The range of meat and dairy substitutes is expanding every year. The enthusiasm from the industry is increasing, more and more large international meat and dairy processors are focusing on the vegetable market. What developments are underway?
The French dairy group Danone recently dropped its share of Yakult to focus more on its own plant-based products under the Alpro and Silk brands. In mid-October, cheese maker Bel Group will also announce that it will launch a plant-based variant of brands such as Boursin and La Vache qui Rit. The meat industry is not left behind: Vion has been focusing on the production of plant-based meat substitutes since last year.
Keep up with market demand
Processors thus meet the demand from the market. More and more consumers are replacing meat for plant-based foods. Research shows that more than two thirds of the Dutch are flexitarian. They consciously or unconsciously eat no meat for one or more days and replace it with fish, vegetables or other vegetable products. The Nutrition Center already reported in 2015 that more than half of the Dutch follow a flexitarian diet, which means that the number of people who put the steak aside is rising. The proportion of vegetarians is also considerably smaller, at about 2 to 4,5%.
The dairy and meat processing industry is responding to this trend, with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France being among the largest sales countries in Europe. And that does not harm the industry. The Dutch turnover of dairy substitutes amounted to €2019 million in 150, for meat substitutes it is €140 million.
Research by ING shows that the market for vegetable products in our country is large. 70% of the Dutch have tried vegetarian meat substitutes. Half of the Dutch people use a plant-based alternative to milk. People in their twenties in particular use plant-based alternatives with milk substitute as their favorite.
Threat to the sector?
Does this mean that flexitarians and vegetarians pose a threat to the meat processing industry and livestock farmers? To date, this has not been the case, according to recent studies by WUR and ING. Dutch meat consumption rose by half a kilo per capita last year. This is expected to be caused by tourists and eating meat outside the home, for example in restaurants.
Despite the growing number of flexitarians and vegans, the market share of plant-based products remains relatively small. Last year, this market value in the EU and the United Kingdom increased to €4,4 billion. That sounds like a lot, but it doesn't come close to the market value of dairy and meat, which at €300 billion is more than 68 times larger than the market share of vegetable substitutes.