Time Out: The alt-meat decline
Time Out featured Harris and Hayes expertise in their news article about the future of plant-based eating. The recent decline in plant-based sales has made headlines, and Time Out were interested to know what this means for the future of food, drink and hospitality.
Vegan food was on a seamingly unstoppable ascendance. It made up nearly a quarter of all UK food launches in 2019, and by 2020 the number of people eating vegan meals had increased by 46%. The swift rise of vegan meat brands like Impossible, Meatless Farms, and THIS all followed, with successive launches of boundary breaking alt-meat products. Mintel research shows that the fake meat market doubled in value from £289m in 2017 to £568m in 2021, but sales fell for the first time last year. This was echoed in hospitality and retail, as Lewis Hamilton’s vegan burger chain Neat Burger closed half its restaurants by the end of 2023, and Oatly withdrew its ice creams launched only a few years earlier.
In this context, we discussed how the rise of positive nutrition has impacted meat-free products in our interview with Time Out. Consumers are becoming disconnected from the idea of not meat, or not chicken; they want to know what they are eating, and have real food experiences.
UPF is now a mainstream conversation, and Google searches for ‘ultra processed food’ (UPF) have tripled in the last four years. We discussed how this has hampered the previously stratospheric growth of vegan meat, as health-conscious consumers are wary of long ingredient lists that come with alt-protein. Fake meat was presented as an answer to unsustainable meat-eating, but the category has now collided with its own stumbling blocks in the shape of UPF and high prices in a cost of living crisis.
The decline in alt-meat sales leaves space for innovative whole food products, which are a viable source of protein and a less processed meat alternative. Bold Bean Co might just look like beans in a jar, for example, but they have made this store cupboard staple sexy again. Tempeh brands like Better Nature are positioning themselves as more than a meat alternative, and UK-based heritage grains and pulses from Hodmedod are demonstrating their regenerative importance in the plant-based ecosystem too.
Our interview discussed the challenges and limitations of the industrialised food production system, and how all food producers (whether they produce meat or not) need to have sustainability at their heart.
Read the full article on Time Out here.
Harris and Hayes have been interviewed in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Grocer, the Guardian and other major publications. Get in touch if you’d like to enquire about commentary for an upcoming project or publication.
