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4 hours ago
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Andy Shovel’s career to date has been, you might say, a journey. A little over a decade ago he was working on the chicken station in a branch of McDonald’s. He then set up a burger delivery business in west London, which he and a co-founder would go on to sell for seven figures.
A celebratory holiday in the Maldives and a period of research later, in 2019 they launched THIS™, the range of meat-alternative packaged foods, which boomed from zero to more than £20m of revenue, becoming the UK’s fastest-growing food brand in 2023.
And now – another sharp pivot. Shovel admits that his move from burgers into the plant-based market was strategic rather than ideological, but in the process he became a true believer – and a committed vegan. Having stepped back from the day-to-day running of THIS™ last year, the one-time burger flipper is now launching an animal welfare organisation that he hopes will do as much for animal rights as his previous venture did for non-meat bacon.
It’s called A Bit Weird. Why? As the organisation’s knowingly silly jingle puts it, it’s “because some of the stuff we do to animals are a bit weird”. That includes killing 30 million male chicks in gas chambers or macerators each year in Britain because they can’t lay eggs, something Shovel has set out to try to ban. The painful method by which male lambs are castrated to improve the flavour of their meat is next in his sights.
He’s hoping to achieve this with a mixture of careful research – the stint at McDonald’s was a very strategic attempt to learn about the fast-food business – and fun. THIS may have forced its way into the nation’s freezer cabinets by leaning heavily on product innovation, but it also had an anarchic approach to marketing, such as when the company staged a mock funeral procession for bacon through the streets of central London.
Shovel wants to do something similar for the welfare of animals. Hence the word “weird”, rather than shocking or appalling or indefensible. People have been “repelled” by vegan campaigning in the past, he argues, “because it’s all synonymous with judgment and sanctimony that people don’t enjoy”.
For a start, he’s not trying to make you a vegan – at least not yet. “I’m not saying don’t eat animals. I’m not saying don’t eat dairy. It’s all good. A Bit Weird’s attitude is – crack on.” It is an approach that has won him some criticism from longer-established campaigners, he admits, but his plan is “to disarm people through humour and silliness and fun, so that they didn’t see us as another vegan brand lecturing them about their life choices”.
Could a tiny organisation, just a month after launching, really hope to trigger large-scale change in the British egg industry? Shovel doesn’t see why not – and his prior experience in food retail at least gets him through doors. Chick culling has already been banned in Germany and France, and the technology exists to replace it, Shovel argues. Why not do the same in Britain? And why not try to make the campaign fun?
He promises research-led engagement with the industry, lobbying of government, public awareness campaigns, legal challenges – and stunts.
“I’ve had this itch for years … there’s almost a gap in the market with animal advocacy, if I’m going to be a businessperson about it, for someone to take quite serious messages and market them in a not serious way.
“I have a general firm view which is that I don’t want my lunch to have felt fear or anguish or pain. And I think that’s an uncontroversial thing.”
