Beyond Burger - © Beyond Meat

Plant-based Protein Sales Skyrocket

Just a couple of years ago, plant-based protein products were curiosities and popular opinion was split on whether they would ever become popular options for vegans and vegetarians, much less enter the mainstream Western Diet. Seems all doubt has been erased with the emergence of the latest sales figures…

Beyond Meat Burgers - © Beyond MeatThe distinctive Beyond Meat package: You’ll have no trouble
telling it from real meat in the Butcher’s case.

Latest figures show that U.S. sales of plant-based protein products – meat substitutes – topped (US)$670 million dollars over the past 12 months. That’s a remarkable 24% increase over the previous 12 months and a clear indication that products like Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger are here to stay. It’s definitely a great time for new products like Good Catch Foods’ new vegetable protein seafood substitutes to come out.

Michele Simon, Executive Director of the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), said: “The plant-based foods industry has gone from being a relatively niche market to fully mainstream. Plant-based meat and dairy alternatives are not just for vegetarians or vegans anymore; now even mainstream consumers are enjoying these delicious and innovative options in the market today. The new data confirms what we are hearing and seeing every day from our members: sales are up, investment is increasing, and new jobs are being created in the plant-based foods industry.”

The global market for plant-based Mat alternatives is currently estimated at (US)$4.63 billion a year with estimates it will grow to (US)$6.30 billion by 2023.

What goes into them?

Some of these brands you’ll have heard of, others maybe not depending on what’s available where you live…

Number one in a recent survey based on sales was the aforementioned Beyond Meat Burger. It’s currently available at more than 10,000 outlets across the U.S. and has been added to the main menu – with great advertising and promo fanfare – at A&W restaurants in Canada. taking a scientific approach to designing a vegetable protein burger, the Beyond Meat people studied real Beef hamburger under an MRI scanner. And they found that all the components of classic Hamburger could be sourced from the vegetable kingdom. Their recipe is a secret. How does it taste? A Toronto Star food critic says: “Just right.”

Number 2 was the equally-well-known Impossible Burger that débuted at about the same time as the Beyond Meat competitor but takes a different tack in perfecting its imitation of the texture of Meat. The Impossible Burger recipe includes soy leghemoglobin – ‘heme’ for short – which helps replicate the classic, Meaty texture of hamburger.

Number three is the less-well-known B12 Burger, from Moving Mountains in the UK. It’s being hyped by its makers as the UK’s answer to the Beyond Meat product and is made along the same lines, from Mushrooms, Pea and Potato Protein, and Coconut oil.

Coming in at number four, but gaining fast on the leaders, is the No-Bull Burger, which hails from Iceland but is targeting, at least for starters, the UK’s 22-million strong flexitarians as well as that country’s vegetarians and vegans. Some claim it already has a cult following in its début market. Its simple recipe features Soy, Beetroot, and Paprika.

And at number 5, we have Naturli’ Foods’ Burger products – available in both loose grind and patties, which distinguishes it from competing products. And lets you make dishes other than Burgers from it, like Lasagne and Scramble for Tacos and other Tex-Mex menu items. It’s distinctive composition includes Porcini Mushrooms, Almonds and Tomatoes, with Beetroot juice to replicate ‘bloody’ juices.

No standard approach…

So… There’s no ‘standard’ approach to using vegetable ingredients to mimic Meat, the stunning range of recipes across the top five competitors in the emerging class of products shows a lot of creativity and opens up a whole new world for those who would prefer not to eat Meat.

And let’s not forget that other big impact of this new technology: With the world’s growing inability to feed itself – a situation which is expected to come to a head sometime in the middle of this century – we need to consider using more plant protein in our daily diets to ensure there will be enough to go around. It’s already been proven that farmers can produce many times more plant protein from a given amount of water and land than they can animal protein.

~ Maggie J.