Breaking taboo for hardcore vegans: Coop sells plant-based meat in the butcher shop

Chicken skewers, entrecôte, cervelat: the barbecue season is currently in full swing. Meat consumption is increasing these days, including among those who have actually decided to reduce it. No wonder: the butchers mainly sell animal products. And hardly any soy sausages and pea steaks.

Coop now wants to change that. The retailer currently offers vegan grill products on open sale at the butcher’s counter in selected supermarkets. There are vegan steaks and fillets with different marinades and fillet and steak skewers with vegetables. According to the house magazine, there are up to nine vegan products depending on the industry.

According to Coop spokeswoman Melanie Grüter, this is a preliminary test, especially in the Zurich and Basel region. Then the further procedure is determined. The biggest challenge for the employees in the butcher shop: that the strict separation between the vegan alternatives and the meat and fish products is guaranteed at all times, says Grüter. What that means in everyday life, a butcher in a test branch explains in the “Coopzeitung”. The vegan products are always prepared first thing in the morning. “Of course we have separate cutting boards, bowls and knives for that,” says the employee.

The media agency says it is still too early for a conclusion. But according to the employee, there were some conversations with customers in the first few weeks. “The interest in trying new things is there.”

With the test, Coop reinforced the wish of Pascal Bieri, co-founder and co-head of the Swiss start-up Planted with his meat alternatives made from pea proteins. In total, Planted’s products are now available at 6,500 sales locations in Europe.

In a recent interview with CH Media, Bieri said, “I worked in the US for a while and saw supermarkets there that put vegan burger patties alongside the meat patties so customers always have the vegan alternative to choose from.” He would also think that such a protein board in Switzerland would be a good idea, that should in any case be checked.

However, Bieri is also aware that it is a tightrope walk: “Some people almost feel sick when they see a piece of meat.” But the positive effect for more sustainable consumption would be enormous with this measure, because today many people would still walk past the vegan shelves, says Bieri. “Our main target group is meat eaters.”

From the point of view of companies like Planted, the potential is still great. In terms of volume, the sellers of vegan meat alternatives in Germany have a market share of only 2.8 percent in the meat market. According to spokeswoman Grüter, Coop has more than 2,000 vegetarian or vegan products in its range, of which 1,800 are vegan. Of these, over 100 are vegan meat and fish alternatives. Migros does not give figures.

However, Migros is ahead of competitor Coop in that it has already tested the sale of vegan meat alternatives. According to Migros spokeswoman Carmen Hefti, this step was taken two years ago in the Basel cooperative – but without success. She explains this by saying that the self-service shelves are popular with customers and that’s why they didn’t look for the vegan products at the service counter. “That’s why the project was not continued.”

As a challenge, Hefti also indicates that some customers may struggle to find the meat alternative in addition to the open meat. Such a mixed offering could particularly entice flexitarians, who normally buy their meat at the counter, to try the vegan options. In addition, products sold separately offer the opportunity to pass on information that usually cannot be printed on the packaging due to space constraints, such as recipe ideas.

Sarah Moser, manager of the Swiss Vegan Society, welcomes the efforts to find vegan alternatives in the meat store. Because: “Especially when barbecuing in the summer, the personal CO2 footprint can be significantly minimized by using plant-based alternatives – apart from the animal suffering that this prevents.” From experience, many vegetarians or vegans don’t or only reluctantly go near meat products, says Moser. “But they will still support such developments if they can get more people excited about plant-based alternatives.”

From the point of view of promoting a more sustainable and animal-friendly diet, it would also make sense, according to Moser, to place the packaged range on the same shelf. The two areas are now completely separated there.

In Austria, one of the largest food retailers already consistently uses mixed protein shelves. Verena Wiederkehr, manager of plant-based products at supermarket chain Billa, recently said at an industry event in Zurich that plant-based products are being placed alongside their animal counterparts. This initially caused outrage in the vegan community. But with the herbal products you want to appeal to a broader social class. (aargauerzeitung.ch)