Some estimates have as many as 30,000 sex workers in Dubai alone. The country, and especially Dubai, one of the seven emirates, is known as a centre for prostitution and sex tourism in the Middle East. Tsega's fate is shared with thousands of women in the United Arab Emirates. Women from Arab countries walked in circles or moved slowly on the stage. 'I started working in a supermarket, but life is so expensive here,' she says.Ī rooftop bar at a hotel in the city of Ras al-Khaima. She sits on a bar stool in a dark basement bar in the old quarter of Dubai, dressed in a short skirt. That's what happened to 24-year-old Ethiopian Tsega*. Once you arrived, you learned the only way to make the promised money was through prostitution. 'We research popular trends and the needs of our customers, and noticed an increase in the number of flexitarians.' Two vegetarian chicken substitutes from a different brand have been added to the McDonald's menu in the Netherlands.Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Imagine if you were told of well-paid work in a new country, far from your impoverished home. According to Eunice Koekkoek, manager of corporate communications at McDonald's in the Netherlands, the fast-food restaurant is always open to discussing vegetarian options with companies and experts, including The Vegetarian Butcher. Korteweg is eager to collaborate with fast food chains too. 'We noticed that many people go meat-free one or more days a week.' 'Consumers wanted vegetarian products and were happy when we started selling them,' says the company's director of communications, Fleur van Bruggen. The Vegetarian Butcher also sells vegetarian meatballs through Unox, a Unilever brand famous for its traditional smoked sausages. Koffeman says that the company tries to use as little salt as possible, and that many substitutes contain much less salt than the original meat. The company's products can be found in stores and restaurants.

This is a great development because eating less meat is healthier, but unfortunately, most meat substitutes contain too much salt.'Ī Dutch supermarket sells meat substitutes from The Vegetarian Butcher. 'I expect roughly 80 percent of all meat products to be plant-based in the next 25 years.'Īccording to Jasper de Vries, a spokesperson for The Netherlands Nutrition Center, the consumption of meat substitutes has been on the rise in recent years. He also says he believes plant-based meat will become cheaper than real meat in 10 years. Korteweg is convinced that meat consumption in the Western world will decrease dramatically in the near future. But we didn't do it for them, we did it for meat-lovers, and so far, it's worked out well.' One of Kortegweg's partners, Niko Koffeman, who is also a member of Parliament for the Party for the Animals, estimates that at least 80 percent of the restaurant's clientele are meat-lovers. They didn't understand our name either, assuming vegetarians wouldn't want anything to do with butchers. 'In the beginning, people often asked me why it had to resemble meat. He and his partners invested $4.7 million in the company, which steadily grew by 50 percent each year. Luckily, the Netherlands has plenty of knowledge.' 'It requires the patience of a monk and the best experts to achieve the right result. The biggest challenge, however, was to recreate the texture of meat. The only solution was to develop a better alternative.

But Korteweg didn't like the meat substitutes available at the time, such as burgers made from processed vegetable slurry.

Thessa lageman