I mean according to the best data available the number of Vegans in the UK has increased by 6-7x since 2014….I would hardly call that a bubble bursting.
An over-saturated market and the cost of living altering people’s buying maybe.
There’s clearly not a market out there yet for 4-5 different brands releasing ranges of £4.50 vegan ice creams. Or 6 different ranges of sausages.
*Edit: Also for the record anyone who consumes ham, sausages, bacon, pepperoni, chorizo, meaty ready meals etc is in no place to criticise or dismiss plant based meats for being ‘unhealthy and processed’*
I’d say more its price gouging. It’s ridiculously expensive to buy Vegan stuff now. I’m not vegan but bought vegan stuff as healthier alternatives but I can’t justify it when it costs so much more.
[deleted]
Too many brands with too many product lines. Once the sector’s growth rate slowed there was always going to be a rapid ‘rationalisation’ of the market.
Many pay the price for it. How in the world can bean curd be priced the same as a chicken Kiev just because they are made to look alike? When using meat imitations in my cooking becomes too expensive, I’ll stop.
This is the bungliest hogswollop (yes I am reading my daughter the BFG now). These “vegan brands” make untasty copies of unvegan food, that’s why nobody is buying them. Go outside the most culinarily conservative country in the world and you’ll find lots of different kinds of vegan and vegetarian foods that are actually appealing regardless of your politics.
I sometimes go months without eating meat, but other than bog stock blocks of tofu, I never buy ready made vegan products.
These vegan light fake meat products are fatty, often taste weird and are always over priced.
Veganism and vegetarianism isn’t on the decline, just the fad of vegan look a like meat replacement products is.
Sales of everything have decreased because no one has money anymore!
It costs the same as the meat products so I just buy meat products.
I think it’s not so much less vegans or people moving away from it. I buy vegan stuff weekly, what I don’t buy is the imitation crap. Like bacon, cold meats, almost chicken but not chicken etc.
The burgers as an example are pretty bad, beyond burger gets a lot of praise but they absolutely stink, we tried them once I could barely cook them becasue of the smell.
I will take a nice spicy bean burger, lentil burger or just a normal veg burger over the “we are trying to be meat” options any day fo the week.
Tonight we had a vegan dinner as my neice is staying. Cauli, broccoli, green beans, sweetcorn, new potatoes with peppers stuffed with a mushroom and walnuts mix.
Hopefully we will see less of the ‘plant based’ marketing crap on every product, even when it’s just obviously a plant – though usually with extra processing. Just eat veg and beans and stuff!
I’ve been vegan for 20+ years and it’s nice that there’s loads of choices in supermarkets now but most of it does seem too expensive and/or superfluous.
I feel like it’s a pretty bad, uncreative industry. There’s some good stuff but the plant based isle in my local Tesco is 10+ different kinds of veggie burger, 10+ different kinds of sausage, a load of ready meals.. and if you don’t stick to Tescos own brands or established names it’s 50/50 on even being edible (I know non vegans will say it’s all inedible but you have no idea how good vegan food can be and noooo idea how terrible it can be either 🤯).
I’m not vegan, but there did seem to be a huge oversaturation of these products, there’s something like 10 different brands of meatless sausage in my local supermarket.
Even if Veganism continues to grow, it’s still a small minority of the population. It was surely inevitable that there would be a bit of a correction and retailers and producers would focus on a smaller range of successful products.
I’m vegan and I rarely buy this stuff anymore. It was great to transition but now I prefer lentils, chickpeas, beans, mushrooms, aubergine, etc. I buy it once in a while when I make burgers at home, for example.
I’d say it’s just hit a plateau, based on what I’ve seen in London. A lot of processed vegan food is also very ££ and vegans can just substitute legumes in place of fake foods.
I’m not a vegan, but I went to Vegan Tofu on commercial Street the other day and it was incredibly good. Also pretty expensive, but then what isn’t now
With food inflation at 70% and vegan options already not being cheap is that any surprise?
My issue with it as a vegetarian is that the new plant based alternatives to meat are all utter shit. Just soy bean pulp, additives, oil and god knows what else. Id rather eat well prepared vegetables than processed shit in the shape of a burger.
Most vegan ‘faux foods’ are overly processed and have poor nutrition profiles. Maybe people are putting a little bit more effort into looking at the food they’re purchasing and putting together some decent vegan dishes…
Never got the crazy to be honest. There were so many tasty options before, such as falafel or chick pea, but now it’s all vegan bacon and vegan steak that tastes like cardboard!
Ingredient, export and transport prices all increasing as are fuel costs.
