It reportedly racked up ‘huge losses’…<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]
Words by Lydia Spencer-Elliot<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-1492000356.jpg” alt=”Leonardo DiCaprio” title_text=”%22Killers Of The Flower Moon%22 Red Carpet – The 76th Annual Cannes Film Festival” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] It\u2019s been a busy month for Leonardo DiCaprio. The 50-year-old\u00a0Titanic\u00a0star, who\u2019s been dominating headlines pretty much since his first breakout role as one half of the star-crossed lovers in Baz Luhrmann\u2019s adaptation of\u00a0Romeo & Juliet\u00a0in 1996, attended his first ever Met Gala with his girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti, 26, who he\u2019s been dating since 2023, at the start of May. Meanwhile in a professional capacity, he headed to the Cannes Film Festival last week to present his\u00a0This Boys Life\u00a0and\u00a0Killers of the Flower Moon\u00a0co-star Robert De Niro with the honorary Palme d\u2019Or lifetime achievement award. No biggy.\u00a0<\/p>\n But all of this is so far, so Leo \u2013 we expect him to thrive in both the romantic and red carpet realm. What may cause you to cock your head and question \u201cI\u2019m sorry, what?\u201d is the news that Leonardo\u2019s vegan burger chain (yes, you read that right) announced that its closing down its remaining UK stores last month after suffering huge losses throughout its six years in business in Britain. Is your head in orbit? Ours too. So, here\u2019s how the (soy) beef began:\u00a0<\/p>\n Believe it or not, this disaster started with the 40-year-old Formula One driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, who announced he was going vegan in 2017 due to animal cruelty and global warming. \u201cAs the human race, what we\u2019re doing to the world, the pollution, coming from the amount of cows that are being produced is incredible,\u201d he told the\u00a0BBC\u00a0in September that year. \u201cThey say it\u2019s more than what we produce with our flights and our cars, which is kind of crazy to think. The cruelty is horrible and I don\u2019t necessarily want to support that and I want to live a healthier life,\u201d the principled sportsman said.\u00a0<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-1254370786.jpg” alt=”Leonardo DiCaprio” title_text=”Celebrities At The Los Angeles Lakers Game” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_code _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Sir Lewis then put his money where his mouth is and opened the vegan food outlet, Neat Burger, in 2019 alongside the hospitality organisation The Cream Group and Italian entrepreneur\u00a0Tommaso Chiabra, who was an early investor in the plant based protein product brand, Beyond Meat\u00a0\u2013\u00a0three guesses for whose patties are used in Hamilton\u2019s restaurants. Anyway, the Formula One driver had a fair few successful years flogging faux hot dogs, burgers and tater tots and by October 2021 it was reported that the company had completed a new funding round valuing it at $70m (\u00a351m). Hardly small change.\u00a0<\/p>\n NeatBurger already had five UK locations, but announced it planned to open a further 30 sites in London areas including Canary Wharf, Stratford, Bishopsgate, Ealing, Chelsea, Paddington, Waterloo, Covent Garden, London Bridge, Clapham, Hammersmith and Shoreditch\u00a0\u2013 all within a year, with additional regional expansion planned for 2022, which is where it started to sound like perhaps they had bitten off more than they could chew.\u00a0Cue the DiCaprio who, months later, was announced as a \u201cstrategic investor\u201d in the company during another round of fundraising focussed predominantly on gaining US funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact Leonardo has embraced our mission and come on board is astonishing\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it shows how much we can do to bring change to the world,\u201d Tommaso Chiabra told\u00a0The Standard\u00a0at the time. Meanwhile Leo, who has donated to conservation projects throughout his career and made his mark as an environmentalist with his documentary\u00a0Before the Flood\u00a0in 2016, added in statement: \u201cDisrupting our food system with sustainable alternatives is one of the key ways we can make a real difference in reducing global emissions.\u201d Sites were also planned in New York, Italy and the Middle East.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Despite its ambitious expansion plans, Neat Burger reported almost \u00a37.9m worth of losses before the end of 2022\u00a0\u2013 up from \u00a33.2m the year before. Half of its London locations, Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf, Oxford Street and Westfield Stratford were forced to close by 2023. Meanwhile, its New York restaurant, which was operational for under a year, closed its doors last summer.<\/p>\n As the closures rolled out, Neat Burger reportedly told employees they had been caused by rising rent prices, the cost of living crisis, and the impact of remote working on the London lunch trade,\u00a0This Is Money\u00a0reported at the time. The business also admitted it had attempted to grow too quickly in its early stages and planned to focus on the three sites where sales were still improving year on year. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s necessary to take a step back to take a bigger leap forward,\u201d they told staff who faced redundancies should closures continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cut to 2025, and Leo and Lewis\u2019 vegan burger dreams are well and truly fried when it comes to the UK as Neat Burger announced in April that its two remaining British stores are scheduled to close, with a potential 150 jobs losses on the cards, per\u00a0The Sun.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no further comment at this time, other than to confirm that the business has taken the difficult decision to close its UK restaurants,\u201d a spokesperson told the publication when asked whether the eateries were in fact closing their doors.\u00a0But Neat Burger almost certainly won\u2019t be DiCaprio\u2019s last off-piste investment. The film star has also put money into Telmont Champagne House in\u00a0Damery, France, the Colorado-based frozen seafood business Love the Wild, and\u00a0London vegan trainer brand,\u00a0L\u00d8CI in recent years.<\/p>\n So, we can only assume he\u2019ll take this soy burger blow in his vegan leather-clad stride.\u00a0You can’t win them all.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”] Photo: <\/b>Getty<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s a shocking and sad loss for the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":9868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-news"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"guestgrazia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9870,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862\/revisions\/9870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘Disrupting our food system with sustainable alternatives is key.’<\/span><\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]