In a huge development for the plant-based industry, Meatless Farm has announced that it has joined hands with football giants Real Madrid to help drive education and action on more sustainable eating around the world.
According to a Meatless Farm press release, they will be working together on raising awareness on the importance of reducing meat consumption to lessen the environmental impact of food, as well as inspiring change when it comes to health and wellbeing.
Real Madrid’s nutritionists will be working with Meatless Farm to show how plant-based food can work within a performance-based diet. The club’s players will be sharing their experience of reducing meat and increasing plant-based foods for both environmental and personal performance gains.
The partnership comes after the 13-time European Cup winners became the first football club on the planet to sign up as a participant of the UN Global Compact – the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world. The club are also in the middle of a four-year refurbishment of their famous Bernabéu stadium to make it more efficient and sustainable.
Morten Toft Bech, Founder of Meatless Farm, said in the release, “The plant-based sector has grown massively in the last couple of years. However, things need to move at a faster pace if we are to address the urgency of the climate crisis and the role food plays in that.”
“We know there is still a huge gap in consumer understanding of the positive impact reducing meat consumption can have on the environment, so we have to reach far beyond vegetarians and vegans and significantly increase the ‘meat-lessers’ – encouraging everyone to reduce their meat consumption and increase their plant-based eating. For example, in a country like the UK we could reduce around 8% of the UK’s total emissions if we all had just one less meat meal per week,” he added.
“Real Madrid is the perfect partner for us in this mission since football is the biggest sport in the world and they are one of the biggest clubs. The relationship between a football club and its fans is unlike any other – it’s a close and lifelong commitment, and Real fans around the globe are amongst the most dedicated, so the influence and reach that the club has is unparalleled.”
Emilio Butragueño, Institutional Relations Director at Real Madrid C.F., added: “Meatless Farm brings together both sustainability and nutrition, two elements that are central to Real Madrid’s club and business strategy. As a global brand we have an important role to play in engaging communities to make real changes that help create a more sustainable world and improve personal health and performance.”
According to Meatless Farm, its mission is to reduce the world’s dependency on intensively farmed meat and create a more sustainable food ecosystem that reinstates biodiversity. This year is set to be a tipping point for the alternative meat category with 54% of consumers saying they want to reduce their meat consumption, climate change action being back on the global agenda and a steep rise in ‘ecotarian’ eating – eating for the good of the environment.
