Sixty bowls of slime-green soup sit waiting for the children to arrive. Pupils rush in from their morning lessons, grab the bowls by the handles and start slurping. No complaints, no refusals. (OK, maybe a few “bleurgh” faces.) Once the chicory soup is finished, they tuck into the main course: falafel, Mediterranean vegetable tagine and couscous. Some ask for seconds; most grab a piece of fruit for dessert and run out to play. This is a typical Thursday lunchtime at BS De Stadspoort primary school in Ghent, Belgium. Similar meat-free menus are served at other schools and nurseries across the city, as well as community centres, care homes and assisted living facilities, not to mention many work canteens and restaurants. Thursday in Ghent is officially “Veggie Day”, when residents are encouraged to avoid meat and fish. So how did a city get its children – and everyone else – to eat their greens?
It didn’t happen overnight. “Ghent’s success story is one of an amazing grassroots movement, with people demanding more climate action. But the magic happened when politicians actually listened and implemented policy to introduce Thursday Veggie Day in 2009,” says Vanessa Debruyne, head of communications for the nonprofit ProVeg Belgium, who is showing me around town. “It got the ball rolling, companies and restaurants joined in, the population got used to it, and more entrepreneurs moved toward plant-based. We’ve been unstoppable ever since! Ghent is the best town in Belgium for plant-based food.”
Veggie Day was just the start, agrees Hafsa El-Bazioui, Ghent’s Green deputy mayor, who has cycled over to join us (the city centre has been largely car-free since 2017). “A few years ago, we shifted to prioritising plant-based protein,” she says. In 2021, the Flemish government launched the Green Deal Protein Shift – a commitment to change the ratio of animal to plant proteins consumed from 60:40 to 40:60 by 2030. Ghent has already reached the target.
As well as vegetarian Thursdays and vegetarian options every day, school caterers have turned traditional meat dishes such as burgers, sausages and meatballs into hybrids, cutting out at least half the beef or pork and replacing it with, say, lentils. Stews might combine meat with chickpeas or beans. An incredible amount of effort goes into making each dish taste good: they are screened by a “taste panel” of dietitians, chefs, childcare professionals and people sensitive to flavour, bitterness, texture and mouthfeel. Recipes are constantly modified and improved based on feedback from children, parents and school staff. As a result, children get to eat food they know and like, but the dishes are healthier and better for the planet – Ghent has reduced the carbon footprint of its school meals by 38% since 2018.
Although she is a vegan herself, El-Bazioui believes reducing meat consumption across the board is the most effective and achievable policy, rather than trying to convince people to cut it out altogether. “When you reach a lot of people, the impact is greater than if you focus on a small group of vegans,” she says. “That’s my philosophy in food, in politics, in life.”
This stealth approach is echoed all over the city. I pop into the Viernulvier art centre, also known as De Vooruit, for a chat with Tom De Vleesschauwer, its kitchen coordinator – De Vooruit is as popular for its large art deco cafe as for its programme of theatre, dance, film and music. “A few years ago, we made oat milk the default: if you don’t ask for cow’s milk, you get oat,” says De Vleesschauwer.”About 90% of customers now have oat milk. If we had a sign saying you can choose, it would only be 10-20%.” Other changes have come to De Vooruit’s cafe as well. The soup is now always vegan; the dish of the day is vegetarian; staff and performers get a daily “Ottolenghi-style vegetarian buffet” instead of cheese and charcuterie. And, as in the school canteens, the few meat dishes on the menu – today just spaghetti bolognese and meatballs in tomato sauce – have been hybridised. “We cut down the meat by 70% and increased the carrots, cutting them to the same size – 30% still gives the flavour and the idea of meat, and carrots give sweetness,” says De Vleesschauwer. “People say plant-based is niche, but we have a very wide audience.” There are plenty of fully vegan businesses in the city too, such as Madam Bakster, where I drink coffee with homemade hazelnut milk and devour rich, chewy chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven. Laura Verhulst, the founder, sees her cafe as more inclusive, not less. “I wanted to make desserts that everyone could enjoy: vegan, allergen-free, non-refined sugar,” she says. At Knol & Kool, a vegan restaurant and mini-market, 85% of customers aren’t even vegetarian. The owner, Stijn Sprengers, says: “Our vibe is not, ‘Fuck you, meat-eaters’. We try to be as hospitable as possible and make everyone feel welcome.” View image in fullscreen Coffee with homemade hazelnut milk at Madam Bakster. