In "Historically Yours" Thursday on Europe 1, journalist David Castello-Lopes tells how he discovered that Viandox seasoning liquid, renowned for its meaty taste, no longer contains ... meat.

Our columnist also learned what meat extracts have been replaced with.

Viandox brand seasoning liquid has built its legendary reputation on its meaty taste.

In the program

 Historically Yours

Thursday on Europe 1

, David 

Castello-Lopes nevertheless explained to listeners that the famous sauce no longer contained ... any meat extract!

 He recounts his investigation of several weeks which finally led to a confirmation of this fact by the Knorr brand.

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No meat in the ingredient list on the bottle

“Viandox was invented by a German chemist in the 19th century. This sauce was one of the coolest drinks of the Glorious Thirty Years before it got a little cheesy. Today I'm telling you how I discovered that the Viandox… no longer contains meat extract!

It all started two months ago.

I bought a bottle of Viandox for the purpose of writing a column.

[Europe 1 columnist] Olivier Poels saw the bottle on my desk and said: 'Du Viandox!

I remember when I drank it at my grandmother's. '

From that moment on, Olivier and I developed a passion for Viandox, a new passion for me.

Every morning around 11 a.m., for more than a month, we put a few drops of Viandox in a glass, we added hot water and we feasted like two friends in a bistro under the presidency of Georges Pompidou. .

The answer fell on Instagram

But one day, Olivier Poels read the list of ingredients on the bottle: water, salt, yeast extract, flavors, colorings, soy sauce, flavor enhancers, acidifiers, emulsifiers, diglycerides of fatty acids… And that's it. !

No mention of meat in the ingredient list, which looked very strange.

However, on the site of Viandox, produced today by the brand Knorr, one found in the list of ingredients 'extracted from beef meat'.

So I called Knorr customer service.

I asked to know if there was meat in the Viandox.

I was told that they would come back to me.

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But no one came back to me.

I wrote six emails, with weeks apart.

No answer.

Faced with the lack of response, I posted a story on Instagram which once again asked the question 'Is there meat in the Viandox?'

by tagging Knorr on the story.

Within hours, Knorr's Instagram account was inundated with people, over 500, all asking the same question.

The power of the network played a role, since the next morning Knorr France posted a story with the answer… There is officially no more meat in the Viandox.

An aroma of plant origin

The mark indicates that this has been replaced by an aroma that mimics the taste of meat of plant origin.

To justify this choice, Knorr specifies that it is part of its 'zero deforestation' goal.

Because often, to raise cows, trees are cut.

We imagine that this decision is not necessarily bad for business, at a time when the number of vegans is increasing and all manufacturers are trying to attract them.

This is the future of Viandox: to be the meat juice of people who don't eat meat. "