The chair of Beyond Meat has said the company is set to expand its production operations into both Europe and China, as consumer trends in food continue to move towards eating less meat.
Speaking at the NRF Big Show in New York yesterday, chair of Beyond Meat Seth Goldman said he believed sales of plant-based protein could come to represent 13% of total supermarket meat sales in the next decade and, as a result, the business was looking to expand production overseas.
“With the brand evolution and with the right products, we could see plant-based meat come to represent 13% of sales from the meat case,” he said. “It’s exciting. We’re thinking about how to scale it.
“We’re launching production in Europe and we want to see production grow in China as well. So, there are global opportunities for growth there as well.”
Goldman said increased scale would help lower the cost of Beyond Meat products, which he said sold “at a relatively high cost”.
Retail sales of plant-based items increased 11% in 2019 in the US and the Plant-Based Food Association had valued the total market worth at $4.5bn a year – with sales of plant-based meats accounting for almost $1bn last year.
Analysing data from supermarket chain Kroger, which stocks Beyond Meat products in the USA, Goldman said 93% of customers with a plant-based meat product in their shopping basket also purchased meat-based protein.
“This highlights the crossover and the fact that we’re not just catering to vegans,” he said of a growing trend towards flexitarianism among consumers.
‘Renaissance in rural America’
Beyond Meat products are currently made using pea protein and Goldman outlined his hopes that the growth of the plant-based food industry could lead to a “renaissance in rural America”.
“What technology did in the US for our economy – it really helped out urban areas, but it left our rural areas behind. What we hope at Beyond Meat is that we can create a renaissance in rural America by creating a market for value-added crops.
“Peas are not a commodity right now. We want to create a market for value-added crops in this country.”
According to data from Mintel, the market for plant-based products is expected to exceed £1bn by 2023.
Sales for producers such as Quorn have rocketed by 35% in the last three years and supermarkets have sought to capitalise – with the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op all launching own-brand, plant-based lines.
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