Fish and chips is the latest British favourite to get a vegan makeover, with Quorn launching both battered and breaded “fishless fillets”.

The fillets will be made using protein derived from a fungus and the company promises to replicate the texture and flakiness of real fish. The launch follows the success of the Greggs vegan sausage roll, which has been selling out across the country.

Both products aim to capitalise on the rapidly growing numbers of people eating less meat, fish and dairy products. About a third of Britons have stopped or reduced their consumption of meat, while the Veganuary campaign signed up a record 250,000 people in 193 countries this year.

People are reducing their consumption of animal products for a variety of reasons, including concerns over their health, animal welfare and the environment. Most people in rich nations eat more meat than is healthy and research indicates that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact.

The Quorn fillets, which will be available in supermarkets from March, give consumers a new alternative to fish. Many of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited and independent research has shown mycoprotein causes lower carbon emissions than farmed fish.

The fishless fillets have taken five years to develop, said Geoff Bryant, the technical director at Quorn Foods UK, who added: “The launch marks the logical next step in helping people reduce our reliance on our oceans for protein.”

In 2018, the UK launched more vegan food products than any other nation. The Quorn fillets join a wide range of “faux fish” products on sale in supermarkets, from fishless fingers to vegan versions of tuna, smoked salmon, prawns, scampi, sushi and even caviar. Vegan alternatives to fish, such as “tofish”, have also gone on sale in pubs and chip shops.

Will McCallum, the head of oceans at Greenpeace UK, welcomed the Quorn fillets, saying: “More than 3 billion people depend on the oceans for their primary source of protein, yet 90% of the world’s fish stocks are either being fished at the maximum level or overfished. If we want healthy oceans, we have to look at ways to reduce fishing both by looking at sustainable fishless alternatives, using more sustainable fishing methods and putting large areas of the ocean off-limits so that wildlife can recover.”

However, Barrie Deas, the chief executive of the the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said: “It is perfectly possible to buy and consume fish from sustainable sources. As the International Council for Exploration of the Sea makes clear, all of the main species groups in the north-east Atlantic are not only fished at sustainable levels but are on track to produce high average yields.”

Joseph Poore, a food sustainability expert at the University of Oxford, said: “Quorn is leading the market in innovation, and I hope they go further by backing up their sustainability claims with labels on their products spelling out their emissions, impact on biodiversity, water and pesticide use.”