The Market Landscape Of Plant-Based Meat In The U.S.
Plant-based meats are quickly becoming a common sight in restaurants and grocery stores across the United States. Researchers at Barclays — a British multinational investment bank and financial services company — believe that alternative meat can take over 10% of the global meat market over the next ten years, growing from the $14 billion industry it is today, to around $140 billion. In a recent report, they outline three areas where plant-based meats can contest the dominance of animal-based meats — environmental impact, health benefits, and impact on animal welfare.
Animal agriculture contributes significantly to climate change. The researchers here estimate that agriculture and animal farming are responsible for 9% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. They suspect that this will only get worse over the next 30 years as people in countries experiencing economic growth start to eat more meat. This could add 5% to the total global carbon footprint over the next 30 years.
In terms of solutions to this problem, the report notes that cows are especially damaging to the environment — all of the world’s cows contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions than all of the world’s cars. This is partly because cows produce methane, a greenhouse gas that’s significantly more potent than CO2. Swapping beef for an equal amount of pork or chicken could reduce the emissions of a meal by 88%. Plant-based meats are another solution. Their production conserves natural habitats and farmlands, and allows us to produce more food with fewer natural resources.
However, the researchers identify one problem with plant-based meats — palm oil. Palm oil is used in many processed food products, and increased demand for palm oil in recent years has led to a rise in illegal deforestation to build plantations. Lab-grown meats are yet another solution, but it will likely be a few years before the process is efficient enough. The amount of energy currently required to grow meat in a lab makes lab-grown meats less environmentally-friendly than raising cows.
In addition to reducing their environmental footprint, some people are choosing plant-based meats over animal-based meats for health reasons, the second cornerstone in the Barclays report. Although many plant-based meats have similar nutritional value to animal-based meats in terms of their calories, saturated fats, sodium, carbs, and even protein content, the area where they differ is cholesterol. Plant-based meats generally have zero milligrams of cholesterol per 100 grams of food, whereas animal-based meats are somewhere in the range of 30–70 milligrams. While consumers may not be aware of this fact specifically, they seem to understand that plant-based meats are healthier than animal-based meats. In a survey by the International Food Information Council, around 60% of people surveyed rated plant protein as “healthy,” while only about 40% rated animal protein as “healthy.”
Despite this, evidence suggests that consumers might not be in the market for more healthy foods. 60% of people surveyed were classified as overweight or obese, yet 80% reported their own health as good, very good, or excellent. This suggests that people consider themselves healthier than they are, and might be less likely to buy foods marketed based on health benefits. For plant-based meats to be successful, food companies will need to find ways to reach these consumers.
Finally, the report notes that plant-based meats can have a tremendous positive impact on animal welfare. While many animal-based meat companies use product packaging and advertising to suggest that their farmed animals are happy and healthy, this is not often the case. 95% of farm animals in the U.S. are raised in factory farms, not open pastures. Labels such as free-range, meant to comfort consumers, are often misleading. Free-range is only legally defined for chickens, and only means that the chickens have access to the outdoors every day for an indefinite period of time. It doesn’t mean that the chickens ever went outside. Chickens are by far the most abused species of farmed animals. In the U.S., ten times as many poultry birds (which includes turkeys, ducks, and geese) are slaughtered than any other type of animal. In the early 1900s, chicks took around 16 weeks to grow to two pounds. Through the process of selective breeding, chicks in 2019 took six weeks to grow to four pounds. This unnatural growth creates a wide range of health issues for chickens, including heart failure, difficulty breathing, and the inability to walk because their legs can’t support the weight of their large bodies.
There are currently no U.S. federal laws that regulate bird welfare, which allows abuse like this to continue. Meanwhile, the U.S. has federal laws regulating cow and pig welfare, but these regulations aren’t always properly enforced. Farms are required to stun animals before slaughter, but sometimes the animals are stunned incorrectly, leaving them conscious during slaughter. Despite laws regulating transportation conditions, the report notes that PETA estimates that one million pigs die in transport every year. Plant-based meats are clearly more humane, and have the potential to spare large amounts of suffering.
The researchers at Barclays believe that consumers need to be educated on the benefits of plant-based meats at a large scale for the movement to gain traction. They suggest that new documentaries might be necessary to make plant-based meats more mainstream, just like An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change. Catchy marketing campaigns like “Got Milk?,” but for plant-based products, would also help draw more people to those alternatives. They suggest that plant-based meat companies pay special attention to nutrition and taste, and price their products as competitively as possible to draw in new consumers. They suggest partnering with healthcare professionals to provide clear information about the benefits of plant-based meat, and partnering with restaurants and grocery stores to promote their products. As consumers, and advocates, we can educate ourselves on the benefits, purchase these products for ourselves, and share them with friends and family to give them as much exposure as possible.