‘We block 10 people a day’: culture war trolls add to UK vegan restaurants’ struggles
-Online abuse is latest challenge for plant-based eateries along with high costs and changing appetites

“我们每天屏蔽10个人”：文化战争喷子加剧了英国素食餐厅的困境
——网络暴力是素食餐馆面临的最新挑战，此外还有高昂的成本和不断变化的胃口


(Jim Anderson at his vegan restaurant, the Oak Tree, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.)

（吉姆·安德森在他位于埃塞克斯郡利伊-昂-西的素食餐厅“橡树”。）
新闻：

When Jim Anderson and his wife, Samantha, opened their vegan restaurant, the Oak Tree, in 2013, they boasted proudly of its plant-based menu. Not any more. The “V-word” has become such a target for abuse that they have removed it from their menu and social media.

2013年，当吉姆·安德森和他的妻子萨曼莎开了他们的素食餐厅“橡树”时，他们自豪地炫耀自己的植物菜单。现在不行了。这个“V开头的词”已经成为辱骂的目标，以至于他们已经从菜单和社交媒体上删除了它。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


“We block up to 10 people a day on social media,” said Anderson. “All we are is a restaurant that serves a type of cuisine. But for some reason, that word – the V-word – seems to cause people to go crazy, so we’ve dropped it.”

“我们每天在社交媒体上屏蔽多达10个人，”安德森说。“我们只是一家提供某种美食的餐厅。但出于某种原因，那个词——V开头的词——似乎会让人们发疯，所以我们放弃了它。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


It may sound odd that anyone would be offended by chilli fried tofu or lightly battered cauliflower, but Anderson said the online abuse was relentless.

这听起来可能很奇怪，有人会因为辣味炸豆腐或轻炒花椰菜而被冒犯，但安德森说，网上的辱骂是无情的。

He said vegan restaurants had become a punching bag for culture war trolls who see them as a “threat to their way of life, like transgender rights and Black Lives Matter”.

他说，素食餐厅已经成为文化战争喷子的出气筒，这些喷子认为素食餐厅“威胁到他们的生活方式，就像跨性别权利和黑命贵一样”。

Alongside sky-high operating costs, the impact of the cost of living crisis and waning appetite for plant-only food, online attacks are the latest challenge facing Britain’s vegan restaurants.

除了天价的运营成本、生活成本危机的影响以及人们对纯植物食品的兴趣减弱，网上的攻击是英国纯素食餐厅面临的最新挑战。

Industry experts said they were at the sharpest end of a struggling hospitality sector after a series of venues either closed or started serving meat in order to stay open.

业内专家表示，在一系列场所关闭或开始供应肉类以维持营业后，它们正处于苦苦挣扎的酒店业最艰难的境地。

A cafe in Cheshire last month announced that it was having to put meat on the menu to avoid closure. Last year the vegan fast-food chain Oowee closed one of its sites in Dalston, east London, and said it would put meat on the menu at a number of other venues.

柴郡的一家咖啡馆上个月宣布，为了避免关门，他们不得不将肉类列入菜单。去年，素食快餐连锁店Oowee关闭了位于伦敦东部达尔斯顿的一家门店，并表示将在其他一些门店将肉类列入菜单。

Neat Burger, backed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Lewis Hamilton, closed half of its London sites in December. In the same month VBites, the vegan business owned by Heather Mills, went into administration.

去年12月，由莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥和刘易斯·汉密尔顿代言的Neat Burger关闭了一半的伦敦门店。同月，希瑟·米尔斯拥有的素食企业VBites进入了破产管理程序。

In the Essex town of Leigh-on-Sea, the Oak Tree was once one of five or six vegan bistros, Anderson said. “We’re now the only one. We’ve been here since 2013 and we’re still here banging the drum – quietly.”

安德森说，在埃塞克斯的利伊-昂-西镇，“橡树”曾经是五六家素食小酒馆之一。“现在只有我们一家了。我们从2013年就开在这里了，我们仍然在这里大力宣传——安静地宣传。”

He said if the Oak Tree had opened in 2018 or 2019, as many other plant-only restaurants did, they would “definitely not” have survived.

他说，如果“橡树”餐厅在2018年或2019年开业，就像许多其他纯植物餐厅一样，它们“绝对不会”幸存下来。

In one sense, the struggle is purely economic. Independent restaurants have been battered by the squeeze on living standards, with more than 10,000 closures since the pandemic – equivalent to one in 10 hospitality businesses.

