The echo of the operation reached the sector associations: LAV celebrated Kioene’s “epochal transition” on social media, defining the choice to abandon meat for 100% plant-based as courageous, successful and strategically effective. The company had already been awarded by the association during the last edition of the “LAV Animal Awards” in the Researchers and Innovators category, confirming how this transition is considered a virtuous model for the entire food industry of the future.
In the subway corridors and at tram and bus stops in Milan and Rome, for days, the gaze of commuters was captured by images of large half-carcases of cows hanging in cold storage, photographed without any aesthetic mediation. Alongside, concise sentences: “No one is born vegan”, “A massacre happened”. No logo, no immediate explanation.
Posters that shock and divide
The first effect was confusion. There were those who spoke of an extreme animal rights campaign, those of a cynical operation by the meat industry, those of a direct attack on vegan choices. The images left no room for indifference and also sparked a debate on social media. The fact that they were placed in places of daily passage amplified the impact: not a communication to be sought, but to be endured, even if only for a few seconds.
The key to understanding arrived a few days later, with the so-called “reveal”. The person who signed those posters was not a person external to the plant-based world, but Kioene, one of the main Italian producers of plant-based foods. The full message makes it clear: “No one is born vegan. Not even us” and “We used to make meat. But a mess happened.”
From slaughterhouse to vegetable: a 136-year history
To understand the meaning of the operation you need to look at the history of the company. Kioene is part of the Tonazzo Group, born in 1888 and remaining in the meat sector for 136 years. The reference to the slaughterhouse, therefore, is a biographical fact. Since January 1, 2025, however, that chapter has been definitively closed. The group has decided to abandon all production of animal origin to dedicate itself exclusively to vegetable proteins, which are already central to its business today.
In the 2024 Sustainability Report this choice is described as the outcome of a gradual process. Kioene has been around since 1988, when talking about plant-based alternatives was far from common. Over the years, the brand has grown to become the group’s main source of turnover: in 2023 over 53 million euros out of 80 in total, with a forecast of growth to 65 million in 2024. Even on an employment level, the transition was already underway: out of around 300 employees, 270 worked in vegetarian production.
These data explain why the choice is not just symbolic. The definitive exit from the meat market comes when the company’s economic and production center of gravity has already shifted, making the decision coherent from both an industrial and strategic point of view.
A provocation that speaks of environmental responsibility
The campaign was born during Veganuary, the month that invites you to experiment with a plant-based diet, but consciously chooses not to show burgers, legumes or ready meals. On the contrary, it stages what the company was, to explain what it has decided to no longer be. Cristian Modolo, marketing director of Kioene, explained to Corriere della Sera that the objective was to overcome the reassuring codes of green communication and tell the brand in a way that is consistent with its real story.
Even the choice of the creators involved, such as Vegano Imbruttito and Vegnarok, falls within this logic: stimulating questions, asking the public to question the meaning of those images. An operation of guerrilla marketing which worked precisely because he took nothing for granted.
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Behind the provocation there is a clear position. In the Sustainability Report the company explicitly links the abandonment of meat to environmental responsibility, recognizing the burden of intensive farming on soil and atmosphere pollution. The posters, reread in the light of this choice, neither celebrate the flesh nor demonize it. They tell of an industrial and cultural transition, uncomfortable and irreversible, which transforms a historical legacy into a stance on the future.
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The echo of the operation reached the sector associations: LAV celebrated Kioene’s “epochal transition” on social media, defining the choice to abandon meat for 100% plant-based as courageous, successful and strategically effective. The company had already been awarded by the association during the last edition of the “LAV Animal Awards” in the Researchers and Innovators category, confirming how this transition is considered a virtuous model for the entire food industry of the future.