As people have to tightened their belts and slash grocery budgets to focus on paying for essentials like accomodation costs and childcare.
[removed]
If it wasn’t salty paste and the texture was the same as real meat at an affordable price is be vegan
Think of it another way, if you’re buying meat like steaks, sausages, mince or fillets, do you actually care about the brands? This stuff is supposed to be an ingredient, the protein component of a more complex dish. Why did we have all of these branded, near-identical versions of the same stuff anyway? Why do I need to choose between X-flavoured burgers or Y-flavoured burgers, why can’t I just get “burgers” and put the seasoning on myself?
The bubble isn’t the vegan-ness, it’s the brand dominance, and lack of good value that will only come from economies of scale when we just have generic packets of plant “mince”, “burgers” & “steaks” that all basically look the same.
I’m not vegan – and actually enjoy some stuff. I tried the new Vegan KitKat bar yesterday and it was largely indistinguishable from the normal one…….
However it is double the price? Same with ‘impossible’ burgers. I really like them, but not at £5 for two.
Vegan food is priced far too expensively for it to be a regular purchase.
I work in a warehouse that dispatched bread. We can get the same gluten free bread at our “shop” for less than 20% the cost of what IV seen gluten free / vegan stuff for in Asda/ Tesco.
So yeah…that’s kinda a problem.
Thankfully that trend of imitation food seems to be over for a lot of restaurants too, at least in my city. Just cook vegetables etc. well. You don’t need to pretend it’s something else and don’t need to charge ridiculous amounts for it. A fucking potato is vegan, a carrot is vegan – and what could they cost? Ten pounds each at most?
It’s possible people are just buying fresh veggies rather than expensive, highly-processed ready meals
When you can’t afford to feed your kids / yourself and animals are cheaper than the food that the animals eat, you eat cheap animals.
No, it’s the fact there’s so many vegan products now, the brands can’t compete with the supermarket own brand. In fact, plant based product sales are increasing every year.
If sales in lentils, rice, or beans goes up, does that mean ‘vegan’ sales increase? No. If you charge £3 for a plant-based product which contains 1 serving, expect people to reduce how much they purchase that product. If you want a high protein diet as a vegan – in this economy – you’re not going to spend on mock meats when you can by lentils or beans for half the price.
We do click & collect from Morrisons. The past 2 or 3 weeks, they’ve had “buy 4 for £10” on Beyond Burgers & Beyond Mince, This Isn’t Beef Mince, This Isn’t Streaky Bacon, and I think a few other similar items.
We’ve been stocking up the freezer because we figure they won’t be re-stocking. I love the option of meat substitutes that emulate the taste and texture of meat without the guilt of an animal dying for my cheeseburger or bacon sandwich.
Sales of Rowntrees Fruit Pastels decline, has vegan bubble burst.
Sales of most expensive product in the supermarket decline, has supermarket bubble burst.
Also in the Guardian..
It’s because there’s about 100 brands all doing cheddar replacement cheese and a few doing alternative to cream cheese, but nobody is doing vegan versions that mimic brie and wensleydale. Also vegan ready meals are nearly £5 with not much variety, bit hard to choose them in a cost of living crisis when jacket potato with beans comes to a fraction of the cost.
I’m a vegan and I can still buy vegetables and pulses… I don’t need fake meat. Sometimes a false burger is a fun quick meal though.
As a guy who has adopted a largely plant based diet for the last 5 years, it’s probably fair to say that the situation is much more nuanced than the article implies.
Firstly, the so-called vegan products to which they refer in the article are not the core of the average vegan diets. My diet is pretty much based around the same ‘vegan’ food that the rest of the population eat. Fruit, veg, pasta’s, rice. The article implies reference to the heavily processed meat & dairy replacements. These are used much more in the transition to the new diet, much less in a mature plant-based diet. As such, I’m not particularly surprised that demand is not increasing at the levels expected.
Secondly, manufacturers have piled into the market in anticipation of growth & at premium prices to boot! It is now a very crowded market and not immune to the cost of living crisis. The best will survive, and the others will fall by the wayside. This process isn’t peculiar to the vegan market. it’s a natural consolidation process of any over-supplied market moving from fast-growth into a mature market.
Thirdly, there are other factors at play here. The vegan market is sensitive to other “eco” issues. carbon foot print, for example. Oatly is a case in point which for all their clever marketing is absolutely not eco-friendly. With claims of investors tarred with de-forestation, questionable business ethics & unnecessary transportation of products. These businesses are not best placed to weather the storm of consolidation.
So, no surprise that there’s some pressures in the market, but it would be premature to suggest a bursting bubble.
