It’s difficult to tell if the recent wave of anti-vegan sentiment has affected the plant-based meat market, but denigrating the image of vegans has certainly gone mainstream.
Alongside negative comments about people who don’t eat meat by figures like Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson, anti-vegan rhetoric has even slipped into political discourse: Suella Braverman recently referred to supporters of Just Stop Oil campaigners as “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”. It seems our protein choices have become a surprisingly loaded issue.
These days, consumers are faced with a dizzying array of choices when it comes to protein, particularly since US plant-based producer Beyond Meat started its quest to disrupt the market in 2012. Since then, its innovative take on the veggie burger, made from pea protein to mimic the taste and texture of meat, has helped the company become a runaway success.
But despite sustained growth for several years, sales of plant-based meat products are now stagnating. Even market leaders like Beyond Meat are hitting significant lows.
The environmental benefits of adopting a diet that is less reliant on meat have been well-established. As UK nature presenter David Attenborough has pointed out: “We must change our diet. The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters.”
So, working out why consumers are cooling towards this once-hot product is crucial, not only from a business point of view but…
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