Plant-based meat was having a moment before the pandemic, nabbing celebrity investors, record-setting IPOs, Whopper fast-food deals and high-end chefs who transformed pea protein and soy into savory, expectation-defying deliciousness.
Then the pandemic hit, restaurants closed, and many Americans were stuck at home battling anxiety and sourdough starters. Industry experts wondered whether enthusiasm for this new food category would falter and sales flag would plant-based meat turn out to be a fad rather than a movement? It fleetingly looked grim: Last April, plant-based protein shipments to restaurants fell 27 percent, according to market research firm NPD Group.
However, it appears that those worries were ill-founded. Alt-meat has emerged stronger than ever, much of it because of one thing: price.
Supply-chain problems and virus outbreaks in meat-processing plants have led to meat price increases that far outstrip those of groceries overall. Meanwhile, its getting easier and less expensive for companies to create a lot more of these plant-based proteins, bringing down the costs of the soy and pea-protein meats, dairy and eggs much faster than anticipated.
A pound of ground Beyond Meat is down to about $5.70. Beef prices, up 3.3 percent from a year ago, mean ground beef can cost between $4.10 and $6, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Impossible Foods has cut its restaurant prices twice in the past year, and in February, the companycut retail prices by 20 percent, bringing the price of two quarter-pound patties down to $5.49.
We plan to keep lowering prices as we achieve new production records and economies of scale and ultimately undercut the price of ground beef from cows, said Impossible Foods President Dennis Woodside in an email.
Even plant-based egg prices are coming down. Matt Riley, senior vice president of global partnerships at Eat Just, said the company took its mung-bean-based Just Egg from $7.99 to $5.99 in March 2020 and then down to $3.99 in January of this year about the price of many pasture-raised eggs at the farmers market.
These price reductions, against a backdrop of surging grocery prices overall, have pushed the skeptics and the curious over the edge: Theyre trying it. Beyond Meats grocery store revenue was up 108 percent in 2020, with more people reportedly becoming repeat customers.And while Impossible Foods, a private company, doesnt release sales numbers, in 2020 it expanded retail sales from fewer than 150 grocery stores to 17,000 stores, as well as via direct-to-consumer sales.
And the playing field got more crowded.In a year when groceries were just about the only thing consumers were buying, an eye-popping 112 new plant-based meat, egg and dairy brands hit grocery aisles in 2020, reflecting some $3.1 billion worth of new investments in alternative proteins, according to the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes alternatives to traditional meat, dairy and eggs.
Also, even asmany restaurants were reduced to takeout, delivery and limited indoor dining, plant-based proteins on restaurant menus jumped by 118 percent in 2020, according to Datassential, a food market research company.