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Fact-checking organization Snopes has debunked a viral meme claiming no one is buying vegan food as people stockpile during the coronavirus outbreak.
There are two very popular versions of the meme, which features a picture of supermarket shelves. They are all empty, apart from the section filled with vegan food.
Vegan meme
One of the memes, largely circulated by vegans, shares the picture with the caption: “Everyone panicked apart from the vegans.”
The other – which is the particular version Snopes investigated – has an anti-vegan message. It says: “Even with the coronavirus panic buying, no one wants to eat vegan food.”
Not even the threat of starvation from a panic buying food shortage can move vegan food off the shelves.. pic.twitter.com/LlJLqYlvXH
— Keira Savage (@KeiraSavage00) March 5, 2020
‘Miscaptioned’
Snopes laid out the claim of the image, saying: “A photograph shows store shelves stripped of all foodstuffs except for vegan products during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But according to the organization, the image has been miscaptioned. It said: “Although the photograph may be fairly representative of the general concept and does picture some vegan food products, it did not originate with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The earliest versions of this picture we were able to find online had been posted well over two years before the COVID-19 outbreak and dated from September 2017 – just after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in August 2017 and prompted a similar run on grocery stores by residents in the storm’s path.”
