In the US, the rise of Beyond Meat or Nuggs has been very exciting. However, when you visit the average Australian supermarket or look at take-up within HelloFresh/Marley Spoon... plant based meats are still quite low
In Australia, there are a few different companies making in-roads into plant based meats; v2 Foods (backed by Jack Cowin) and Fable (backed by AirTree). These companies are not a surprise because in Australia, we consume c.100kg of meat per person per year which is c.4x the average in a most South East Asian economies. This means the small economy of Australia offers better bang-for-buck than other bigger countries.
In fact, International market research firm Euromonitor projects that Australia will be the third-fastest growing vegan market in the world. This means that the packaged vegan food market is worth $215 million by 2020 and $6 billion by 2030.
Despite this, we are still a long way from having meat alternatives feature front and centre in our isles
The main reasons this is the case are:
Culturally it takes some time for non-vegans to eat plant based meats
The price-point of plant based meats is still quite high
Most of the start-ups in this space cannot do all meat varieties (e.g. chicken, pork, lamb, beef etc)
Not all of these alternatives have great health benefits (e.g. they have high sodium levels)
The start-up which can cross this bridge the first in the Australian market will get the majority of the share. It must be acknowledged that it has taken decades for meat-based businesses (Primo, Steggles, Inghams etc) to create efficiencies in their production and the meat-less market is still very new.
In the US, this price-point issue is largely getting resolved. In Feb'21, Impossible Foods suggested to retailers that prices drop by 20%; down to the level of meat goods.
These kind of events, suggest that cost viability will be possible for plant-based meats but it will likely require deep-pockets and great production planning
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