A former senior figure at Veganuary has turned her back on the vegan movement to help run a campaign urging people to keep eating meat.
Toni Vernelli, 54, spent decades campaigning against animal cruelty and was head of communications at Veganuary for almost six years.
The annual campaign, which encourages people to give up meat and dairy each January, has been embraced by celebrities including Billie Eilish and Joaquin Phoenix, helping to turn veganism into a fashionable lifestyle movement.
But Ms Vernelli has now turned her back on the campaign entirely, urging people to ‘forget Veganuary’ and claiming its dogma is not only unhelpful but actively damaging efforts to reduce animal suffering.
Instead, she has joined animal welfare charity FarmKind, which is launching a provocative new campaign encouraging people to eat meat while donating to causes aimed at improving conditions in factory farming.
The charity’s ‘Forget Veganuary’ drive will ask supporters to continue consuming animal products while offsetting their ‘animal welfare footprint’ through regular donations.
To promote the campaign, FarmKind has teamed up with three of Britain’s top competitive eaters, who will spend an entire day eating nothing but animal products for breakfast, lunch and dinner – while donating money to animal welfare charities alongside each meal.
Toni Vernelli, 54, spent decades campaigning against animal cruelty and was head of communications at Veganuary for almost six years
But Ms Vernelli has now turned her back on the campaign entirely, urging people to ‘forget Veganuary’. Pictured: Animal rights activits of PETA are arrested by police as they demonstrate naked and only covered with a banner near Red Square
Ms Vernelli said years of pushing diet change had convinced her that asking people to give up meat alienates those who want to help animals, while placing strict limits on the impact they can have.
She argued that while an individual can only stop eating the amount of meat they personally consume, there is no limit to the good they can do by funding improvements to farming practices.
The former vegan campaigner said she now believes diet change should not even be part of the conversation, adding that she no longer cares what people eat as long as they take steps to reduce animal suffering.
FarmKind claims most people oppose factory farming but still enjoy eating meat – and that pretending the two positions cannot coexist is what stops many from helping.
The charity says that for most Britons, donating around £15 a month to effective animal welfare causes would do far more good than cutting out meat altogether.
Thom Norman, one of FarmKind’s co-founders and himself a former vegan activist, said years of street campaigning in London achieved little compared to what the same effort could have done financially.
He said that if he had donated a small percentage of his income instead, he would have made a far bigger difference to animal welfare.
The three competitive eaters taking part in the campaign are Nick Simmons – known online as ‘Lifting Weights Cleaning Plates’ – alongside YouTube creators ‘Franco Feasts’ and JJ Da Lion. All three rank in the top five of the British Eating League.
The ‘Forget Veganuary’ campaign is set to run for the first time in January 2026, directly challenging the annual Veganuary pledge, which encourages people to give up meat and dairy for the month.
Veganuary, founded in 2014, has long promoted the idea of a fully vegan world, arguing that dietary change is essential for animal welfare, environmental protection and public health.
Responding to the new campaign, a Veganuary spokesman criticised the approach, likening it to ‘deliberately setting a fire and then donating to the fire brigade’.
The charity said attempting to offset meat consumption through donations ignores the root cause of animal suffering – continued demand – and warned that billions of animals would still be bred and slaughtered if consumption levels remain unchanged.
Veganuary insisted that reducing consumption prevents animals from ever being born into suffering, arguing that no donation can undo harm once it has already occurred.
