The Me(a)t Gala: Vegan Brands Shine at Fashion’s Biggest Night

This year’s Met Gala featured vegan products from Impossible Foods, Neat, Stockeld Dreamery and Tindle Foods, showcasing plant-based indulgence to the world’s most influential celebrities.

The Garden of Time was this year’s theme for the Met Gala, and actors, artists, models, influencers and all kinds of celebrities showed up in attires that spanned from gorgeous, to curious, to wild.

But, true to the theme, the garden was also present in a way with the food served at the show. Hopes weren’t high when Anna Wintour banned garlic, onions and chives from this year’s event, presumably so everyone doesn’t have “bad breath”. “Those are three things I’m not particularly fond of,” she said ahead of the event.

It’s been reported that high-end cuisine was the name of the game at the Met Gala on Monday, with a fancy spring vegetable salad to start with, followed by a beef filet for the main, and almond cremeaux shaped like an apple for dessert.

If you ask me, the best bits were before and after the actual gala. At fashion’s biggest show, some of the plant-based world’s biggest brands showed up too. It was out with haute cuisine, in with pure vegan indulgence.

Here’s how vegan food made a splash at the 2024 Met Gala.

Impossible’s indulgent sliders and BBQ nuggets

It was a big night for one of the premier plant-based meat producers, Impossible Foods, which kicked off its latest marketing drive at the Live from E! red carpet. Its new ads were aired during the pre-show broadcast at The Mark hotel, a smart choice given the Met Gala over-indexes on vegans.

But it wasn’t just the ads – Impossible Foods was also serving food to attendees on the red carpet, and it was all about plant-based indulgence.

The clue was in the name, with the brand showcasing its Indulgent Burger, its premium beef patty launched last year, which is thicker, juicier and meatier than its signature burger. Upon launch, the company said 82% of taste-testers found this burger as good as or superior to conventional beef – so it made sense to exhibit the product among some of the most influential people in the world.

The Indulgent Burger was part of a slider that was lined with a brie and truffle aioli – it’s unclear whether this was plant-based, but since the brand’s target audience isn’t vegan anyway, that would be in line with its marketing strategy.

Impossible Foods also served its famous chicken nuggets, but these were also dressed up – in a passion fruit BBQ sauce no less. Both the nuggets and burgers were served alongside what looked like edible flowers to honour the Garden of Time theme, but the former also came in a specially branded green box that read: ‘Garden of Meat’.

After the event, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness called it an “important opportunity to build awareness as we roll into the summer grilling season”.

Stockeld Dreamery, Neat and TiNDLE turn it up at the afterparty

Met Gala afterparties are some of the most exclusive in the fashion world, and three brands got together to satiate the cravings of the, erm, inebriated attendees at one of the many, many parties.

At Casa Cipriani South Street, fast-food chain Neat was invited to hand out its plant-based cheeseburgers and hot dogs to the guests. Swedish brand Stockeld Dreamery joined in to help out, given its vegan Cultured Cheddar cheese tops the patty on Neat’s burger.

Another one of Neat’s collaborators, Singaporean startup TiNDLE Foods, brought out its vegan chicken tenders. “They went like crazy. We had to keep bringing out trays because they’d be gone in seconds,” the company said in a video montage.

The vegan junk food was served at a party that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Camila Cabello, Lil Nas X, SZA, Lizzo, Jaden Smith, Cardi B, Usher, Serena Williams, and Offset.

“This ended up being a huge win for the plant-based space as celebrities were spotted with Neat Burgers, Stockeld and Tindle flags all night long,” Stockeld Dreamery founder Sorosh Tavakoli said.

“If there’s a better way to make plant-based foods sexy, let me know.”