Schnieder's Oh Natural line. Sacreligious or Sacrelicious?

[newstars]

Schneider's has come out with an awesome meatless meat line. I've tried a few of their products and can say that they make some of the best mock meat products i've ever tried.

What i'm curious about is: does supporting a large meat company conflict with your cause eventhough you're buying meatless products? Or is this a victory for vegetarians and vegans in the sense that we've become so popular that our buying power has made one of the biggest meat companies get into the mock meat market?

Personally when i eat their meatless chicken nuggets, i'm thinking sacrelicious... :drool:

[newstars]

i'm eating the Schneider's meatless hot dogs as i type this. I'm pretty impressed. Could use a little more strength in the flavour, but still a thumbs up. :up:

[organica]

Personally, I don't want this crappy company receiving any of my money because it's not like they are getting out of the meat industry to sell veggie products.
There are plenty of better companies to buy from, like Amy's: I'm about to enjoy one of her vegan roasted veggie pizzas right now!!

[spehlbaund]

Well I guess it might be both good and bad to buy veggie products from meat-selling companies because if more veg*ns buy from them, they might make more products like that and less meat products, but yeah the money paid to them just helps make more meat products too.. :(

I would love to buy Amy's brand foods. I saw their website and was excited to try buying some of their stuff but sadly on the Albertson's website a one-person meal is like $4 and $5 for a pizza.. I can't afford it :(

[organica]

Amy's is definitely expensive. I just find myself eating it lately because I got overpaid at work. I paid $8.50 Canadian for my pizza, unfortunately.

[newstars]

Ya i totally understand not wanting to support these companies. I'm a little torn on the topic, which is partly why i started the thread, to hear various opinions and thoughts.

I dunno, still see the good in it. Obviously i don't think "Well if we support Schneider's meatless meat line enough, they'll just drop out of the real meat business!" That's not gonna happen in our life time, that's for sure. Now it's hard to say how much of our money goes to what part of their business, but surely the better that their meatless line does, the more they will pump into it. And the more variety there is out there, the better it is for the consumer. It will also make it that much easier to be veg. I haven't been veg for long. I have been off and on a few times, but even when i was eating meat, i would still refrain from eating hotdogs and hamburgers and eat veggie dogs and veggie burgers instead. But i remember a time when all you could find at the supermarket was yves veggie burgers and veggie dogs. Now there are so many more options as a result of the growing popularity of vegetarians and vegans. And thus, the expanding options of veg and vegan foods only adds to a snow ball effect of this lifestyle/diet. The easier it is to do, the more people will do it. Schneider's is making it easier to be veg which means less people buying meat, at least i assume.

[CharityAJO]

The second one. We need to show them there is a strong demand for meatless products - the fact that a meat company sees financial gain in dishing out the fauxs is awesome!

One giant leap for vegetarian kind.

[ryan]

A lot of people asked the same question when Dean Foods (a dairy company) bought Silk.

My thought is that while it's best to support small, vegan companies as much as possible, showing support for vegan products made by non-vegan companies (even meat producing ones) can have a positive effect. After all, they've taken some of their resources and money that may have been tagged for the meat production process and diverted them into developing meatless products. Showing support for that encourages them to do more of the same.

It's tough when you think about "paying for someone else's hamburger" (a phrase used when talking about eating at a non-veggie restaurant), especially this literally, but I see it like Burger King -- I would never eat there normally, but when their veggie burger came out, I made it a point to go there.

(Just make sure to keep supporting the smaller, vegan companies, too!)

[newstars]

I'm all about supporting the little guys, but i'm also open to try all these new products that are being made available. And i'm just being honest when I say how good Schneider's Oh Naturel line is, who better to fake meat than a meat company? I actually tried the chicken strips last night. I made peanut "chicken" with them, YUM. The texture was very close to chicken. So far, this has to be one of their best products. I give it a tie with their meatless chicken nuggets.

Also, i just want to make one thing clear that i didn't know before. I haven't graduated to vegan status yet, but for you vegans, the label says that their products MAY contain traces of milk or dairy products. Probably because they're made in the same facilities, therefore they can't officially call their stuff vegan. So hardcore vegans beware.

[kpickell]

The second one. We need to show them there is a strong demand for meatless products - the fact that a meat company sees financial gain in dishing out the fauxs is awesome!

One giant leap for vegetarian kind.

Exactly. It's always a good thing when a company starts selling vegan products. Show them there is a demand for the vegan products.

[kristadb]

I *LOVE* their chicken nuggets and patties. They don't make me gag and physically ill like the other brands and I've been able to remove some addition meat from my diet due to these things.

The taste is great, but beyond that, they are made a different way that allowed me to eat them without becoming ill. Very very happy with them :up:

[TofurkyZombie]

My omni friend had been unkowningly buying the Schneiders UN-CHICKN Nuggets thinking he was buying the real thing. He had eaten them for weeks without realizing it wasn't actually chicken. Man was he pissed when he found out he had been eating that evil veggie food. :lol:

I think it's a good thing to show the world we want veggie products even if it is from a big meat company.

[kpickell]

I take it this is a canadian company?> I've never heard of them.

We've had the same questions raised on this board about Boca (owned by Kraft, owned by Phillip Morris). Do a search for Kraft and you'll see. But yeah, I think it's a good thing.

