Opportunities for producers in booming plant-based meat sector

A new report launched at this year’s IFFA – the international meat fair – reveals the opportunities meat producers can seize in the booming plant-based meat sector.

The report, called ‘The future of the meat industry: Opportunities in alternative protein’, is published by food awareness organisation ProVeg International, which organised talks on the subject at the IFFA event.

The sector offers huge opportunities for meat producers, with sales values of plant-based meat in Europe amounting to €1.4 billion in 2020 on top of a growth rate of 68 per cent over the past two years.

The global cultured meat market is also looking promising with the industry receiving $360 million in total venture capital investment in 2020, six times the amount raised in 2019 and 72 per cent more than between 2016-2020.

“There really is no better time than now for meat producers to consider entering the plant-based meat sector,” Stephanie Jaczniakowska-McGirr, International Head of Food and Retail at ProVeg, said.

“The opportunities are immense and we hope that our free report that we have launched this week makes that abundantly clear,” she added.

As well as addressing questions about how processed foods can be positioned as part of a whole-food diet, the report looks at cultured meat and fermented meat alternatives.

In the conclusion to the report, ProVeg makes several key recommendations, including that all meat producers enter the plant-based market and that they direct their marketing at flexitarians as they are the largest, and therefore, most important consumer group at present.