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian Oh!Ma is a restaurant specialising in plant-based Belgian comfort food. “We serve meals that feel like home: stew, vol-au-vent, meatballs,” says Hannah, a student and waitress. “We introduce it to people’s lifestyles in a non-pushy, non-in-your-face way. A lot of people are shocked the food is vegan. Most walk-ins don’t realise.” The restaurant makes all its own plant-based meat alternatives and condiments, such as Belgium’s beloved sauce andalouse, essential with fries. It says each plant-based dish saves up to 5kg of CO₂ and 2,000 litres of water compared with its animal-based equivalent. Hannah isn’t a vegetarian herself, but Oh!Ma’s “chicken” and mushroom vol-au-vent and “cheezy bacon” loaded fries have won her over. “I prefer the betterballs [a vegan take on the bar snack bitterballen] to the originals,” she says. “I’m looking for plant-based more often. I thought it wasn’t going to taste good – working here has changed that.” As well as these kinds of independent businesses, Ghent also has a proud tradition of affordable “social restaurants”, where all are welcome – tourists included – and prices for residents vary according to their ability to pay. I have lunch at Parnassus, a social restaurant in a beautiful former Franciscan church, where a two-course meal is €16 [£13.50] full price, or €7/€3.50 for those receiving certain social welfare benefits. Last year, 67% of customers paid a discounted rate. The cost includes a vegetable soup (today courgette) and a choice of two main courses. As it is Thursday, the two mains are vegetarian (a big wedge of cheesy pumpkin quiche) and vegan (seitan and mushroom stew with roast potatoes), both served with salad. There is a meat option twice a week and a fish dish on Fridays, meaning 70% of the menu is vegetarian or vegan. View image in fullscreen At the vegan restaurant and mini-market Knol & Kool, 85% of customers are not even vegetarian. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian Nicholas, the head chef, explains his cooking style. “We believe in pure enjoyment with a minimal impact on the planet,” he says. “We cook as natural as possible: fresh, healthy and without heavy cream or fats. We also actively fight food waste.” He and his team feed about 180 people a day, sometimes as many as 250, and produce almost zero waste. Lunch is winding down when I arrive, but the church is still half full of people of all ages: alone, in couples, with family or groups of friends. View image in fullscreen ‘We try and make everyone fee“Welcome,” says Stijn Sprengers, owner of Knol & Kool. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian
Parnassus is one of four restaurants run by Ateljee, a company that manages employment projects in Ghent. Other initiatives include secondhand shops, a bike shop, urban gardening and digital skills hubs. Tom Wauters, Ateljee’s general manager, says: “The restaurants employ people who have been out of work for a long time, to help them get back into the labour market. We strongly believe that everyone has talents.” The chefs at Parnassus are certainly talented – my stew is delicious – and the daily changing menus are full of creative plant-based dishes.
After lunch, I head to a biotech lab on a science park that is part of Ghent University. This is the home of Those Vegan Cowboys, a new venture by the founders of The Vegetarian Butcher, an alternative-meat brand now owned by the Dutch company Vivera. Ghent has a history of fostering plant-based innovation: the dairy-free brand Alpro was founded here in 1980 and is still headquartered in the city.
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‘The cheese of the future’ … a test camembert developed by Those Vegan Cowboys. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian
Those Vegan Cowboys are at the cutting edge of the protein transition. They are producing casein – the animal protein used in cheese production – from microorganisms instead of cows, sheep and goats. Steven Geysens, the head of molecular biology, explains why. “Cheese is one of the main things people crave when they go vegan. It is the holy grail of animal-free products.”
Why is vegan cheese still, by and large, so bad? “No plant protein has the same effect as casein. It is important for gelation, stretchiness, meltability, nutritional value, taste …” Geysens says that alternative cheese makes up just 1% of total global cheese purchases, whereas dairy-free milks now constitute 14% of milk sales. He shows me around various rooms in the lab, where white-coated technicians are busily working away. I feel humbled that so many brilliant minds are devoted to giving vegans a tastier cheeseboard, but Geysens corrects me – Those Vegan Cowboys have a far bigger vision. They see this as the cheese of the future.