[sheshops2much]

I've never heard of them either.

I used to think buying vegetarian products from non-veggie companies was a bad thing. But then I started thinking about it and had a change of heart. It seems like a good thing to show that a non-meat product generates lots of interest. And although this may be a stretch, a large meat-selling company has more funds than a small vegetarian foods company does. This means more money to promote their vegetarian foods. And, (and this is where the stretch comes in), if more people begin to eat the vegetarian products, maybe they will begin to substitute their weekly box of chicken nuggets with vegetarian ones, or replacing the meat from the big meat company they put in their lasagna with the company's non-meat stuff. And then they'll try more non-meat products when they see that they don't suck. And so forth.

This isn't to say I don't support the smaller companies, oh, I do. But I now think it's a god idea to support the large companies too.

[organica]

We've had the same questions raised on this board about Boca (owned by Kraft, owned by Phillip Morris). Do a search for Kraft and you'll see. But yeah, I think it's a good thing.

Thanks for the info!!! No more Boca for me!!! Philip Morris/Kraft are very unethical companies who don't deserve my business!!
I think I'll stick to Yves (owned by Hain, which seems to be decent- lots of other vegan & organic food under that family of companies) & Amy's, as well as local oganic tofu.
I'll eat Schneiders' if I'm stuck, but I still don't want to support them.
Companies whose heart is in producing vegan/organic foods, not just a quick buck by satisfying the flexitarian trend, are where my money will continue to go.

[Jessica]

Thanks for the info!!! No more Boca for me!!! Philip Morris/Kraft are very unethical companies who don't deserve my business!!

Please don't be too scathing. A LOT of companies are owned by Philip Morris/Kraft, which, although it means that this is where the profits are ultimately going, doesn't make them all bad.

I work for a very well-known UK biscuit/snack manufacturer - we were a plc, bought out in 2000, and are now owned by Kraft/Philip Morris. As far as I'm concerned, the 'ethics' of our company (regardless of those of our parent company) are average or above average (I work in Corporate Social Responsibility so am probably more aware of this than most of our employees). We are trying to move to free-range ingredients for some of our products (slowly but surely), we have a strong community investment programme, etc etc. We are not a bad company full of bad people. I'm sure the same goes for those people who work for Boca.

[organica]

And I'm sure the same can be said for people who work at Wal-mart, that they are nice people & the company "isn't that bad" at some level.
But I'll still be trying to ferret out the companies w/ better ethics overall.

[msbunnicula]

Here's a link to the products if anyone is interested:
http://www.schneiders.ca/products/ohnaturel.html

Does anyone know if the products are vegan?

[The Rev]

Buying meatless veg products from a company that sells meat is a little like voting Libertarian. It doesn't really change anything, but it shows that there is a demand for alternatives. If the products catch on, then the company will alocate more of it's efforts (time and money) into the production and marketing of those products.

The question to answer is, do you want to support this company in any way? If you do, it might add a drop to the bucket of change, but then it might not. On the other hand, they get your money either way. So, you have to decide for yourself whether it's worth it.

Personally, I think if you like the product, you should buy it. I mean, if anything, the meat industry is more likely to notice an interest in veg*nism if you're buying from them, rather than a company that is not a direct competitor (like Quorn, etc.)

My 2¢

:)

The Rev

[newstars]

My omni friend had been unkowningly buying the Schneiders UN-CHICKN Nuggets thinking he was buying the real thing. He had eaten them for weeks without realizing it wasn't actually chicken. Man was he pissed when he found out he had been eating that evil veggie food. :lol:

I think it's a good thing to show the world we want veggie products even if it is from a big meat company.

Haha, that's hilarious. I find it funny that people get mad because of such reasons. I guess it hurts their pride that they've been fooled? :lol: I dunno. My dad is like that. Naturally as a Greek (who thinks fish is a vegetable! lol), my dad is big on meat and thinks all these mock meat products are stupid, disgusting, bad for you, and nothing can compare to the real thing. And of course, nothing can fool him... ...except for me! I've done it numerous times with yves ground round, gluten products and so on. I managed to convince him that this canned gluten that i bought was canned chicken, haha. And he was actually excited about it! Canned chicken! So i battered some pieces up, fried them. He loved them. As he was eating them he was like "That's great, way better than that FAKE CHEMICAL **** you eat". Haha. Then i broke the news to him and all of a sudden the mock chicken strips were disgusting :think: . And I always tell him that the mock meat products are usually all natural and it's the meat he eats that has all the nasty chemicals in them. It never seems to sink in though.

I had more of my peanut chicken and nuggets last night. I'm lovin' it!

[shineonyou]

i guess you have to decide if you think you can beat 'em. and if you can't, join 'em. i'm not sure how i feel. i just think the most important thing if that people are more open to eating veggie "alternatives." because they aren't really "alternatives," they're just different foods.

[Lorraine]

This is a Canadian Company. Do they sell their products in the U.S.?

[synergy]

Their 'chicken' burgers were so delicious!!!!
They're not vegan though. :(
I used to eat them as a snack, without a bun, with some hp sauce to dip.

[kristadb]

bTW, they are made in a meat-free facility. They are trying hard to make these vegetarian.

The beef strips are the best. Period. They hold up to pot pit cookage!!

[borealis]

pot pit? sounds like a low-key opium den...