Focus On plant-based meat alternatives: 21 August

Focus On: plant-based meat alternatives by Julia Glotz (julia@juliaglotz.com)

Download the synopsis here

Publishing: 21 August 2021

Advertising deadline: 12 August

Submissions deadline: 5 August

The story

In January, PepsiCo announced the formation of a new joint venture with Beyond Meat to give it access to the booming plant-based meat alternatives market. Plant-based sausage, burger and falafel brand Gosh is reportedly close to sealing a £50m deal with a new owner amidst surging sales of its products. So which brands are next on the menu in the great plant-based M&A feast? Who’s buying? And why are so many plant-based start-ups choosing to crowd-fund to fuel their rapid expansions rather than opting for traditional, private investors or selling up to the competition?

Key themes

M&A: This feature will weigh up the likelihood of further mergers & acquisitions in the plant-based meat alternatives market, exploring which corporations may be looking to buy and who may be at the stage where they’re ready to sell. What impact has the pandemic had on M&A activity in this market and as the world returns to some semblance of normal, will we see rise in activity? Crowdfunding: Last year, out of 58 food and drink raises on the Seedrs platform, 42 had a plant-based focus. More than £15m in total has been raised for vegan businesses on Crowdcube. So why are so many plant-based brands going down this route?

The big players: Birds Eye has Green Cuisine, Unilever has The Vegetarian Butcher, Kerry Foods has Richmond’s new plant-based offerings as well as the newly renamed Taste & Glory brand so how much of a splash have these launches by food’s biggest players made on the market? What impact has the commercial scale of these operators had on pricing? And how are the start-ups competing?

Market dynamics: This feature will use Kantar analysis to explore the key trends in this market over the past year – from the dynamics between brands and own label and shifts in retail share to the fastest growing (and falling) product categories – and weigh up how the market is likely to evolve over the coming year.

How much of a threat does lab-grown meat pose to plant-based? Nestle is exploring lab-grown meat as a growing number of players say they’re gearing up to launch such products into the UK market. How soon will it be until lab-grown meat is on supermarket shelves? What regulatory steps need to be taken first? What benefits, if any, does it have over plant-based? How much of a threat is it?

4 x innovations: We will profile four new products or ranges that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before. We need launch date, rsp, and a hi-res picture of each.