Meatless and Misunderstood
Exploring the plant-based meat critique and responding to widespread concerns by consumers
Image credit: Unsplash
The Rise and Fall of the Plant-Based Meat Market
If you were to compare the experience of seeking out plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) in the early 2000s to now, there would be a noticeable difference in the number and variety of options found in grocery stores, restaurants, and even fast-food chains. Following the early momentum of companies like Beyond Meat (which went public with one of the most successful IPOs of the 2010s) and Impossible Foods (which scored deals with Burger King and Starbucks in 2019), the plant-based meat industry has expanded significantly as more companies have hoped to seize a clear market opportunity. Globally, since 2015, approximately 4400 plant-based meat alternatives have been developed by more than 600 different companies.
Just take a trip down the frozen food or vegetarian aisles at the grocery store, and you can find plant-based meat products ranging from chicken breasts to burgers to meatballs to sausages to so much more. While “choice overload” suggests that choosing between a large variety of options can be detrimental to decision-making processes, an increase in the number of plant-based meat options on the market is a net positive for consumers because it provides them alternatives outside of more traditional options such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan. This is especially important for meat-eating consumers who are looking for products that try to replicate the taste, texture, and functionality of conventional animal products.
Despite this increased product accessibility, the plant-based meat industry has yet to maintain a consistent growth in sales. After rapid expansion from 2019 to 2021, sales moderated in 2022 and declined in 2023 and 2024. Over the last two years, dollar sales for plant-based meat in the U.S. decreased 18% from $1.43 billion to $1.17 billion, and unit sales decreased 28% from 270 million units to 195 million units. This begs the question – why has the plant-based meat market stalled after such a strong couple of years fueled by innovation and increased investment?
Consumer Concerns Over Price, Taste, and Processed Ingredients
According to a survey in 2021, about 82% of consumers believe that the most influential factor when purchasing a product is taste, followed by cost (66%), health (58%), convenience (52%), and lastly, environmental sustainability with 31%. Among these factors, market research makes it clear that taste, price, and concerns about the processed nature of plant-based meat products tend to have the biggest impacts on decision-making.
An unpalatable or surprising taste is a main barrier to the adoption of any alternative product, and right now, many plant-based meat products do not meet consumers’ expectations for taste. Other qualities, such as the color and texture of these products, impact a consumer’s decision to purchase them. Color has always been an important trait of meat products as it reflects the freshness and quality of meat. Many plant-based alternatives are often unappealing grey products and do not resemble the same bright red color of animal meat. While some progress has been made by utilizing red beet as a natural coloring agent, most products still tend to fall short when trying to mimic the color of uncooked and cooked meat. Additionally, the textural profile of plant-based meat products has been another barrier to adoption due to differences in the fiber structure of the product. Many of the earliest products struggled to mimic the functional aspects of animal meat and thus were overlooked by consumers.
Despite best efforts, plant-based meat products are also struggling to reach price parity with animal-based products, limiting the sector’s potential for growth. Plant-based meat is typically two to four times more expensive pound for pound compared to conventional meat, and average prices for these products are up 13 percent over the past two years (while average conventional meat prices are up only four percent). In 2024, pound for pound, the average price premium was 82 percent for plant-based meat. Combine premium pricing with inflation, and it’s no surprise that these products aren’t finding their way into consumers’ shopping carts.
Finally, plant-based meat products are proving to be unappealing to many consumers because of their categorization as processed or ultra-processed foods and are therefore being viewed as unhealthy. This has been exacerbated by the fact that some companies aren’t using recognizable ingredients at all, but rather a mix of starches, gums, flour, proteins, and flavours. In their effort to mimic real meat, these companies have left consumers perplexed and without appetite. With the way that health and wellness are currently trending, any sort of negative association with processed or ultra-processed foods is a hard sell.
Are These Concerns Really Justified?
Although these concerns by consumers are valid, it’s worth unpacking them further because they don’t necessarily capture the full story.
Taste
When it comes to taste, there’s no denying that companies are making strong efforts to innovate and improve their products by experimenting with different ingredients. In recent years, mycelium, fava beans, and lentils have begun to be incorporated as primary ingredients over more typical sources such as soy. An example of this is Beyond Meat, which recently changed the ingredients in its burger by switching out soy for yellow pea and brown rice protein. Companies like Meati have made a lot of progress in tackling the issue of texture by utilizing the mycelium of the fungi species Neurospora crassa as the foundational ingredient for their product, whose filamentous structure gives it the texture of animal meat.
