Chicken eggs… without chicken, you know? Based on vegetable or mushroom proteins, alternatives to eggs of animal origin continue to develop and flood the shelves of American supermarkets. And they are gaining popularity: EIn the United States, dollar sales have increased by 1,000% over the past three years, while their conventional counterpart has fallen 4% last year. This is our number of the day.
Soybeans and other plant-based alternatives to meat products have long been the focus of the “vegetarian” section of food stores. And their success is well established, with imitation meat sales up 74% over the past three years. But if most customers could look curiously at these products, there are now many and many who are willing to buy them. Vegan alternatives to eggs are the perfect illustration of this.
The American Plant Based Food Association, which mainly promotes these new foods, has just released its report on the vegan product market in the United States, based on figures from the expert firm data Spins. According to this document, dollar sales of plant-based egg alternatives grew 42% last year.
The boom in vegan alternatives
Overall, it seems that consumers are incorporating more vegan products into their diets, starting with alternatives to dairy products. As for plant-based “milk”, sales today are $2.6 billion. In fact, vegetable drinks represent 16% of the dollar turnover of the entire “milk” section. Almond specialties are preferred by customers over oat milk. But that’s not all, American households are also buying more plant-based alternatives to yogurt (+9%) and cheese (+7%). Gourmets even melt for ice cream without conventional milk (+32% over the last two years).
The success of these new food shelves reflects the success of plant-based alternatives, whose market hit a new all-time high in 2021, worth $7.4 billion. Retail sales grew three times faster than other food products in general. It should be noted that today 62% of US households, or 79 million, are consumers of alternatives to animal protein-based products.
(ETX Daily Up)