Danone-owned brand Silk is starting 2024 off with a challenge it hopes will help breakfast lovers stick to their plant-based resolutions. And the vegan milk brand’s new Feel Planty Good Challenge comes with plenty of star power and prizes.
This campaign brings together a stellar lineup of personalities, including Peloton’s fitness guru Robin Arzón, actress Vanessa Hudgens, NFL star Saquon Barkley, and social media sensation Barbara “Babs” Costello.
“I’ve been vegan for over 10 years and I always start my day with a smoothie, so joining in on the Feel Planty Good Challenge was a no-brainer,” Arzón tells VegNews.
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Robin Arzon’s plant-powered breakfast
As a New York Times bestselling author and a respected figure in the fitness community, Arzón’s journey from a corporate lawyer to a global fitness leader is fueled by her decade-long commitment to a vegan lifestyle.
Robin Arzón
Just like her accessible workouts with Peloton, this partnership with Silk gives Arzón another way to bring her fitness and wellness philosophy right to her fans.
“You all know that I wear many hats and won’t be put in any one box,” Arzón says. “I want to widen the aperture of what it means to light fires in everything I do, and Silk makes it convenient to prioritize nutrition and set up my day for success even when it’s packed with workouts, teaching, content shoots, meetings, events, and being a parent.”
Silk
For the campaign, Arzón created the “Mean Green Matcha Machine,” a blend of Silk Almondmilk, almond butter, matcha, frozen mango, spinach, hemp seeds, flaxseeds, and an uncommon smoothie ingredient: cauliflower. For optimal texture, she shares that the cauliflower should be steamed and frozen before blending.
Making the vegan smoothie is a good start toward keeping your plant-based resolutions but Arzón says that creating other digestible goals is key.
“Finding the discipline to stick to your goals is not easy, but you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Arzón says. “Getting specific and intentional with smaller goals you know you can focus on is much more approachable than starting out with a laundry list that is overwhelming and unsustainable.”
Given her captivating life journey, Arzón’s role in the campaign is pivotal, according to Leora Kelley, Director of Silk Plant-Based Beverages.
“Robin Arzón inspires so many people on a daily basis with her fitness regimen—and since she’s been vegan for more than ten years, we knew she would be a perfect partner to show challenge participants just how easy it is to incorporate plant-based alternatives into their everyday lives,” Kelley tells VegNews.
Celebrity smoothies embrace plant-based milk
In addition to the Mean Green Matcha Machine, the campaign features unique smoothie recipes from its other celebrity participants. Hudgens presents her “Beige Not Boring” smoothie, Barkley shares his “Tofu Touchdown” blend, and Costello introduces her “Red Berry Crisp” smoothie.
“A solid morning routine is so important, but I usually have to do breakfast on the road,” Hudgens said in a statement. That’s why I’m excited to partner with Silk to share my little smoothie secret. Starting the day with a plant-based, nutrient-packed breakfast helps me feel my best, and I hope it can help others too.” Like Arzón, Hudgens’ smoothie, made with maple syrup and peanut butter, includes unexpected ingredients like chickpeas.
Silk
These creations were all developed to highlight the broad appeal and versatility of Silk’s offerings, which include a variety of almond, oat, cashew, coconut, and soy milks, along with creamers and yogurts.
“Every new year, people want to make changes to live a healthier life,” Leora Kelley, Director of Silk Plant-Based Beverages, tells VegNews.
“Many consumers want to do the right thing for their bodies, but don’t know where to begin—in fact, only 25 percent of people find it easy to incorporate nutritious foods into their daily routine,” Kelley says.
To incentivize this healthful shift, those who join the challenge for seven days and register their participation on Silk’s website have the opportunity to win exciting prizes, including the grand prize of free breakfast for life and additional rewards of free breakfast for a year for six other participants.
“At Silk, we believe in the power of plants,” Kelley says. “Whether you’ve been vegan for years now or are newer to the world of plant-based, our goal is to show everyone how choosing plant-based products for breakfast can help to set them up for the rest of their day, which is why we created the Silk Feel Planty Good Challenge.”
Celebrities get behind vegan breakfast
In addition to the celebrities participating in Silk’s latest campaign, the start of the year has brought other exciting partnerships promoting free breakfast options. Among them is the collaboration between Travis Barker, the iconic drummer of Blink-182, and dairy-free cheese brand Violife.
Together, they introduced the Wiiildy Good Breakfast Club, an initiative offering consumers complimentary vegan bagels accompanied by Violife’s dairy-free cream cheese.
This offer is a strategic part of their broader goal to encourage the adoption of plant-based diets, particularly aligning with New Year’s resolutions that often focus on health and wellness.
Violife
Through the Wiiildy Good Breakfast Club, Barker—who has been vegan for 17 years—seeks to share this enthusiasm for plant-based eating.
Combined, the Silk and Violife campaigns bring celebrity power to plant-based breakfasts with the mission of helping consumers stick to plant-based resolutions far past Veganuary—the month-long challenge to go vegan in January.
And new figures show that 80 percent of Veganuary participants reduced their intake of animal products after the campaign while 28 percent chose to stay vegan indefinitely.