Plant-based meat sales are flat – here’s why

You may have seen media coverage about sales of plant-based meat going flat in developed markets. Some have suggested the segment might be “losing its sizzle in the US.”

At Better Bite Ventures, we’ve been analyzing data and looking beyond the headlines at consumer attitudes and possible reasons for the sector’s decline.

We invest across many alternative protein technologies and categories, including cultivated (cell-based) and precision fermentation.

But plant-based meat is an important chunk of the market and deserves deeper analysis.

The trends we cover here are so far most visible outside the Asia Pacific. However, we know from experience that we can learn a lot from looking into more mature markets to see what might be coming our way.

Globally flat sales

Retail sales are flat in key markets across the world, most notably in the biggest market, the US. However, Germany and emerging Asian markets are notable exceptions, though the latter obviously start from a much lower base. Tellingly, Asia’s most developed market, Singapore, is also seeing plant-based meat sales flatline like in most developed markets.

The US retail market has the most accessible and most recent figures: This Financial Times report shows that plant-based meat sales began stagnating in early 2021 after solid growth throughout 2020.

FoodNavigator reports that dollar sales of all frozen and refrigerated plant-based meat were down 1.1% in September 2022 from a year ago. To put this drop in context, the same source shows a 4.1% growth in sales of refrigerated animal meat and a 7.1% rise in sales of frozen animal meat.

No matter how we slice it, at least for now, the market share of plant-based meat is not growing in the US retail market beyond the current 1%-2% (or about US$1.4 billion in value).

Moving across the pond, how is Europe looking?

In the UK, retail data shows the sector’s growth lasted for much longer there, but in the last few months, it has stagnated as in the US.

However, the situation is different in Germany, another top market for plant-based meat.

According to our sources, plant-based meat sales in the first half of 2022 rose 10%-15% year on year, as per data from market research firm IRI.

Brighter picture in food service

Hypothesis 1: Pandemic boost and ‘normalizing’

Hypothesis 2: Inflation and price sensitivity

Hypothesis 3: Taste and texture

Hypothesis 4: Health and nutrition

Hypothesis 5: Adoption models

Our working theory