anyone.
Setting aside the important ethical side, to back up their insensitive comments, I’d like to see their empirical evidence showing they’ve done any form of research to find out:
a) number of consumers who said they needed ‘cheese flavour’ to be added into several products before they’d eat them
versus b) number of their regular consumers who don’t eat dairy cheese (eg vegan / allergy / dislike of the flavour)
& c) number of consumers who’d have been happy to have a vegan cheese (or alternative option, such as yeast flakes) in there if they were changing / adding recipes.
Plus projected loss of sales due to d) numbers of consumers who WON’T be buying the new products (eg their existing customer base of people buying a previously-vegan brand – probably a majority of them vegan so won’t actually eat these new flavours anyway?; those of us actively boycotting the brand because we are hugely upset at the move – which they clearly didn’t consider might be an issue)
versus e) cost of the advertising to win round new customers who’ve never been interested in buying this brand in the past (expensive & I suspect saying “our products now contain added cheese” isn’t going to win over tons of meat-eaters…).
That would be an interesting business model, if they’ve even bothered to do it..
When I was only veggie, I got thoroughly sick of everything I was offered having to be covered in cheese. And surely, it’s not beyond the intelligence of most folk to grate a bit of (dairy / non-dairy) cheese atop their meal should they wish to have that flavour?
They are just making things worse by covering up that they didn’t even consider an ethical option & are clearly only profit-driven. Do they not realise that most vegans are very well informed (we need to be!), so know when they are being fobbed off?
There are plenty of other firms out there that are ethical & do deserve the custom & success.
That is just f#$*ing ridiculous! what cop out!