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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

MorningStar

Good Food Institute: Plant-Based Food Consumers Spend 61% More in Food Retail

We’ve known for a while now that the current spikes and surges in demand for plant-based protein are in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on our food system. Now there are some new numbers that back those claims up and give insights into just how big plant-based products have gotten in the food retail sector, thanks to the Good Food Institute (GFI). 

GFI’s new report, “Plant-Based Strategies for Retail: An overview of leading plant-based assortment, merchandising, and marketing tactics at top U.S. retailers,” lays out some of the growth statistics of the plant-based meat sector, and examines the forces driving such a rapid adoption in the retail space. 

For context, the report notes that U.S. retail sales of plant-based food were worth $5 billion in 2019. While we don’t yet have the full sales numbers for 2020, GFI notes in its report that “plant-based sales are growing 14 times faster than total food sales” and that consumers who buy plant-based food products tend to spend more: 61 percent of plant-based food shoppers are considered “valuable,” and spend 61 percent more than the average shopper. 

All of those numbers are pre-pandemic, which means this time next year, figures will likely be even higher. It’s an understatement to say the pandemic has had a major impact on plant-based meats. According to GFI’s report, nearly one quarter of consumers surveyed report eating more plant-based meals because of COVID-19, with Millennials and Gen Z being the largest age group in this percentage. Both groups (41 percent for Gen Z and 37 percent for Millennials) reported they “will be less likely to buy [traditional] meat” because of COVID-19 fears, compared to 25 percent for all age groups. The report cites health concerns (physical and mental), an intent to buy more health-related items, and general fears around the spread of COVID-19 as plausible reasons for this uptick.

Meat alternatives, in particular, saw positive increases. GFI’s report outlines some figures from some of the major plant-based meat companies: 

  • Beyond’s retail sales increased 194.4 percent over the second quarter of 2020; the company currently has products in roughly 25,000 retail stores across the U.S.
  • Impossible saw a 500 percent increase in grocery stores selling the Impossible Burger during the pandemic months, and the company’s products are available in 9,200 stores nationwide.
  • Morning Star farms saw a 66 percent increase in March sales.
  • Gardein sales increased by 65 percent from March 13 to April 19, 2020.
  • Tofurky sales increased 40 percent from February through April of 2020. 

It’s likely the plant-based foods sector would have seen these high numbers even without the pandemic — only over a much longer timeframe. For example, Impossible would probably have reached that 500 percent increase in grocery retailers eventually, but it likely would not have happened in a matter of a few short months had there been no pandemic.

Exactly how long it would have taken sans pandemic we’ll never know, but regardless, sales of plant-based foods aren’t going to subside once COVID-19 does. As GFI’s report notes, this demand for plant-based foods “is a consumer shift, not a fad.”

That in turn means we’ll see more food retailers (and restaurants) selling these products, more alt-protein companies setting up direct-to-consumer e-commerce stores like those of Beyond and Impossible, more food tech accelerators dedicated to alt-protein, and, of course, far more investment in the coming months.

Pizza Hut Partners With Zume and MorningStar to Put a Plant-based Pizza in a Round Box

Pizza Hut is following the footsteps of dozens of other major restaurant chains and joining the movement for plant-based meat. The Plano, TX-based company announced today that it has partnered with MorningStar Farms’ Incogmeato label to top one of its pies with plant-based sausage.

Dubbed the Garden Specialty Pizza, said pie will be available starting October 23 for $10 per pizza for a limited time at the 3602 E. Thomas Road Pizza Hut location in Phoenix, AZ, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. “Limited supply” in this context means until supplies last, which, given the current craze for plant-based meat products among consumers, could be mere hours.

For both companies, releasing a pizza topped with plant-based meat is a way to ride the coattails of the alt-meat craze. The partnership allows Pizza Hut to compete with the likes of Little Caesars, who tested a plant-based sausage pizza with Impossible earlier this year. For Kellogg-owned MorningStar, promoting its new plant-based brand via a major restaurant chain could help the company’s ongoing efforts to reinvent itself as an innovative alt-meat company on par with Beyond Meat and Impossible, rather than a decades-old peddler of first-generation meat alternatives.

A pie topped with plant-based meat isn’t the only pizza innovation that particular Phoenix Pizza Hut location will see. The Garden Specialty Pizza will be served up in a round box The Hut has developed with pizza-tech pioneer Zume, which recently acquired a company to manufacture its own line of more sustainable packaging.

For Pizza Hut, Zume designed a box that uses less packaging than its traditional square counterpart, takes up less space in a customer’s fridge, and, most importantly, keep the pizza hotter in transit. It’s also industrially compostable. Pizza Hut says once the limited run in Phoenix is over, it will look at ways to distribute the box more widely in future.

All proceeds from both initiatives will be donated to Arizona Forward, an organization that brings businesses and civic leaders together to develop sustainability goals for the state.