To-MEAT-O sauce

Hell Pizza are strong advocates for more sustainable food sources. But they're also strong advocates for stirring shit up. So, no surprise when they turned a Kiwi classic - the steak and cheese pie - into a pizza. Except, in truly Hell-ish fashion, they replaced the steak with meat made from mushrooms called Fable.

Foreseeing the inevitable outrage, we made them a peace offering – tomato sauce, made with blood and called it toMEATo sauce. Social media was a bloodbath, as the meaters and vegers went to war, resulting in 2.4M interactions. Making it Hell Pizza’s most engaging campaign to date.

While New Zealand is a progressive country in many ways, adoption of alternative meat sources has proved challenging. As a nation built on farming – particularly of sheep and cattle – animal meat has been and remains central to many Kiwi diets. Alternatives, perceived as “fake meat” are shunned by a majority of the population.

6,000 limited edition blood-bagged sauces sold out in just 3 weeks. But it was something of a Trojan sauce, as each bag only contained 0.5ml of blood (less than a slice of pepperoni). Despite that, 70% of those who tried it were meat-eaters and 30% said they’d swap meat for plant-based options in future.