To Honor International Day of Friendship, Let’s Celebrate Those Coming Together to Reduce Meat Consumption
July 30th is International Day of Friendship. To celebrate the occasion, we’re highlighting how our meatless friends, global partners and businesses around the world are working together to reduce the amount of meat we eat. From schools bringing millions of Meatless Monday meals to students to fast food restaurants launching plant-based items, people and business from all walks of life are making sustainable meatless options more mainstream. Please feel free to share any examples below with your friends and followers.
Global Meatless Monday partners came together for the NYC Climate March
Meatless Monday in Cities and Countries
Cities are increasingly including meat reduction initiatives in their health and climate policies. The citizens and leaders of Ghent Belgium worked together to declare a weekly meatless day in 2009, and we’re seeing more and more cities get on board:
Sacramento, CA: Sacramento adopted Meatless Monday in 2016. The city’s Golden 1 Center (home court for the Sacramento Kings) joined the initiative and launched Meatless Monday in 2019.
Taiwan: Green Monday founder David Yeung, along with Mary McCartney (Sir Paul McCartney’s daughter), recently attended the launch of Green Monday in Taiwan.
France: Thousands united to sign a petition called “Lundi Vert,” or “Green Monday,” which has unified 500 public figures and calls on consumers to avoid eating meat and fish every Monday.
Israel: Israel’s Miki Haimovich, who launched Meatless Monday in her country in 2012, recently became one of the 29 women to become a Knesset staff member.
Students celebrate the announcement that all NYC public schools will go Meatless Monday
Student activists, parents, city officials and school boards around the world are working together to launch Meatless Monday school programs. São Paulo, Brazil implemented Meatless Monday lunches for 1.1 million students. A school in Bulacan, Philippines has been a pioneer in promoting Meatless Monday for almost a decade. Meanwhile, in England, more than 100 primary schools introduced a Meat-Free Monday program and will offer meat-free meal options every day of the week. By the start of the 2019-2020 school year, all New York City public schools will serve Meatless Monday lunches, reaching 1.1 million students every week.
Quick service chain, Del Taco launched plant-based menu items using Beyond Meat® and markets to customers for Meatless Monday. Photo: Del Taco
Businesses Joining the Plant-based Movement
Meatless products are crowding both supermarket aisles and restaurant menus, and consumers are grateful. Beyond Meat recently went public, while mega meat company Tyson launched its own meatless “chicken” nuggets earlier this summer. Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, officially moved its vegan products to the meat aisle.
Fast food chains are also doing their part:
Burger King now offers a meatless Whopper.
Red Robin added the Impossible Burger to its menu.
Del Taco now serves meatless Beyond Meat options across all 580 of its stores.
Qdoba announced that Impossible meat will be served at its restaurants nationwide.
McDonald’s is now selling a vegan burger in Germany.
This International Day of Friendship, recruit your friends and family to join you in cutting out meat one day a week to benefit their health and help the planet. Celebrate together with a friendly meatless meal, and check out our recipe gallery for new plant-based inspiration.