Furthermore, in 2024, the world’s largest publicly available sensory analysis of plant-based meats was published and found that plant-based chicken nuggets performed comparably to conventional chicken nuggets on overall satisfaction and several sensory metrics, and that the top-rated plant-based brand even outperformed conventional nuggets on flavor. A majority of plant-based meat products still have room to win over consumers, but these examples show what’s possible with more R&D.
Health and Nutrition
Turning to health, it’s also worth examining how “processed” and “unhealthy” these products are. Since there’s no single, universally accepted definition of ultra-processed foods, we’re using the NOVA framework, which classifies UPFs as those:
Made with many ingredients and multiple processing steps that can’t be replicated in a home kitchen,
Often high in salt, sugar, and fat; low in fiber; and calorie dense, and
Generally convenient, quick to prepare, cheap, tasty, and often sold in plastic packaging
Unlike lentil patties or cauliflower nuggets, meat alternatives such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Meati, or La Vie cannot easily be reproduced at home, are convenient to cook with, and all come in plastic packaging. However, these products have a slightly different nutritional profile than regular processed meats.
These examples represent only a handful of the many plant- and animal-based meat products on the market, and ingredient lists can vary from country to country. Still, the overall takeaway is clear: plant-based meats generally match the nutritional profile of conventional meat (same protein content, gym bros!). They also tend to contain less saturated fat and more dietary fiber, which meat lacks, although they often have slightly higher sodium levels than their animal-based counterparts.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the health risks associated with meat consumption, especially red meat, and replacing it with plant-based alternatives can have important health benefits, such as improved cardiovascular risk factors and reduced LDL cholesterol levels (often referred to as “bad” cholesterol).
Ultimately, these products remain processed, so they’re probably not ideal for daily consumption–just as processed meat isn’t. But they have the potential to “help reduce widespread overconsumption of processed meat without requiring major behavioral changes”. In other words, they offer an easy way to introduce your meat-eating friends to healthier alternatives.
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The first step in making plant-based meat begins by turning plant flour (usually soy, pea, or wheat) into a high-protein powder (with ≥80% protein) using what’s called wet or dry fractionation. That protein powder is then mixed with a little water and plant fat (like coconut or canola oil) and pushed through an extruder–a machine that heats and squeezes it. Under heat and pressure, the proteins line up into long, meat-like fibers, and as the mix exits the extruder, it’s cooled to lock in that fibrous texture and dried into textured vegetable protein (TVP). Next, the TVP is rehydrated with hot water or broth and combined with extra oil, starch, and a binder (such as methylcellulose) to form a sticky dough. Flavorings (like yeast extracts or spices) and colorings (usually beet juice or plant-based heme) are added. The hydrated TVP is then cut or shredded to the size wanted, such as patties, nuggets, meatballs, or sausages. The shaped pieces are sometimes cooked to set their texture, and can undergo extra processes such as UV treatment to enhance shelf life. Eventually, products are packaged and sent out to your favorite grocery store!
Climate and Environment
On top of public health benefits, faux meat has important climate and environmental benefits. As our regular readers know, conventional meat production is a major contributor to climate change (we’ve done a deep dive of impacts of both meat and dairy products here). In short, meat products have a greater climate footprint than legumes, cereals, and mycelium– the base of many PBMAs. Just as different meats have different nutritional values, they also have different climate and environmental impacts, as shown by this graph:
Looking Ahead
While some concerns regarding PBMAs are not entirely justified, we agree that there is still room for improvement. As we’ve mentioned, plant-based meat is on average more expensive than conventional meat. This is not just due to differences in production costs but also because traditional meat has become very inexpensive. In many countries, the meat industry is heavily subsidized–from direct payments to crop insurance– as well as feed for cattle (mainly soy and corn), which indirectly drives down the cost of raising livestock and producing meat. Retail meat prices also don’t account for environmental and health externalities, but if they were, they would certainly be higher and actually reflect the “true cost” of meat.
One way to overcome this challenge could be to redirect subsidies toward plant-based producers, though there is some uncertainty over how impactful subsidy reform can be. That being said, if the cost of sourcing novel proteins like mycelium or fava beans were cheaper, then this would certainly help to drive down costs. In reality, though, it just boils down to scale and optimization. Developing operational efficiency takes years, and the animal agriculture industry has a multi-decade head start on this. As the quantity produced goes up, companies will be able to drive up operational efficiencies.
Regardless, progress continues to be made, and we remain optimistic about the future of the plant-based meat market. Whether you’re a dedicated vegan/vegetarian or simply looking to add more plant-based options to your meals, here are some products we’ve had and loved, and believe are worth giving a try:
