Day has celebrated annually on 1 October since 1977. The latest research results of the Swiss retailer Coop confirm that the share of part time vegetarians - also known as flexitarians - is still around 40%. Only 2% of the Swiss population is purely vegetarian. Vegetarian food becoming a trend can be seen from the new product line 'Coop Karma'. Just a few days after the launch of the Karma-products, they reached the limit of one million Swiss Francs. The present line consists of about 50 products. Of these 22 are suitable for vegetarians and 10 carry the Bio Suisse logo.
"Typical vegetarians are young, female and originate mainly from the German language part of Switzerland, as shown by the research results of Coop. The flexitarians, however, are part of the total population, even if significantly more flexitarians live in the German language part of Switzerland than in the west of Switzerland," Roland Frefel, head of fresh products at Coop, says. In Switzerland flexitarians do not eat meat with around one in three main meals on average. And over 40% of flexitarians and almost one quarter of the meat eaters want to eat vegetarian more often in the future, as the research results show. The classic vegetarian consumes does not consume meat, mainly because of animal well-being and out of respect for the environment. For flexitarians, however, personal and health aspects are of greater importance.
