Last year Sainsbury's put a notice on the vegetarian section of the freezer saying they were having problems with their supplier and had temporarily run out of vegetarian frozen food. After a couple of weeks they took the notice down but to this day they've never got their own brand veggie burgers back.

Up until this week Morrisons always had vegetarian burgers in stock but a couple of days ago I went to buy some and the veggie section of the freezers were almost empty, just a few Quorn products (which I don't really like) and that was it.

What's going on? How can there be a shortage of veggie burgers?

tesco have started keeping a lot more veggie stuff, they have linda maccartney burgers and their own brand, both soya.

they also have other patties that aren`t pretendy meats.

No demand.
Like me, people have decided that horse is quite tasty.

Long time passing........

It sounds as if most of the supermarkets get their veggie burgers from the same supplier.

I haven't noticed a problem in ASDA. I don't really get them often but I quite fancy some Linda McCartney mozzarella burgers for tea now : )

I've been trying (and failing) to go about 50% veggie this year and I have been impressed with the vegetarian ranges in Tesco. Maybe the smaller stores aren't as good but my local Extra has a huge selection. I haven't tried much of the Linda McCartney stuff but their own brand and Quorn are almost always on some kind of multibuy offer. I just buy a few different things on each visit to fill up the freezer.

I don't know if TESCO do them, but your should try the Couldron veggie sausages. I love them. Also, the Linda McCartney sausages chopped up and mixed with some veg and pasta is one of my favourite meals.

Veggie products FTW.

i`m allergic to quorn, sadly because the "chicken" bits are fab and fool all the meat eaters tesco facon, "meatballs" [dried out in the oven first else they soak up too much liquid] and "hotdogs" are bloody great too. i`m not one for meat subs as a rule but sometimes you need it for texture or smokeyness.

the lincolnshire style sausages are also proper tasty.

I'm agnostic on the fake meat products; they work well in some dishes (e.g. "steak" strips in goulash) but I'm quite happy to simply leave them out of recipes and just have veg.

The exception is burgers because there's nothing quite like a burger with ketchup, mustard, cheese and a bun. Halloumi in a sesame bun is delicious but it's not a burger.

Did you know which 'bit' you're allergic to? They've started to do a new vegan range which will obviously be a different recipe. I tried some of their vegan southern style burgers and they were great : )

I don't like frying the Quorn sausages, so does anybody know a way of cooking them that doesn't dry them up? I might try steaming them, as I've always found the Quorn fillets to be best when given about four or five minutes in a microwave steamer. I greatly prefer the Cumberland version of the sausages more than the Lincolnshire, but you don't often find them.

I've always found the Linda McCartney sausages to be incredibly fatty and salty, although I do prefer the mince to the Quorn version when it's on offer. I'm always put off many of the nice looking veggie ready meals (Asda do some nice ones) because they need 35 to 40 minutes in the oven, which seems incredibly wasteful.

I bought some of Sainsburys own Veggie Burgers the other day, they had plenty of them. Delicious

Weird. I go in Sainsbury's at least once a week and they haven't had any in stock since last year.

mmm that is strange, maybe its a shortage in certain areas. I'm in the South East outside London.

Put them in an oven proof dish , make up some thin gravy with granules and pour over them (enough to come half way up sausage. Cook for fifteen minutes then turn them in the gravy for another fifteen minutes cooking and you'll find they aren't dry at all.

The only non-meat burger I've had are mushroom burgers. There's a joint a frequent that serves them and it's awesome. You won't know it's not beef unless you breathe while chewing; that's the time you get a hint of earthy taste.

The best veggie burgers I've ever had were bought from somebody walking through the campsite at breakfast time at the 1990 Glastonbury Festival. They looked a bit dodgy in a hippie kind of way, but the burgers were so nice I had to shout her back to get another. They appeared to be entirely home made.

Some other ones I remember were at the Reading Festival in 1976. Some Hari Krishna people were walking through the crowd just before Hawkwind came on, simply saying, 'is anybody hungry?'. I've no idea what was in them, but they were spicy and fairly simple – probably lentils plus a few other bits and pieces. Perhaps it was because I really was hungry, but they seemed marvellous at the time.

re: Sainsburys - have you looked in the Gluten free section of the freezer department. In the small brand of Sainsburys in Leicester I went to pick up some Gluten free sausage and accidentally grabbed some quorn sausages (quorn = veggie, right ?!). Maybe the freezer has the burgers you're after as well.

If I remember correctly the gluten free section is literally a shelf in the vegetarian section, so there are veggie and meaty gluten-free products at the bottom of the veggie section of the freezer. They do have lots of Quorn products but it's the non-Quorn own-brand burgers that I'm looking for.

Sticking the words 'gluten-free' on any product seems merely to be a licence to triple the price.

Glad Im not the only one who has noticed the way veggie burgers seem to be 'disappearing' and only the occassional inferior one is left now
You used to get some lovely veggie burgers but they started breadcrumbing them all (bleugh) then even they have started disappearing.
Has anyone got a good recipe for a home made veggie burger?

its all crisp bakes, bean burgers and mushroom burgers now as far as I can see

I really fancied a veggie burger the other week and went to 4 supermarkets with no joy

they were my occasional guilty pleasure

If you search Sainsbury's web site for "meat free burger" it now says:

We have removed our by Sainsburys frozen meat free burger and meat free quarter pounder from sale. Our development team are working very hard to develop a new recipe for these products and the new products will hopefully be back on sale soon

"Removed from sale" sounds rather serious. The plot (if not the burger) thickens...

There are plenty of recipes on the internet for vegetable burgers. All you need is a chopping board, a knife a blender and an oven.