After the electric car, another of the great myths of the green turning point in Europe and beyond is losing consistency and credibility. The fake meat industry is in trouble. While the synthetic one is still sidereal far from being able to demonstrate that the cells multiplied in the laboratory are safe and do not produce unwanted effects on human health, the vegetable substitutes for steaks, burgers and chicken nuggets are proceeding like shrimp on world markets. Instead of gaining positions, as seemed written in the prophecies of the proponents of a future without farms, livestock and slaughterhouses, they are losing them.
The numbers of the collapse are contained in the 2023 report published by the Good Food Institute, the most important tink tank financed by the producers of substitutes. A sort of bible of the sector. Well, the latest data shows what very closely resembles a historic slowdown for the tarot tableware industry. In the United States, the world’s largest market for “veg” substitutes, sales of vegetable meat and fish have decreased by 13% in the last two years. But that’s not all: calculating the increase in prices recorded at retail, the drop in volume doubles. In practice, between 2021 and 2023, sales of plant-based meat, fish and milk fell by 26%. In twenty-four months, one out of four packages has no longer entered the shopping cart of US consumers. Stuff that if it happened for any traditional production sector would be enough to trigger all the possible and imaginable alarms.
And it is no coincidence that Beyond Meat, one of the pioneers of veggie burgers, announced a 19% cut in its workforce at the end of last year, after recording a declining turnover also in the last quarter.
PRICES TOO HIGH
There are several factors working against plant-based meat. The main one is probably the price. In the United States, veggie burgers and steaks (so to speak) cost on average 77% more than the same products of animal origin. An abysmal difference. And the price range widened with the inflationary surge recorded in 2022 and the first months of 2023. For the cheapest preparations, such as fake veg chicken, the difference grows to as much as 150%. A gap deemed excessive by a growing number of consumers who do not hesitate to return to real chicken.
And another gap between real meat and substitutes still remains unresolved: the organoleptic one. The same researchers from the Good Food Institute who wrote the research clearly write that according to a large number of consumers “the products do not yet meet their expectations in terms of flavour, texture and convenience”.
Among other things, softening the slowdown in the volumes of “plant based” foods are the numbers of plant-based milk, which is widespread not only in the United States. While plant-based meat lost 26% of sales in volume in the two-year period 2021-2023, “veg” milk and dairy products limited the decline to 10%. Probably the effect of a longer tradition, if you consider that for example almond milk – the only surrogate that can use the name “milk” – has always been present on the market. Well before the “veg” trend took hold.
ULTRA-PROCESSED
The recent slowdown in “plant based” foods is also influenced by the growing aversion to ultra-processed foods, those which have undergone repeated industrial transformations and are wrongly considered unhealthy. It is no coincidence that Beyond Meat has reduced the salt and fat content in the new burgers, which also come with a simplified list of ingredients.
And Beyond Meat itself, together with Impossible Foods, another pioneer company in the sector, are focusing their latest advertising campaigns on products defined as more “tasty and succulent”. But the efforts so far have proved in vain, given that the drops in volume sales on the counters of large-scale retail trade continue.
As far as Italy is concerned, we are still waiting for the implementing decrees of the law approved last December, which prohibited meat sounding. They were expected in the official gazette in February. There was no sign of it. According to industry buzz, the stop would be linked to the intervention of one of the agri-food associations. But there are also those who speak of a “self-extinguishing law” due to lack of notification to the European Commission. A similar measure approved by the French government was rejected by the Transalpine Council of State. According to the Conseil d’Etat, the law which was supposed to come into force on May 1st would have caused “serious damage to French plant-based companies” which would be at a disadvantage compared to competitors from other EU countries where there is no ban on meat sounding.
