Temple of Seitan sold in bars UK wide
This is huge (and conflicting) news.
Beer company BrewDog has announced an exclusive deal with vegan fried chicken pioneers Temple of Seitan to feature their signature seitan wings and burgers in BrewDog Bars across the UK available from Tuesday January 14, 2020.
I’m thrilled to hear my friends at Temple of Seitan are experiencing this phenomenal success.
But I’m not a BrewDog fan.
I genuinely hope BrewDog has morphed into a much more considerate and compassionate company following on from some of their thoughtless and unkind marketing campaigns and controversies of the (not too distant) past.
See examples here (sexism) and here (using dead animal bodies as promotional tools) and here/here (transphobia) and here (they were taken to an employment tribunal) and here (they sold a half meat/half meat alternative burger) and here (sexism mixed with misogyny) and here (explicit sexism and misogyny) and here (pay disputes and suggestions of intellectual property mishandling).
I will never personally drink a BrewDog beer again in my life however I wanted to report this news on behalf of my friends at Temple. I do not support the BrewDog company due to ethical and political reasons, but I love and support Rebecca and Patrick of Temple of Seitan even though I personally would have made a very different decision.
I wish they had found a less problematic beer brand for a partnership. I know this blog post makes me sound like a hypocrite by saying I don’t support BrewDog but here is some information about BrewDog.
I’m not the boss of vegans so I’m giving you the info and you can do what you want with it. Perhaps you can walk into a bar and only buy the Temple food? LOL.
And perhaps by reporting this news spliced with commentary on their shitty marketing, I might get BrewDog to take a little bit of notice. Perhaps it will encourage other vegan consumers to say ‘thanks for the vegan wings from a legendary vegan company but please be better people as well’.
If you are a BrewDog customer and are excited to dine with Temple of Seitan while in one of the bars, perhaps you can also take the time to voice your opinions to the company whenever they do something shitty.
Patrick from Temple of Seitan said they were sold on the deal due to BrewDog paying Living Wage to their employees.
BrewDog is launching this partnership with Temple of Seitan in their UK bars before expanding the supply to their European locations soon.
Temple of Seitan has been featured in ‘best of’ lists across numerous publications – from Time Out to Easyjet Traveller. In 2017 Temple of Hackney won the best UK restaurant in the public voted VegFestUK Awards and in 2019 the ‘Nashville Hot’ burger was the number one selling vegan item on Uber Eats, London.
You can follow Temple of Seitan on Instagram.
Thank you for showing the bigger picture. Veganism alone will not achieve what most of us want, even though capitalism and Veganuary keep trying to persuade me otherwise! (With momentary success.)
Sorry for the delay in adding a comment…I fully agree, and I am currently Brewdog equity holder. I am a fan of craft beers and was unfortunately lured by their initial vegan labelling. I now realise all mention of vegan friendliness is just a cynical gimmick. On their own website, the ‘vegan’ filter is terrible and even if you call them to ask, they advise you to judge by reading the label. They continue to send non-vegan beers in their ‘Fanzine’ packs, despite numerous complaints to their customer services letting them know we are a vegan household. I was unaware of the other issues you raised so thank you. I do hope others will add their voices to tell Brewdog that a cynical pretence of caring is not acceptable. My intention is to sell my shares and give the proceeds to a more worthy cause.