The editor of Waitrose magazine has caused widespread outrage by joking about killing vegans.

William Sitwell, who is also a Masterchef critic, provoked anger after calling those on plant-based diets “hypocritical” in an email to a freelance journalist.

The editor wrote as a response to a pitch about vegan recipes for the magazine: “Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them?

He continued, in the email published by BuzzFeed: “How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?"

The vegan journalist, Selene Nelson, told the website she had “never seen anything like it,” adding: “If William Sitwell wants to continue eating meat and hating vegans, that’s his prerogative, but to have this attitude towards others when he’s representing Waitrose is seriously bizarre.”

She said: "I've written about many divisive topics, like capital punishment and murder cases and domestic violence, and I’ve never had a response like that to any of my articles or pitches. "And he's the editor. He’s representing Waitrose and he’s talking about 'killing vegans, one by one'?"

Waitrose Magazine claims to have a circulation of over 600,000 and boasts star columnists including Pippa Middleton and Yotam Ottolenghi as columnists.