36 comments
I mean according to the best data available the number of Vegans in the UK has increased by 6-7x since 2014….I would hardly call that a bubble bursting.
An over-saturated market and the cost of living altering people’s buying maybe.
There’s clearly not a market out there yet for 4-5 different brands releasing ranges of £4.50 vegan ice creams. Or 6 different ranges of sausages.
*Edit: Also for the record anyone who consumes ham, sausages, bacon, pepperoni, chorizo, meaty ready meals etc is in no place to criticise or dismiss plant based meats for being ‘unhealthy and processed’*
I’d say more its price gouging. It’s ridiculously expensive to buy Vegan stuff now. I’m not vegan but bought vegan stuff as healthier alternatives but I can’t justify it when it costs so much more.
[deleted]
Too many brands with too many product lines. Once the sector’s growth rate slowed there was always going to be a rapid ‘rationalisation’ of the market.
Many pay the price for it. How in the world can bean curd be priced the same as a chicken Kiev just because they are made to look alike? When using meat imitations in my cooking becomes too expensive, I’ll stop.
This is the bungliest hogswollop (yes I am reading my daughter the BFG now). These “vegan brands” make untasty copies of unvegan food, that’s why nobody is buying them. Go outside the most culinarily conservative country in the world and you’ll find lots of different kinds of vegan and vegetarian foods that are actually appealing regardless of your politics.
I sometimes go months without eating meat, but other than bog stock blocks of tofu, I never buy ready made vegan products.
These vegan light fake meat products are fatty, often taste weird and are always over priced.
Veganism and vegetarianism isn’t on the decline, just the fad of vegan look a like meat replacement products is.
Sales of everything have decreased because no one has money anymore!
It costs the same as the meat products so I just buy meat products.
I think it’s not so much less vegans or people moving away from it. I buy vegan stuff weekly, what I don’t buy is the imitation crap. Like bacon, cold meats, almost chicken but not chicken etc.
The burgers as an example are pretty bad, beyond burger gets a lot of praise but they absolutely stink, we tried them once I could barely cook them becasue of the smell.
I will take a nice spicy bean burger, lentil burger or just a normal veg burger over the “we are trying to be meat” options any day fo the week.
Tonight we had a vegan dinner as my neice is staying. Cauli, broccoli, green beans, sweetcorn, new potatoes with peppers stuffed with a mushroom and walnuts mix.
Hopefully we will see less of the ‘plant based’ marketing crap on every product, even when it’s just obviously a plant – though usually with extra processing. Just eat veg and beans and stuff!
I’ve been vegan for 20+ years and it’s nice that there’s loads of choices in supermarkets now but most of it does seem too expensive and/or superfluous.
I feel like it’s a pretty bad, uncreative industry. There’s some good stuff but the plant based isle in my local Tesco is 10+ different kinds of veggie burger, 10+ different kinds of sausage, a load of ready meals.. and if you don’t stick to Tescos own brands or established names it’s 50/50 on even being edible (I know non vegans will say it’s all inedible but you have no idea how good vegan food can be and noooo idea how terrible it can be either 🤯).
I’m not vegan, but there did seem to be a huge oversaturation of these products, there’s something like 10 different brands of meatless sausage in my local supermarket.
Even if Veganism continues to grow, it’s still a small minority of the population. It was surely inevitable that there would be a bit of a correction and retailers and producers would focus on a smaller range of successful products.
I’m vegan and I rarely buy this stuff anymore. It was great to transition but now I prefer lentils, chickpeas, beans, mushrooms, aubergine, etc. I buy it once in a while when I make burgers at home, for example.
I’d say it’s just hit a plateau, based on what I’ve seen in London. A lot of processed vegan food is also very ££ and vegans can just substitute legumes in place of fake foods.
I’m not a vegan, but I went to Vegan Tofu on commercial Street the other day and it was incredibly good. Also pretty expensive, but then what isn’t now
With food inflation at 70% and vegan options already not being cheap is that any surprise?
My issue with it as a vegetarian is that the new plant based alternatives to meat are all utter shit. Just soy bean pulp, additives, oil and god knows what else. Id rather eat well prepared vegetables than processed shit in the shape of a burger.
Most vegan ‘faux foods’ are overly processed and have poor nutrition profiles. Maybe people are putting a little bit more effort into looking at the food they’re purchasing and putting together some decent vegan dishes…
Never got the crazy to be honest. There were so many tasty options before, such as falafel or chick pea, but now it’s all vegan bacon and vegan steak that tastes like cardboard!
Ingredient, export and transport prices all increasing as are fuel costs.
