A British supermarket has offended vegans by placing an ad for meat right in the middle of a vegan cooking show.

Living on the Veg is sponsored by supermarket Waitrose, which bizarrely showed off its meat and dairy range at the start and end of each ad break in the show's first episode, The Telegraph reports.

"Gotta love the vegan TV show on ITV London, adverts topped and tailed with chickens and cows - sponsored by Waitrose. You couldn't make it up," one unimpressed viewer tweeted.

Waitrose apologised for the bad timing, saying it didn't know what the show was going to be about when it booked the timeslot.

"We're sorry for the sponsorship credits used around this programme on Sunday - our credits top and tail a number of food shows on ITV and we didn't know the subject of this one in advance," a spokesperson said.

ITV said Waitrose knew it was going to be a cooking show, but not that it would feature plants only.

"The brand idents are tailored around cookery themes, and absolutely no offence was intended."

It's not the first UK TV show to outrage vegans this year - last week a vegan TV presenter, in the process of calling for an end to farming, shot and ate a deer.

A recent survey found a significant number of Kiwis are looking to cut back on their meat consumption this year - some to help the environment, others for health reasons.