从某种意义上说，这场斗争纯粹是经济上的。独立餐馆受到生活水平下降的打击，自疫情爆发以来，已有1万多家餐馆关闭，相当于十分之一的酒店企业。

Big chains such as Nando’s, Pizza Express, McDonald’s and Wagamama muscled in on the vegan market as it grew before Covid-19, leaving smaller venues competing for a slice of an already tiny pie.

在新冠肺炎之前，随着素食市场的发展，Nando 's、Pizza Express、麦当劳和Wagamama等大型连锁店纷纷进入素食市场，使得较小的餐馆只能争夺已经很小的一块蛋糕。

But now a change in tastes and attitudes may be under way. Paul Askew, the chef patron and owner of restaurants the Art School and Barnacle in Liverpool, said he had seen a massive shift in eating habits since the start of the pandemic.

但现在，人们的品味和态度可能正在发生变化。利物浦Art School和Barnacle餐厅的主厨兼老板保罗·阿斯克说，自疫情开始以来，他发现人们的饮食习惯发生了巨大变化。

Demand for vegan and vegetarian food had plummeted, he said, while the number of people choosing pescatarian – fish and dairy but not meat – had risen by 15-20%.

他说，对纯素和素食食品的需求大幅下降，而选择鱼素（吃鱼和奶制品但不吃肉）的人数上升了15-20%。

“Potentially, people who were very strict vegan have reassessed things,” he said. “I think people have loosened their strict veganism and they are willing to dip into pescatarianism or the odd meat dish.”

他说：“可能，那些非常严格的素食主义者已经重新评估了事情，我认为人们已经放松了严格的素食主义，他们愿意尝试鱼素主义或奇怪的肉类菜肴。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Industry experts said veganism was undergoing the same phenomenon as organic food before the financial crash of 2008: in perilous economic times, people prioritise value for money over food that may be more ethical but more costly.

业内专家表示，素食主义正在经历与2008年金融危机前的有机食品相同的现象：在危险的经济时期，人们优先考虑物有所值，而不是那些也许更道德但更昂贵的食物。

Helen Dewdney, the consumer expert better known as the Complaining Cow, said: “Many are looking to just reduce their meat intake and become part-time vegetarians or vegans, which in turn means that food outlets serving only a vegan menu are seeing fewer and fewer customers through the doors.”

消费者专家海伦·杜尼以“抱怨的奶牛”而闻名，她说：“许多人正在寻求减少肉类摄入量，成为业余素食者或纯素食者，这反过来意味着只提供纯素食菜单的食品店的顾客越来越少。”

Anderson conceded that the vegan boom had “levelled out”. “Veganism was very popular for a while but maybe when Covid started people’s priorities changed,” he said.

安德森承认，素食热潮已经“趋于平稳”。他说：“素食主义在一段时间内非常受欢迎，但也许当疫情开始时，人们的优先事项发生了变化。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


A YouGov survey that has tracked since 2019 the proportion of diets in the UK population that are plant-based suggests it has fallen from 3% to 2% in the past year. However, a separate study by the comparison site Finder.com last month found the number of vegans in the UK had increased by 1.1 million in the past 12 months.

舆观的一项调查自2019年以来一直追踪英国人口中植物性饮食的比例，结果显示，在过去的一年里，这一比例从3%降至2%。然而，比较网站Finder.com上个月进行的另一项研究发现，在过去的12个月里，英国的纯素食者数量增加了110万。

One trend is clear: fewer vegans are choosing to eat out, leaving restaurants deciding whether to stomach putting meat on the menu or closing their doors for good.

有一个趋势很明显：选择在外面吃饭的素食者越来越少，这让餐馆决定是忍痛把肉食加进菜单，还是永远关门。

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, said she had seen a trend away from plant-only towards “plant-forward eating”. Businesses were moving towards broader menus and experimenting with plant protein in meat dishes as a way to retain the vegan appeal, she said.

UKHospitality首席执行官凯特·尼科尔斯表示，她看到了一种从纯植物性饮食转向“偏植物性饮食”的趋势。她说，商家正在转向更广泛的菜单，并尝试在肉类菜肴中加入植物蛋白，以保持素食的吸引力。

Clive Black, a retail analyst at the investment group Shore Capital, said the market for plant-based food had been progressively growing. “But the reality is far too many people thought it was going to be a bigger market than it really is.”

