Symplicity Centres Fermented Vegetables in Nut Roast As Brits Embrace Whole Foods

UK plant-based brand Symplicity Foods, co-founded by chef Neil Rankin, has launched a nut roast with slow-fermented mushrooms and vegetables, leaning into the resurgence of whole-food options.

Symplicity Foods is championing nuts and vegetables over meat analogues for roast season.

The British company unveiled its first retail products at Waitrose earlier this year, with the burger, sausages and ‘nduja featuring a vegetable-first recipe.

It’s now building on that with its latest launch, a meat-free roast that combines cranberries, sage, beans, seeds and nuts with mushrooms and vegetables. The product has a deep umami flavour built through co-founder and chef Neil Rankin’s slow fermentation approach.

The rollout comes as plant-based food shows signs of recovery in British retail on the back of vegetables, beans and whole-food options, while meat alternatives continue to struggle.

A roast built on plants and fermentation

Rankin, who set up Symplicity with Alan and Mark Wogan, developed and refined these veg-led products in professional kitchens over several years. The firm leverages a lacto-fermentation process to unlock the flavour potential of vegetables and build flavour depth and complexity.

That same approach is now being applied to the meat-free roast, with which the company is eyeing a variety of occasions beyond just Christmas, positioning it as a centrepiece for Sunday lunch during autumn and winter.

More than a quarter of the product (26%) comprises fermented mushrooms, onions and beetroot, which are complemented with butter beans, wheat gluten, dried cranberries, garlic purée, miso, tamari, and a range of seeds, spices and herbs. Each 300g pack feeds two, costs £6, and delivers 29g of plant protein and 9g of fibre per serving.

“Roasts are already predominantly vegetables, but the protein or centrepiece has always been a blind spot for professional cooks and home cooks,” said Rankin.

“I’m not excited by dry nut roasts, and heavily processed mimics always feel to me like a bad imitation that, while clever, never quite hits the mark,” he added.

“I believe in simple cooking, great ingredients and fermentation, which gives vegetables the depth and richness you actually crave. That’s why chefs like us so much, and we now want to bring it to the mass market.”

Symplicity Foods bets on UK’s whole-food movement

Symplicity has been selling its whole-food plant-based products everywhere from pubs and pizzerias to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants and established eateries like Dishoom and Mildreds, before entering retail in January.

“Launching our first range into Waitrose this year showed us there’s an appetite for what we’re doing with fermentation. For vegetables to get that restaurant-quality depth, you often end up relying on lots of butter, oil or salt,” said Alan Wogan, who is the firm’s CEO.

“Fermentation offers an alternative way, building depth, complexity and umami into the vegetables themselves. For us, it’s the ultimate flavour unlock. It also keeps the nutritional benefits like protein, fibre and plant points. The roast is a really exciting next step in showing what fermentation can do.”

The whole-food focus comes as the plant-based sector returns to growth in the UK, with Tesco ascribing the growth to “veg-led foods”. “The inclusion of vegetables and plant foods is being seen not as a passing preference, but as a fundamental part of how people expect to eat in the future,” said Bethan Jones, plant-based food buyer at the retailer.

In the first half of 2026, unit sales of beans, pulses, tofu and tempeh grew by 7.3% and veg-led analogues such as sausages and pies by nearly 25% compared to the same period a year ago; meat alternatives, on the other hand, experienced a 4.3% dip.

These trends are driven by a combination of factors. Brits are shifting away from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), seeking protein options that champion whole foods, and eating more plants as a result of the 30-plants-a-week and fibremaxxing movements.

It’s why so many plant-based companies have come out with whole-food ranges over the last couple of years. This has launched a line of whole-food and chickpea tofu products to complement its meat alternatives, Oh So Wholesome sells Veg’chop, a range of cubes made from legumes, seeds, mushrooms and other plants, and Juicy Marbles expanded its plant-based meat range with an Umami Burger bridging the gap between ultra-realistic analogues and veg-led options.