The city ranked just above London, Edinburgh, and Belfast as one of the top cities for vegans.

Bristol has earned the top spot of being the most vegan-friendly city in the UK, according to new research.

With over 1 million Brits now taking up a plant-based lifestyle – with many inspired by Veganuary- the study by energy-saving site Save On Energy sought to investigate which city in the UK is the most vegan-friendly?

Separate research also indicates that around 23% of the UK population – say that they will be vegetarian, vegan or pescatarian by 2021, with the number of people claiming to be vegan soaring by 62% in 2019,

Save On Energy considered several factors and created an index ranking cities for their vegan-friendliness.

The site looked at the number of vegan-friendly restaurants; Organic health food shops; Vegan supplement stores and the number of vegan-related monthly searches (per 1,000 population) to compute the results.

Top spot

Bristol came in first with a total score of 133 making it an “ideal location for vegans” to reside in the UK.

The number of vegan restaurants in Bristol totals 197. When it comes to organic and health food shops, Bristol has 18 organic health food shops, and 14 supplement stores.

Analysing Google search trends, the study found that Bristolians made a whopping 2,350 searches each month, which comes up to be 3.43 ‘vegan’ searches per 1,000 people.

This isn’t the first time Bristol has edged over other cities in being the most vegan friendly. A 2019 survey by Chef’s Pencil – an online cookbook where chefs share their favourite recipes – crowned Bristol as the vegan capital of the world.

London came in second place with a 120-overall score, and 286 vegan-friendly restaurants, 19 organic health shops, and 48 supplement stores. Although, London took the lead with 24,520 searches per month, on average – 22,170 more than Bristol in second place. It equated to just 0.0000026 searches per 1,000 Londoners.

Edinburgh, Belfast and Birmingham, and Aberdeen came in 3^rd, 4^th, and fifth place respectively.

• Also Read: 2020’s top 10 vegan-friendly cities in the UK have been revealed

Least-friendly vegan cities

Bradford was found to be the least vegan friendly with a total score of 19. According to the organization: “Despite having 129 vegan-friendly eateries in the vicinity, Bradford only has 10 organic health shops, and just seven supplement stores which pushes them down the rankings in our Vegan Index.

“When it comes to vegan-related Google searches, Bradford makes the second-least each month (310), which equates to around 0.58 searches per 1,000 people, on average.”

Southampton, Luton, Reading, and Wolverhampton ranked below Bradford in being the least-friendly vegan cities in the UK.

• Also Read: Europe’s largest vegan meat factory to open in the UK

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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