Who wouldn’t look forward to the festive feast at Christmas? Duck liver as appetizer. A nice meatball for the main course. And an airy chocolate mousse with Christmas biscuits for dessert. The entire menu is vegan! Even a deceptively real Christmas goose can be prepared entirely without meat or other animal products.
However, the plant-based meat market is in crisis. We see this when we look at the share prices of the best-known vegan product manufacturers. Industry leader Beyond Meat, the world’s largest producer of meat substitutes, has lost 81 percent on the stock market in the last twelve months. The largest oat milk producer Oatly and vegan supermarket chain Veganz from Germany also had to accept more than 80 percent minus in the stock market.
Investors have clearly lost their appetite, their appetite for meat substitutes drastically reduced. These industry leaders are still worth about a fifth of what they were a year ago. However, the market is growing in its niche: consumers continue to find a taste for meat substitutes at a low level.
to exaggerate
A Migros spokesperson said, “The market for meat substitutes in Switzerland is currently declining a bit.” However, after the strong growth during the pandemic and given the tense world situation, the improvement is not surprising.
“The hype about meat substitutes is over. “A phase of normalization begins,” Nestlé said. Despite this, the food manufacturer has launched voie gras – vegan foie gras – for the Christmas season.
“Sales of the limited Voie Gras are off to a good start and we are happy with the launch,” Coop said when asked Blick. Especially in western Switzerland, customers are happy about sustainable foie gras.
Shortly after launch, the product was 20 percent available for two or more people. But it was a campaign for all Garden Gourmet products – Nestlé’s vegetarian and vegan product brand – where the retailer wanted to increase sales.
A hamburger over 250,000 francs – without rolls and salad. This is the cost of the first burger patty to come out of the laboratory in 2013. The research has since reduced those costs by 80 times. However, there is still a long way to go to obtain a bulk product from the Petri dish.
Probably the most common meat substitutes are made from natural, protein-rich staple products like peas or soy. Puree is made from the relevant basic ingredient and chemical and natural additives and spices are added to try to produce a replica as similar as possible to the original product.
The second option is to grow the meat in a Petri dish in the laboratory. So-called in-vitro meat is produced from animal muscle stem cells and then propagated in the laboratory as cell and tissue cultures. This already works well when it comes to ground beef and chicken products. In 2020, California’s Eat Just company received approval in Singapore to sell chicken wings and breast fillets from the lab. The production of a steak is much more complicated. Muscle and fat cells need to touch each other and then mature together in an incubator – this is the only way to create the characteristic structure.
The third option is fermentation. The same mechanisms apply here as in the production of beer or yoghurt. Large quantities of protein with a meat-like texture are grown with the help of microorganisms. Dominique Schlund
A hamburger over 250,000 francs – without rolls and salad. This is the cost of the first burger patty to come out of the laboratory in 2013. The research has since reduced those costs by 80 times. However, there is still a long way to go to obtain a bulk product from the Petri dish.
Probably the most common meat substitutes are made from natural, protein-rich staple products like peas or soy. Puree is made from the relevant basic ingredient and chemical and natural additives and spices are added to try to produce a replica as similar as possible to the original product.
The second option is to grow the meat in a Petri dish in the laboratory. So-called in-vitro meat is produced from animal muscle stem cells and then propagated in the laboratory as cell and tissue cultures. This already works well when it comes to ground beef and chicken products. In 2020, California’s Eat Just company received approval in Singapore to sell chicken wings and breast fillets from the lab. The production of a steak is much more complicated. Muscle and fat cells need to touch each other and then mature together in an incubator – this is the only way to create the characteristic structure.
The third option is fermentation. The same mechanisms apply here as in the production of beer or yoghurt. Large quantities of protein with a meat-like texture are grown with the help of microorganisms. Dominique Schlund
So far, there are no signs of a downward trend in meat substitutes at Coop. “Demand is high,” the spokesperson said. In 2021, Coop customers purchased more plant-based substitutes than ever before. The level of sales of these products is not available to the public.
Vegan products are in demand at discounters
Discounters Aldi, Lidl and Denner are in increasing demand. “Meat substitutes are growing in popularity among our customers,” says Aldi. The discounter has 60 percent more meat substitutes in its product range than at the beginning of the year. And Denner is expanding, too.
It has launched “Switzerland’s first plant-based roast,” according to Swiss company Planted. It consists of pea, sunflower and oat proteins. The beginning makes no difference to a drop in demand. “We have more than doubled our production in 2022 and we plan to do the same for next year,” said spokesperson Vicky Kummer.
Retailers are expanding
Now the question arises whether vegan products such as meat substitutes and oat milk are now well received by investors. Or whether Swiss retailers exaggerate the hyperbolic advertising.
One thing is for sure: Despite the end of the boom, retailers continue to expand their product lines. “We are seeing an increasing openness to plant-based products,” Migros says. In January, Veganuary should once again give retailers a good boost in advertising for vegan substitute products.
Milena Bold
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
