Gardin buyout, not such a bad thing!

I’ve heard a lot of resentment from vegans about the recent buyout of a popular well loved brand, Gardirn, being bought out by food giant, Pinacle Foods. I understand the frustration from vegans that this is no longer an exclusive vegan company, and even worse that Pinacle’s parent company Blackstone invests in Seaworld. But I’m here to make the case that Gardein’s sellout is more positive that the vegan community is giving Gardein credit for.

Before we go any further, can we all agree this acquisition will lead to higher Gardin distribution? Big business care about profit before anything else, and would not purchase Pinacle if they didn’t see an opportunity to increase profits.

While I personally rather choose to support an exclusively vegan business (be it a restaurant, a vegan doctor, entrepreneur, etc) I completely support business decisions that make vegan food more widespread and accessible. Gardein could not do for the brand what Pincale Foods will be able to do. Pinacle will be able to invest more, increasing the economies of scale and lead to Gardin being distributed even more widely. We have seen what Dean Foods has done with Silk. They have made soy milk mainstream and then moved onto tapping into the almond and coconut milk industries. This no doubt has had a tremendous impact saving many cows from a life of suffering.

Imagine if more big businesses invested in vegan products, we’d no doubt have a vegan world faster. Then we could move on the tacking other problems with food giants. Some argue the acquisition comes with another range of problems like Pinacle being pro GMO or having connections with Sea World. I don’t mean to dismiss these arguments, but there are so many problems in this world focus is important. More vegan food is one of the best ways to help the world, more pressing than taking down big business or GMO’s in my opinion. One of my most important values is making veganism mainstream and accessible and if this comes at the price to selling out to a larger company, so be it. The more vegan food in the world the better.  Once it’s all vegan we can work on the next level of breaking down the monopolist food industry. We could do both right now but this would mean a slower process to animal liberation.  It is nerve racking that our food supply is controlled by so few companies, but what what me even more upset is the way animals in this country are treated.

Lastly luckily here are many exclusive companies that vegans can continue to support while Gardin becomes more widespread under Pinacle’s rule. Vegan businesses seem to  pop up every time I blink. Have you heard about this vegan food company? I just heard about Impossible Foods the other day, they are launching in 2015. http://impossiblefoods.com/about. There are many all veg meat companies that vegans with access can continue to support.