Firth and Theasby met at
High Storrs School in
Sheffield as children and became friends. The pair became vegan in 2015; Theasby first, with Firth following after seeing
Cowspiracy. They authored a series of successful cookery books, as well as
How to Live Vegan, a book about living as a vegan in a non-vegan world. As early as 2017, Firth and Theasby hoped to host the first vegan cookery show. featured sponsorship from the supermarket
Waitrose, along with ITV's other Sunday morning cookery programming. This led to a backlash from vegans, as the Waitrose adverts featured non-vegan products and footage of farmed animals. Spokespersons from
The Vegan Society and
PETA argued that Waitrose could have used the adverts to showcase their plant-based products. Waitrose apologised, explaining that they were not aware of the content of
Living on the Veg in advance, and explained that they were speaking to ITV to "make sure that all foods featured in the future are more matched to the topics in the show". ==Format==