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Charting the Future of Plant-Based Foods Growth In The Future
Almost all experts predict sustained global growth in the plantbased industry, with a long-range forecast that the market size could be as much as $162 billion (Source: Bloomberg).
Today, the plant-based dairy sector is by far the largest, and you can see how the expected trend shows plant-based meat catching up proportionately during this decade. I would say “maybe” and say it with some caution. It depends a lot on food service and restaurant menu integration, which we will talk about later. Critics will point to 2022 as a plateau year for plantbased meat and cheese, with frozen and refrigerated meat alternatives combined $ sales -3.8% and unit volumes -11% November 2022 vs. November 2021 in the United States (Source: IRI). A lot of this challenge had to do with inflation and sheer price – the average cost per pound of plant-based meat is about twice that of animal-based meat (Source: GFI).
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In the United States overall the plant-based market is over $7.4 billion, with the milk sector alone being about double the size of the meat sector.
Clearly there is tremendous potential for the plant-based food industry, and the sales year-on-year are outpacing total food sales, growing 6.2% overall and three year dollar share growth over 79%.
Key Plant-Based Foods Sales Metrics and Purchase Dynamics 2021
Plant-Based Foods Outpaced Total Food Sales
Plant-Based Foods Outpaced Total Food Sales
How does the industry ensure that this growth and the expectations for the future continue to become true? How do you attract more consumers, who do you target, and how do you get them to actually consume more?
The answer is in getting people to experiment more, continue to penetrate families and households who are already inclined, and importantly, target the flexitarian and attract future flexitarians into the mix.
of all shoppers buy plant-based meat and/or dairy with most doing it on a regular basis.
42% of all households buy plant-based milk alone.
98% of people who buy plant-based meat are also buying animal-based meat.
