Move towards veggie food may have slowed

Sales growth for plant-based alternatives to meat appears to have stalled in a number of countries across the world, analysts and farm leaders have suggested.  

Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) policy manager James McCluggage quoted the US-based Good Food Institute (GFI) which monitors sales and market trends. The GFI showed that retail sales of plant-based meat alternatives soared by 19% in 2018 and accelerated again in 2019 with a 46% rise to $1.4bn (£1.15bn) in 2020.

But sales flatlined in 2021 with no growth at all. Mr McCluggage said that was reflected in the fortunes of some of the main plant-based “meat” companies.

In January 2022, Beyond Meat made headlines as one of the most-shorted companies on the US stock market as speculators bet on future falls in the plant-based meat sector.

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In the US there had been a slight growth in households buying plant-based alternatives, from 18% to 19%. But the GFI added that in the first months of 2022 that percentage had gone into reverse.

It concluded that “despite the remarkable growth seen in the past several years, the success of the plant-based meat category is not inevitable”.

“To maximise the category’s potential, plant-based meat must compete with conventional meat products on the table stakes of consumer choice – taste, price and accessibility – and there is work to do on all of these fronts,” it said.

The UFU’s Mr McCluggage picked up on the aspect of taste. A GFI survey had shown that almost two thirds of consumers who had gone back to meat said it was because they did not like the taste of the plant alternative.

Price was the second biggest concern. “Big brands such as McDonalds, Burger King and KFC are rolling out plant-based products, but at a higher price than beef and chicken equivalents,” Mr McCluggage said.

He suggested plant-based meat alternatives cost 40% more than the real thing. But the GFI figures suggested that in the US the price gap was even higher, with alternatives to meat costing twice as much as the real product.

Plant-based meat also took a hit in the US when nutritionists warned consumers of high salt levels in highly processed alternatives, Mr McCluggage said.

Vegan numbers steady

But AHDB consumer insight manager Susie Stannard painted a more complex picture for the UK plant-based food market in an interview with FWi’s podcast team.

“There is always a lot of talk about veganism in the media, but we haven’t seen a lot of movement away from real meat,” Ms Stannard said.

Referring to government surveys conducted by YouGov, she said: “The number of people who say they are vegan remains at 3%. That has been consistent for the past three years.”

However, the true percentage figure could be much lower. Figures published by market analyst Kantar, based on food diary data, show the proportion of people leading a vegan lifestyle is just 0.8% and that figure has not changed, according to Ms Stannard.

But the number of “flexitarians”, those who have reduced the number of meat-based meals in their diets, has shown a small uplift.

This could be due to people reverting to their dietary regimes from before the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw a return to traditional meat meals, Ms Stannard suggested. Because of this, a lot of plant-based ranges are doing well and there is a lot of innovation tempting people to try these alternatives.

In contrast, alternatives to dairy are not seeing any uptick in volume growth.

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