The plant-based meat market is in a crisis in 2025. Find out why in this analysis.
Plant-based meat was a major trend in 2022. During my visit to SIAL 2022, the world’s leading food trade show, I was amazed by the number of companies investing in this niche. The trend seemed unstoppable, and even the giants of the food industry were getting involved in a market estimated to be worth 12 billion euros a year. But since 2024, the situation has deteriorated. This innovation failed for the No. 1 reason I mentioned in this analysis.
Contact us for your research on the food sector
The figures gave plant-based meat producers hope
- 41% of European consumers feel guilty about eating meat because of animal suffering
- Global meat consumption will double by 2050
- 38% of European consumers claim to reduce meat consumption (survey 2021). They, therefore, identify themselves as flexitarians.
- Only 6% of Europeans identify themselves as vegetarians
- 7% of Europeans no longer eat meat but still eat fish
- 5% of Europeans eat vegan
- 25% of the 400,000 products exhibited at SIAL are without animal proteins
Signs of a market turnaround
The plant-based meat market is in turmoil, and I would not be surprised if this were its twilight. Unilever boss Hein Schumacher was fired in February 2025. Nestlé’s boss was fired in August 2024. It is hard not to make the connection since Unilever and Nestlé had acquired 2 brands specializing in “fake meat”: The Vegetarian Butcher for Unilever and Garden Gourmet for Nestlé. The idea was to follow in the footsteps of industry leaders Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. But things did not turn out as planned.
- Nestlé sales were down
- Impossible Foods’ valuation fell sharply due to controversies surrounding certain ingredients.
Sector leader Beyond meat scaled back its activities and announced that it was laying off 6% of its workforce. The company’s financial results are far from stellar:
- 160m loss in 2023
- 37.8m loss in 2024
Consumers place their health and purchasing power above reducing meat consumption.
Why are consumers shunning plant-based meat?
Meat substitutes are ultra-processed products. Industrial processes visually and tastefully imitate them. What is more, some ingredients are questionable. Consumers do not buy them. They place their “health” above the need to reduce their meat consumption. Impossible Foods, for example, uses soy leghemoglobin, “obtained by fermentation of genetically modified yeast,” to give the taste of meat.
As well as ingredients, there’s also communication. And on that front, it is one legal battle that follows another. A new nail has just been hammered into the coffin of Beyond Meat, which no longer has the right to use the term “meat” in its communications. The ruling was handed down in Paris on February 27, 2025.
And finally, there is the price. Ultra-processing has a definite financial impact. Meat substitutes are sometimes more expensive than their meat counterparts. Why would the average consumer buy an ultra-processed substitute that is more expensive than the original?
The plant-based meat market, which analysts predict will be worth 12 billion euros by 2025, will weigh in at just a few tens of millions. Eldorado has turned into a financial abyss.
In 2022, plant-based meat was still necessary.
For me, one of the most powerful images of SIAL 2022 was the confrontation between 2 worlds, represented by the photo below. On one side, Heura is one of the leaders in plant-based products. On the other side of the aisle, Auvernou, a sausage producer. Black and yellow. Modernity on one side, classicism on the other. Marketing visions that clashed head-on.
Contrasts abounded at every level. In the products, of course, but also in the marketing. The meat industry’s marketing was traditional, unable to break out of its decade-old codes. The plant-based companies, on the other hand, were more often than not uninhibited and energetic in their marketing. With hindsight, we now know that marketing is not everything.
Plant-based meat: start-ups storm the market
The plant-based trend was well represented by start-ups and pure players at SIAL 2022. Several dozen relatively young companies had entered the niche. The rationale behind their creation is simple:
- meat consumption is set to double by 2050
- available agricultural land is insufficient to support such growth
La Vie, for example, is a French start-up founded in 2019 by Vincent Boulichet and Nicolas Schweitzer. Their flagship product, vegetable lard, was launched in October 2021. The idea behind this product is to offer a substitute that meets consumers’ taste expectations. The good thing about meat is the fat. However, it is absent from vegetable meats. After 3 years of R&D, La Vie filed a patent for a fat based on sunflower oil (unsaturated) and water. Vegetable lard is smoked over beechwood like normal lard but contains 5 times less fat. The result is amazing. It tastes like lard, looks and feels like lard, but is much lighter in taste.
Kokiriki was also very present at SIAL 2022. Its plant-based Cowboy Burger was on display right from the entrance to the show. Like La Vie, this start-up adopts highly recognizable marketing codes:
- Strong brand identity based on a specific color
- Fun brand image with offbeat visuals
Heura, the Spanish start-up, follows the same trends. I tasted its spicy burger, and once again, it is amazing. The plant-based meat has the texture of normal meat; with the spices, it is a gourmet product. I was less enthusiastic about the veggie chicken. The texture is less convincing, and this is where the ultra-processed nature of the product stands out. Let us not forget that plant-based meat remains an ultra-processed product.
From a branding point of view, Huera adopts a marketing recipe like its competitors: intense colors, modern design, and a resolutely young team at the helm.
Food industry players multiply their partnerships
We saw at SIAL 2022 that even traditional food manufacturers were getting involved. De Angelis, for example, had partnered with Beyond Meat to offer ravioli made with plant-based meat. This product was unavailable outside Italy.
Another example of diversification into plant-based meat comes from Bulgaria. Bartlink International is a very traditional meat trading company. However, it followed consumer trends very closely. Alongside meat products such as its “meat bars,” it had also invested in meat substitutes. The company’s marketing manager explained to me that this investment seemed necessary because the European Union had given us the impetus to reduce the company’s CO2 footprint.
Vegetable meat was not just the preserve of start-ups. It was also recognized as an integral part of the marketing strategy of major groups.
