These Raw Meat Nike Sneakers Will Horrify Vegetarians

Beware, vegetarians. A pair of new Raw Meat sneakers from Nike will turn your stomach. Nike SB Dunk High Premium skateboarding shoes in Challenge Red look like they’re made out of marbleized steak.

The bright red sneaker features a marbleized fat pattern that’s inspired sneaker freaks to compare it to Wagyu beef, a white swoosh, red or white shoelaces, a red sole, and an insole with a butcher’s stamp pronouncing the sneakers “FRESH QUALITY.”

A pair will set you back $110.

Interestingly, it appears the Nike.com website doesn’t bill the sneakers as raw meat-inspired. Instead, the reference has appeared on blogs across the sneaker-sphere. While it seems that Nike doesn’t directly bill the Raw Meat sneaker as such, if you plug “meat” into the site’s search box, it takes you directly to the seemingly meat-inspired shoe page.

Perhaps Nike didn’t want to offend its vegetarian and vegan consumers? Or maybe, as with the rest of the Dunk line, they leave the insoles to speak for the sneaker itself.

This isn’t the first time that Nike has done a Dunk-style food homage. In April, the company launched Nike SB Dunk High Premium Waffle. The Chicken and Waffles-themed shoe features a waffled exterior, a buttery swoosh dripping with maple syrup, and Chicken and Waffle insoles.


There’s also the Nike SB Dunk Low Premium Cold Pizza model. It’s silver on the outside, has a black swoosh, and the insoles make it look like you’re walking on leftover pizza. They’re $100.

Nike describes it as “a unique look inspired by the traditional cuisine of street skaters.”

Previously, Nike has found itself repeated in real meat form. There’s a raw meat swoosh, a Nike Meat Air, and a Nike pate. Several years ago, Nike commissioned a group of creatives to recreate Nikes, and designer Olle Hemmendorff built a pair of undefinedNike Air Max into a sandwich at Nike Air Max soldes.

Recently, Nike released a shoe that looked like a Starbucks drink but wasn’t and gave away pairs of a special edition version of Cleveland Cavalier point guard Kyrie Irving Kyrie 2 sneakers called Ky-rispy Kreme in Krispy Kreme boxes.

Adweek sniffs at the entire sneaker-and-food effort: “It falls in line with a recent trend of apparel brands making junk-food-themed stuff, which in and of itself is kind of embarrassing.”

If it’s all too much, one can always go watch Werner Herzog eat his shoe.