Market News

Louisianna Waring, Insight and Commercial Policy Officer, looks back on the impact of 2020 on the vegan food and drinks industry

2020 was a year that most of us will not easily forget. Despite all of the turmoil, the last 12 months have given us many success stories within the vegan food and drinks industry.

The pre-pandemic months

In January 2020, Veganuary welcomed the year with a record breaking 400,000 sign-ups. In the same month, it was reported that the UK is the global leader for new vegan food launches, with nearly one in four (23%) new products launched in the UK throughout 2019 having a vegan claim (in 2018 this figure was 17%). The cumulative effect of these successes led to Mintel reporting vegan food sales had soared 40% in 2019 – a very impressive start to the year. Prior to national lockdown, in February, Quorn experienced unprecedented demand for their products, as a huge surge in popularity caused demand to outstrip supply.

UK enters lockdown

In April, we conducted research that found 20% of Brits reducing their meat consumption and 15% cutting down their consumption of dairy and eggs. Encouragingly, 43% cited health, environmental or animal rights reasons as their primary motivation, while 41% did so due to their usual products not being available on supermarket shelves. In the same month, we interviewed TheVeganKind – a leading vegan supermarket – who told us that the average order value was up 40% compared to the previous month. Later in the year, they upgraded to a new warehouse three times the size of the last, and employed 21 extra members of staff to manage the rising demand.

A very different British summer

As the weeks rolled by and we entered a summer like no other, Kantar found that in the 12 weeks prior to June, tofu sales had increased by 81.7%, vegan mince sales increased by 50.1%, vegan burger sales increased by 37% and vegan sausage sales increased by 21.3%. And it wasn’t just the meat alternatives that were having a moment – in July, Waitrose revealed that online searches for ‘oat milk’ were up 210% and sales of oat milk up 113%, compared to 2019.

At this point, you might be thinking that of course vegan food and drinks sales were up, as most food and drink sales were up this year. Luckily, our friends at Veganuary have us covered. At an online event, Head of Communications and Marketing Toni Vernelli revealed that whilst meat meals were up 24% in August compared to the previous year, plantbased meals were up 52% – meaning that consumption of vegan food was increasing at more than twice the rate of non-vegan food.

Second lockdown

As autumn approached, Asda made national headlines by announcing plans to become the first UK supermarket to launch an ambient vegan aisle. Soon after, Tesco went public with its ambitious goal to boost sales of meat alternatives by 300%. In the same month, it was revealed that Applewood vegan cheese is the second most searched for vegan product in the UK, accounting for 20% of Applewood’s UK sales. In October, as the nights got colder, Veganuary hit a milestone achievement of one million participants since the campaign launched. Soon after, Deliveroo revealed that vegan orders have more than doubled in the last year – increasing by 115%. Additionally, research from Eating Better

found that 16% of ready-meals in supermarkets are now plant-based, compared to just 3% in 2018.

To end the year, in December new research from Applewood found that 20% of respondents would be cooking a completely vegan Christmas dinner and a staggering 74% would be looking for vegan cheese to complete their festive spread.

Despite the turbulence of 2020, let this be a reminder that the vegan food and drinks industry is resilient. This year, 2021 brings its own challenges to the table. But we know that the strength of the industry – and our supportive community – will keep veganism in the public eye and as part of a kinder future.