投资集团Shore Capital的零售分析师克莱夫·布莱克表示，植物性食品市场一直在逐步增长。“但现实情况是，太多人认为这将是一个比实际情况更大的市场。”

Ve-gone restaurants
Flower Burger The Italian vegan burger chain opened its first site in London in May 2021, with plans to open more than 40 restaurants across the UK. It opened a second site, in Brighton, later in 2021 but by September 2023 both had closed.

Ve-gone餐厅
这家意大利素食汉堡连锁店于2021年5月在伦敦开设了第一家门店，并计划在英国各地开设40多家餐厅。该餐厅于2021年晚些时候在布莱顿开设了第二家门店，但到2023年9月，这两家门店都关闭了。

Neat Burger The chain backed by Lewis Hamilton and Leonardo DiCaprio shut down half of its London restaurants late last year after recording a £7.9m loss in 2022. It said last year its growth had been hampered by “multiple black swan events” including soaring inflation and the cost of living crisis.

由刘易斯·汉密尔顿和莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥代言的Neat Burger连锁店在2022年录得790万英镑的亏损后，于去年年底关闭了一半的伦敦餐厅。它表示，去年的增长受到“多重黑天鹅事件”的阻碍，包括通胀飙升和生活成本危机。

Oowee Vegan The Bristol-born business closed one site in Dalston, east London, last May and said last week it would be expanding its meat-selling outlets. Its co-founder Charlie Watson said: “If you want to do big numbers then you have to offer the choice – you’ve got to sell meat … If you’re specifically 100% plant-based then you’re going to struggle. Because most places do a good vegan menu, friendship groups that contain both plant-based and meat eaters can easily find somewhere that caters for both.”

去年5月，创始于布里斯托尔的Oowee Vegan关闭了位于伦敦东部达尔斯顿的一家门店，并于上周表示将扩大其肉类销售网点。它的联合创始人查理·沃森说：“如果你想做大生意，那么你必须提供选择——你必须卖肉食……如果你是100%以植物为基础的，那么你将会挣扎。因为大多数地方都有很好的素食菜单，所以既包括素食者也包括肉食者的友谊型群体很容易找到适合两者的地方。”

Greens Last month one of Manchester’s most popular vegetarian restaurants, owned by the celebrity chef Simon Rimmer, closed its doors for the final time, citing escalating costs. Rimmer, whose establishment had boasted of “terrifying carnivores” since it opened in 1990, said: “We can no longer make it work. Our landlord has increased our rent by 35%; that together with increases in power, food and staff costs have made it impossible for us to continue.”

上个月，曼彻斯特最受欢迎的素食餐厅之一，由名厨西蒙·里默所有，最后一次关门，原因是成本不断上涨。里默的餐厅自1990年开业以来一直以“让食肉者恐惧”自夸，他说：“我们再也不能让它运转了。我们的房东把租金提高了35%；再加上电力、食品和员工成本的上涨，我们无法继续运行了。”

Honest Burger The nationwide chain opened an all-vegan site, V Honest, in London’s Covent Garden in January 2022 – only to put meat on the menu six months later. The firm, which has dozens of outlets across the UK, offers four vegan dishes on its regular menus, which are more expensive than the meat options.

这家全国连锁餐厅于2022年1月在伦敦考文特花园开设了一家全素食餐厅V Honest，但六个月后就把肉加进了菜单里。该餐厅在英国有几十家门店，在常规菜单上提供四种素食菜肴，比肉类更贵。

V Rev Manchester One of Manchester’s first and most popular vegan diners, V Rev closed in December 2022. Its owner, Dominic Moss, blamed crippling costs and a reduction in lunchtime trade. “I think hospitality has just taken such a battering over the last few years and unless you’re part of a chain or have really deep pockets, it’s just going to get harder and harder,” he said.

V Rev是曼彻斯特最早也是最受欢迎的素食餐厅之一，于2022年12月关闭。它的老板多米尼克·莫斯将其归咎于高昂的成本和午餐销量的减少。他说：“我认为酒店业在过去几年里遭受了重创，除非你是连锁酒店的一部分，或者真的很有钱，否则你的处境会越来越艰难。”