SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: Meat Alternative Trends and Technology - May 2022 - 20

RETAIL TRENDS
American Meat Institute and FMI - The Food
Industry Association and sponsored by Sealed
Air, reported total store plant-based meat alternative
sales were $760 million in 2019, representing
growth of 11.8% over the prior year.
PLANT-BASED PLATEAU
But the engine driving growth in sales of plantbased
meat alternatives seems to have sputtered.
The 2022 Power of Meat study revealed that
plant-based meat alternatives remain mostly an
occasional choice with only 9% of respondents
eating them weekly, according to the study. Meat
eaters also prepare plant-based meat alternatives,
but less often.
" Refrigerated and frozen plant-based meat
alternative sales hit a plateau in the second quarter
of 2021 and started decreasing in the third
and fourth quarters, with fewer trips (-3.6%) and
lower spend per trip (-1.1%), " the study said citing
data from IRI.
Meat alternative
attitudes
The 2022 Power of Meat study finds consumers
are cautious about cultivated meat and
buying plant-based proteins occasionally
By Erica Shaffer
eshaffer@sosland.com
P
20
lant-based meat alternatives exploded
on the food scene with manufacturers
promising an eventual end to factory
farming and a better-for-you and savethe-planet
health halo. Major retailers
and foodservice operators added plantbased
burgers, sausages, crumbles and
other formats to satisfy consumer demand.
And consumers bought into the message of
plant-based meat alternatives - all of the flavor,
texture and nutritional benefits of animal proteins
without killing animals. The 2022 Power of
Meat study, presented by Anne-Marie Roerink,
principal of 210 Analytics, San Antonio, Texas,
during a recent webinar hosted by the North
Roerink noted that meat department sales
were close to $82 billion in 2021, compared with
roughly $500 million in sales of refrigerated meat
alternatives which were 4.4% higher than in 2020.
" We have gotten used to those double- and triple-digit
growth rates, " Roerink said. " What we saw
really throughout 2021 is a decline, a deceleration,
of those growth rates; and they actually started
to go negative as of the third quarter of 2021.
" We have to keep in mind they're going up
against very, very high growth rates from the
year before, " she added. " We had an additional
28% in items the year before, whereas '21 only
benefited from about a 5% increase in items, so it
was really the same assortment that had to drive
those increases. "
Meat and poultry
continue to dominate
consumers' plates
while enthusiasm for
plant-based alternatives
has cooled.
Plant-based meats also didn't have the inflation
that occurred on the conventional meat side,
Roerink said, and a lot greater share of plantbased
items were sold on promotion.
" Those are some of the reasons why we're
starting to see a deceleration, if not a decrease,
in growth rates year over year, " she concluded.
The deceleration of sales growth gave some
food companies pause to reconsider their strategies
for plant-based product sales. In February,
Maple Leaf Foods Inc., which owns the Field
Roast and Lightlife brands, said the company
began a category review to better understand
market trends. Based on that review, company
leadership decided that the Plant Protein Group
will be pivoting from investing for growth to profitable
growth with an objective that the business
2022 MEAT ALTERNATIVE TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY MEAT+POULTRY
sheilaf2002 - stock.adobe.com
SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: Meat Alternative Trends and Technology - May 2022

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