The Tortured Pork Department: Taylor Swift Offers Vegan Meat at Eras Tour in Madrid’s Bernabéu Stadium

Taylor Swift fans could buy plant-based meat dishes at her Eras Tour concerts in Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

“You smoked, then ate seven vegan nuggets.”

Taylor Swift may not exactly have butchered the lyrics to her latest title track the way I’ve done, but fans attending her Eras Tour shows in Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium could certainly do one of those two things this week.

While she performed at Real Madrid’s iconic home on May 29 and May 30, her team enlisted Spanish food tech startup Heura to offer plant-based meat products to the 130,000 concertgoers. Fans in both the general and VIP areas could choose dishes like vegan chicken nuggets, pork sausages, and burgers, but it was still a somewhat surprise move by the artist.

It marks another feather in the cap for Heura, which saw sales hike by 22% annually in 2023, and bring in another €40M in Series B funding. The company is now aiming to become profitable this year.

The vegan meat options at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

The Madrid shows weren’t exclusively plant-based, but did feature a bunch of different vegan options. So whether you’re Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, there was something for everyone while you watched it happen on the stage.

Heura’s soy chicken pieces were part of three different dishes. There was a snack wrap with marinated chicken and mustard mayo; a sandwich with spicy chicken morsels, sundried tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, and a black garlic mayo; and a curry with Heura chunks. The brand served its vegan chicken nuggets as well.

Additionally, Swift’s fans could opt for a chorizo roll with Heura’s pork sausage, and a Heura beef burger with pickles, sauce and vegan cheese.

This is not the first time Swift has offered meat analogues at the Eras Tour. In her four-day stay at Mexico City’s Foro Sol stadium in August, local startup Propel Foods served vegan tacos made from its plant-based Bistec steak, Chorizo and Pastor products.

And, in April, vegan seafood producer The Ish Company presented its plant-based Shrimpish as part of a grain bowl during her shows at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

“Taylor Swift has been making positive strides towards promoting plant-based food and sustainability through her influence and actions,” a Heura representative told Green Queen. “These initiatives not only provide healthier and more sustainable food options at large events but also help reduce the carbon footprint associated with meat production.”

Taylor Swift and climate change: a complicated love story

As the world’s biggest artist and one of its most influential people, Swift’s climate change impact is a closely watched phenomenon.

There are, of course, the infamous private jets, which earned her the distinction of being the biggest celebrity polluter in 2022. Last year, a now-defunct Instagram page called Taylor Swift’s Jets went viral, tracking the 34-year-old’s journeys on private jets and calculating her emissions to be 138 tons in just three months – that’s about the annual climate footprint of nine Americans.

Swift’s representatives have noted that her “jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals”, and attributing “most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect”. But when you fly 5,500 miles to see Travis Kelce win the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs (who are already facing their own animal cruelty crisis as we speak), three months after you’re named Person of the Year by TIME Magazine, you can’t be upset about the backlash.

And while purchasing “more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel” ahead of the Eras Tour might be a well-intentioned thing to do, carbon credits are highly problematic. Maybe she could convince 70,000 Swifties to cut their beef consumption in half, which would offset all of her flying emissions, if you’ll believe the rigorous back-of-the-envelope calculations of one Reddit user.

All that said, Swift has been vocal about her anti-fur stance, choosing to wear faux in the music video for Lavender Haze (from the 2022 album Midnights). “It’s not real fur ’cause we’re not, you know, heathens,” she said memorably.

“Taylor Swift has collaborated with fashion designer Stella McCartney on a vegan fashion line. This line, launched in conjunction with her album Lover, included eco-friendly and animal-free products such as jackets, tops, and bags. This collaboration emphasises sustainable manufacturing processes and fur- and leather-free designs, highlighting Swift’s commitment to ethical fashion,” the Heura spokesperson said.

“These efforts collectively enhance Taylor Swift’s positive impact by promoting plant-based products and sustainability, encouraging her vast fan base to consider more environmentally friendly choices.”

Let’s hope the Eras Tour keeps serving more vegan meat (Taylor’s Version).