As people have to tightened their belts and slash grocery budgets to focus on paying for essentials like accomodation costs and childcare.
[removed]
If it wasn’t salty paste and the texture was the same as real meat at an affordable price is be vegan
Think of it another way, if you’re buying meat like steaks, sausages, mince or fillets, do you actually care about the brands? This stuff is supposed to be an ingredient, the protein component of a more complex dish. Why did we have all of these branded, near-identical versions of the same stuff anyway? Why do I need to choose between X-flavoured burgers or Y-flavoured burgers, why can’t I just get “burgers” and put the seasoning on myself?
The bubble isn’t the vegan-ness, it’s the brand dominance, and lack of good value that will only come from economies of scale when we just have generic packets of plant “mince”, “burgers” & “steaks” that all basically look the same.
I’m not vegan – and actually enjoy some stuff. I tried the new Vegan KitKat bar yesterday and it was largely indistinguishable from the normal one…….
However it is double the price? Same with ‘impossible’ burgers. I really like them, but not at £5 for two.
Vegan food is priced far too expensively for it to be a regular purchase.
I work in a warehouse that dispatched bread. We can get the same gluten free bread at our “shop” for less than 20% the cost of what IV seen gluten free / vegan stuff for in Asda/ Tesco.
So yeah…that’s kinda a problem.
Thankfully that trend of imitation food seems to be over for a lot of restaurants too, at least in my city. Just cook vegetables etc. well. You don’t need to pretend it’s something else and don’t need to charge ridiculous amounts for it. A fucking potato is vegan, a carrot is vegan – and what could they cost? Ten pounds each at most?
It’s possible people are just buying fresh veggies rather than expensive, highly-processed ready meals
When you can’t afford to feed your kids / yourself and animals are cheaper than the food that the animals eat, you eat cheap animals.
No, it’s the fact there’s so many vegan products now, the brands can’t compete with the supermarket own brand. In fact, plant based product sales are increasing every year.
If sales in lentils, rice, or beans goes up, does that mean ‘vegan’ sales increase? No. If you charge £3 for a plant-based product which contains 1 serving, expect people to reduce how much they purchase that product. If you want a high protein diet as a vegan – in this economy – you’re not going to spend on mock meats when you can by lentils or beans for half the price.
We do click & collect from Morrisons. The past 2 or 3 weeks, they’ve had “buy 4 for £10” on Beyond Burgers & Beyond Mince, This Isn’t Beef Mince, This Isn’t Streaky Bacon, and I think a few other similar items.
We’ve been stocking up the freezer because we figure they won’t be re-stocking. I love the option of meat substitutes that emulate the taste and texture of meat without the guilt of an animal dying for my cheeseburger or bacon sandwich.
Sales of Rowntrees Fruit Pastels decline, has vegan bubble burst.
Sales of most expensive product in the supermarket decline, has supermarket bubble burst.
Also in the Guardian..
It’s because there’s about 100 brands all doing cheddar replacement cheese and a few doing alternative to cream cheese, but nobody is doing vegan versions that mimic brie and wensleydale. Also vegan ready meals are nearly £5 with not much variety, bit hard to choose them in a cost of living crisis when jacket potato with beans comes to a fraction of the cost.
I’m a vegan and I can still buy vegetables and pulses… I don’t need fake meat. Sometimes a false burger is a fun quick meal though.
As a guy who has adopted a largely plant based diet for the last 5 years, it’s probably fair to say that the situation is much more nuanced than the article implies.
Firstly, the so-called vegan products to which they refer in the article are not the core of the average vegan diets. My diet is pretty much based around the same ‘vegan’ food that the rest of the population eat. Fruit, veg, pasta’s, rice. The article implies reference to the heavily processed meat & dairy replacements. These are used much more in the transition to the new diet, much less in a mature plant-based diet. As such, I’m not particularly surprised that demand is not increasing at the levels expected.
Secondly, manufacturers have piled into the market in anticipation of growth & at premium prices to boot! It is now a very crowded market and not immune to the cost of living crisis. The best will survive, and the others will fall by the wayside. This process isn’t peculiar to the vegan market. it’s a natural consolidation process of any over-supplied market moving from fast-growth into a mature market.
Thirdly, there are other factors at play here. The vegan market is sensitive to other “eco” issues. carbon foot print, for example. Oatly is a case in point which for all their clever marketing is absolutely not eco-friendly. With claims of investors tarred with de-forestation, questionable business ethics & unnecessary transportation of products. These businesses are not best placed to weather the storm of consolidation.
So, no surprise that there’s some pressures in the market, but it would be premature to suggest a bursting bubble.