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‘About 90% of customers now have oat milk’ … Tom De Vleesschauwer, kitchen coordinator at De Vooruit. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian
“This is something that can be durable, sustainable and help feed everyone on the planet. It will have less saturated fat and be lactose-, antibiotic- and hormone-free.” He shows me figures that demonstrate dairy cheese’s environmental impact: it is the worst food in terms of water use, and worse than pork for land use and greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers will still be needed to make animal-free cheese, he says, to grow lower-impact crops such as sugar beet to be used in the fermentation process. “It’s good for farmers to have an opportunity to diversify,” he says.
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Seitan and mushroom stew with roast potatoes at a Parnassus. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian
Two cheese scientists, Hannes Decadt and Mathilde Blin, proudly show me some of their creations: gouda, camembert, mozzarella and feta. They look exactly like the real thing and I’m desperate to try them, but sadly they are still going through the EU’s stringent food safety regulations. I’ll have to rely on the scientists’ verdicts: “We know we’re not completely there yet,” says Decadt. “It’s much closer to real cheese than all the vegan cheeses on the market because of the casein. It’s the same texture. Now we’re focusing on ripening.” Blin will know they’ve cracked it when she is happy to serve her camembert to her parents: “My family are French and they’re really harsh, so they’re the best critics,” she says.
What else does the future hold for Ghent? ProVeg is now focusing on higher education. Next month, it is running a campaign in 15 universities and colleges, taking plant-based chefs into student restaurants to run cookingand tasting sessions. It is also exploring healthcare, having already helped one psychiatric hospital double its plant-based meal offerings and connected other hospitals with local organic vegetable farmers. View image in fullscreen Cheese scientists Steven Geysens, Mathilde Blin and Hannes Decadt of Those Vegan Cowboys. Photograph: Isabelle Pateer/The Guardian I wonder why Ghent’s protein transition has been so successful. Debruyne believes it comes down to a “unique combination” of public pressure and policy. Verhulst, the baker, thinks the change is tied to Ghent’s strongly socialist history and the energy of its large student population. “It’s rooted in the identity of the Ghent spirit. In Antwerp, for example, everything is perfect and symmetrical. Ghent is more alternative.” Whatever the reason, it’s working. “Twelve years ago, 13% of the population described themselves as flexitarians. This year, a whopping 83% did,” says Debruyne. “It’s a silent revolution.”
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Veggie Thursdays Vegan Surprises How Ghent Became a PlantBased Paradise
1 What is Veggie Thursday
Veggie Thursday is a Ghent initiative that encourages people to eat no meat or fish every Thursday and choose plantbased meals instead It started in 2009 and was the first campaign of its kind in Europe
2 Why Thursday and not another day
Thursday was chosen as a symbolic easytoremember day Its one day a week a lowpressure way to try plantbased eating without committing to a full lifestyle change
3 Who started Veggie Thursday
It was launched by the city of Ghent led by thencouncilor Tom Balthazar together with the local vegetarian organization EVA The city officially proclaimed the first Veggie Thursday in May 2009
4 What does vegan surprise mean in Ghent
Vegan surprises refers to the playful unexpected ways the city promotes plantbased food popup tastings free samples surprise vegan menus in restaurants and street campaigns that let people discover vegan food without expecting it
5 Do I have to become vegetarian to join
No Veggie Thursday is open to everyone The idea is simply to skip meat and fish for one day a week you dont need to change anything else
6 Is Veggie Thursday a law
No its a voluntary campaign The city doesnt ban meat It supports the initiative by serving vegetarian meals in cityrun cafeterias and schools on Thursdays and by promoting participating restaurants
7 How did Ghent become known as a plantbased paradise
Ghent was the first city in the world to officially promote a weekly meatfree day That pioneering move plus years of supportive policies veganfriendly restaurants and public campaigns earned it a reputation as one of Europes most vegfriendly cities
8 What are the benefits of joining Veggie Thursday
Healthier eating
Lower environmental impact
Cheaper meals in many cases
A chance to discover new foods and recipes
