Losses have widened at Gosh Foods as a continued shopper exodus from plant-based foods led to a decline in sales at the brand accelerating.
The vegan manufacturer reported a 7% fall in sales to £17.7m in the year ended 31 December 2023, with most of the decline occurring in European markets, its latest accounts at Companies House showed. Revenues also slipped by 1% the prior year.
Pre-tax losses stretched from £1.3m to £3m in 2023 as owner Sonae, which paid £64m for the brand in 2021, continued to invest in the business. The group noted that margins were now under less pressure as inflation eased from historic highs and tightness in the labour market slackened, Gosh said.
2023 was a punishing year for all plant-based food brands as falling volumes led Meatless Farm, Love Seitan, and Plant & Bean to collapse into administration, while Beyond Meat axed much of its staff in a bid to cut costs.
Gosh said in the accounts that ‘meat mimics’ were under the most pressure as their “proposition is being questioned and there is a large amount of range duplication and a lack of differentiation”.
Gosh’s struggles were most pronounced in Europe, where it lost two-thirds of its revenue from £1.6m in 2022 to just £434k in 2023.
In the UK and Ireland, the biggest fall was in the discounter channel, which it expected to bounce back, while grocery and foodservice both registered double-digit growth, with Gosh experiencing a 5 percentage point gain to market share in grocery thanks to a successful summer marketing campaign..
Is Enough enough?
Food tech business Enough is hoping to transform the fortunes of the meat-free category by using its patented technology to produce affordable plant-based products for the mass market. Last year, it secured €40m of funding to scale up its production capacity.
Founded in 2015, the company’s products have still not hit the shelves and losses are now ballooning. In 2023, pre-tax losses almost doubled to £12.2m, according to its latest accounts.
Like all plant-based companies, it will be hoping the plant-based market quickly rebounds. The category’s volumes fell 4.2% in 2023, according to The Grocer’s Top Products survey.
Caroline Hughes, Gosh’s marketing director, said 2024 is a “crucial year for the category’s reset and a key period for our business to turn around”.
While the ‘meat mimics’ segment is still driving the category’s decline, whole foods and natural products are bucking the trend, highlighting an appetite for healthier plant-based foods, she added.
“We believe the future is bright and Gosh is well positioned to satisfy the needs of a more discerning plant-based and flexitarian shopper in 2025, who has turned away from meat mimics but is still looking for healthier and tasty plant-based meal solutions.”
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