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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Plant Based Food Association

Plant-Based Food Market Grew 11.4 Percent Last Year, Now Worth $5 Billion

Plant-based foods are hotter than a sizzling heme burger. According to data commissioned from the Plant Based Food Association (PBFA) and the Good Food Institute (GFI) released yesterday, the market for plant-based foods is now worth $5 billion in the U.S. (h/t Supermarket News)

The data, which was commissioned from wellness-focused data company SPINS, found that sales of plant-based foods grew 11.4 percent in 2019, and have grown 29 percent over the past two years.

Categories leading this sales growth include plant-based milks, which grew 5 percent last year and now make up 14 percent of the entire milk category; and plant-based meat, which grew 18 percent in 2019, accounts for two percent of retail packaged meat sales, and is worth more than $939 million on its own.

We should, of course, take these numbers with a grain of salt. The Plant Based Food Association obviously has a plant-based horse in the race when it comes to the success of the category. But even with that caveat, this type of growth in the plant-based market is entirely believable.

One way we know this is that all the big traditional players are getting into the plant-based game. Cargill and JBS are rolling out their own plant-based burgers, and chicken king Tyson launched its own Raised and Rooted line of plant-based chicken.

Elsewhere, traditional milk sales have plummeted over the past decade, resulting in the bankruptcies of dairy giants like Dean Foods and Borden. To help stem the tide, we’ve seen dairy producers like Live Real Farms launch a blend of traditional and plant-based milks.

The boom in plant-based foods is also coming at a time when plant-based foods are just… better tasting, and also more widely available. Both Beyond and Impossible continue to improve their “meat” recipes and gain distribution in new restaurants and venues. For its part, Impossible just cut the price of its product for distributors as part of its quest to usurp meat entirely.

And it’s not just relegated to meat. Last month JUST launched a plant-based pre-cooked omelette for use in things like breakfast sandwiches. Oat milk, with its creamy texture and sweet flavor, is a hit with the latte set. And there are a bunch of startups like Perfect Day, which is creating damn good ice cream by genetically modifying microflora.

In short, we’re in the salad days for the plant-based biz, and with better products in the pipeline, chances are good it will be worth a lot more than $5 billion in the coming years.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to clarify data sources.

Campbell Soups Up Its Healthy Side By Joining the Plant Based Foods Association

The Campbell Soup Company just announced its intent to join the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), a trade group representing the $3.1 billion plant-based foods sector.

The announcement follows Campbell’s decision earlier this year to leave the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a move mainly driven by conflicts over GMO labeling on products.

It’s one of several moves the soup giant has taken over the last few years in terms of answering consumer demand for healthier, more sustainable food products. In 2012, Campbell acquired Bolthouse Farms, and it has also moved into selling cold-pressed juices.

Meanwhile, the PBFA’s chief aim is to “ensure a fair and competitive marketplace for businesses selling plant-based foods.” Its member list is currently 88 companies strong and includes brands like Tofurky, New Wave Foods, and 22 Days Nutrition.

Campbell is the first major food company to join PBFA. It’s an obvious win for the plant-based foods sector, which grew 8.1 percent over the last year. The inclusion of a major food brand on its roster could also give the organization extra strength when it comes to opposing things like The Dairy Pride Act, which wants to ban non-dairy products like soymilk from using terms like “milk” and “yoghurt” on their labels.

That said, a lot of Campbell products wouldn’t qualify as “healthy” by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, under its Bolthouse brand, the company now manufactures plant-based milk. But Campbell also makes Goldfish crackers and packs extremely large amounts of sodium into its soups. It’s rather doubtful that joining the PBFA will change any of those types of products anytime soon. Rather, Campbell appears to be stressing the idea of consumer choice. As Campbell Fresh president Ed Carolan recently stated, “Working together with the Plant Based Foods Association, we can advance our shared goal of bringing more plant-based foods to consumers.”

So is the move to PBFA true commitment from Campbell to cleaner eating and more sustainable food production? Or is it just a case of a major food manufacturer dabbling in a particularly hot trend?

It’s probably both. In an ideal world, any major food manufacturer would make such moves out of pure principle and concern over consumer welfare. In reality, Campbell is a business, and businesses need to move products. More and more consumers are seeking healthier options for meals and snacks than ever before, and I can think of worse bandwagons to jump on in order to keep Wall Street happy.

Ultimately, it’s the products themselves that will tell us the most. Campbell will need more than just plant-based milk to convince us of its commitment to clean eating. I could see the company acquiring more brands like Bolthouse in the future, or working to reinvent some concepts around packaged snacks like Goldfish crackers.

If nothing else, the move will further fuel conversation about the role major food brands play in consumers’ lives and how much responsibility they should assume in terms of making healthy foods widely available. In this area, at least, Campbell’s has taken way bigger steps than most.

Image courtesy of flickr.