Veganuary Champion Quits to Run Meat-Eating Campaign
27th December 2025
A former Veganuary cheerleader has defected to help run a meat-eating campaign.
Toni Vernelli, 54, was head of communications at Veganuary, the annual vegan diet challenge, for nearly six years, having spent decades fighting to end animal cruelty.
But she has now urged people to “forget” the campaign and go back to eating meat, claiming vegan dogma is “not only unhelpful but actually damaging to the fundamental goal of reducing animal suffering”.
Instead, she is promoting a challenge in which three competitive eaters will consume nothing but animal products for a whole day.
Veganuary, launched in 2014 and run by a UK non-profit, is an annual pledge where people give up meat and dairy for a month. Supporters say they want to see a “vegan world” which is kinder to animals and the environment.
But Ms Vernelli said diet change campaigning only prolongs the misery of factory farming because it alienates people who want to help, while putting an “upper limit” on the good they can do.
She has now joined the charity FarmKind, which is launching its own “Forget Veganuary” campaign urging people to give to animal welfare causes rather than changing their diet.
Q: How do you tell a vegetarian?
A: You don’t tell a vegetarian—the vegetarian tells you.