Pandemic-Era Interest in Health Has Boosted the Plant-Based Foods Industry: New Developments

• Beyond Meat introduced an improved version of its flagship product – Beyond Burger 3.0 – that  is due to appear in grocery stores in May and in restaurants in June. The company has continued to improve the taste and texture of its products with the goal of converting more meat-lovers, particularly once they reach price parity with beef (a goal they hope to achieve by 2024).
• Beyond Meat is developing a chicken alternative product that will possibly launch this summer. The company had previously offered a plant-based chicken product through KFC but was not available through retail.
• Epicurious announced that it stopped publishing new beef recipes in 2019 as part of an effort to encourage more sustainable cooking and that it now includes a wider variety of vegetarian, vegan, or simply plant-forward recipes.

The February-March edition of The Freedonia Group National Online Consumer Survey highlighted pandemic-era interest in eating better as 37% of respondents said they were eating more healthy because of the pandemic. This trend, coupled with more consumers looking to eat in a more healthy way, willing to try new foods, and curious about or actively looking to live more sustainably, will continue to propel the plant-based food industry forward.

For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, particularly in the Packaging area, with titles such as Frozen Food Packaging, Vacuum Skin Packaging, and Meat, Poultry, & Seafood Packaging.

Further analysis in Food & Beverage research is also available from our sister publisher Packaged Facts, with titles such as Vegan, Vegetarian, & Flexitarian Consumers; Meat, Poultry & Seafood Alternatives: Outlook for Plant-Based & Cultured Cell-Based Consumer Products; Dairy & Egg Alternatives: Outlook for Plant-Based & Cell-Cultured Consumer Products; and Home Food Gardening: U.S. Market Trends & Opportunities. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.