Were the Impossible and Beyond burgers a fad, or is plant-based meat here to stay? Alternative meat products have gotten a lot better. They’re not nearly good enough. A few years ago, plant-based meat seemed poised to take over the center of the American plate. Sales growth for cow–free burger patties and meatless sausages soared 18 percent in 2019, and 45 percent in 2020. Investors poured billions of dollars into hundreds of startups’ coffers to help them create the next best imitation. Some of the world’s largest meat companies, like Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods, hitched their star to the meat-free wagon too, launching their own products. In 2019, Beyond Meat had the most successful stock market debut of any company since the 2008 financial crisis, and later that year, the Impossible Whopper landed on every Burger King menu in the country. But the hype set up unrealistic expectations for just how big a bite animal-free meat could take out of the real meat market. The meteoric growth couldn’t last forever. Recently published sales data found that meatless meat sales in grocery stores declined by 1 percent in 2022, after zero growth in 2021, putting a yearslong ascent into question. The sales analysis, which was commissioned by the Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute — the two leading organizations that advocate for plant-based meat and dairy — also found that unit sales of plant-based meat, or the number of products sold (as opposed to total sales in dollars), declined by 8 percent. Conventional meat had a better year, with sales up 8 percent and a 4 percent dip in units sold, according to another analysis. While the sector is falling short of investor expectations, I think it’s far too soon to write its obituary. Beyond and Impossible burgers only became widely accessible a few years ago. Taking a longer view, it’s notable that the industry managed to nearly double US sales from mid-2017 to 2020 (it grew even faster globally).

The reality of where the industry is headed is probably somewhere between imminent demise and world takeover: Jennifer Bartashus, a food industry analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, predicts plant-based meat sales will grow by a modest 1-2 percent in the second half of 2023. The uptake of plant-based meat matters beyond the ups and downs of Wall Street because it appears to be, for now, one of the best bets to chip away at industrialized animal agriculture, which subjects billions of animals to terrible conditions and is a leading driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. Much of the plant-based sector’s trouble boils down to two basic problems: It’s still much more expensive than animal meat, and most of it doesn’t taste close to the real thing. At a minimum, it’ll have to address those problems, but that alone may not be enough. The plant-based industry and its boosters also need to help usher in a cultural shift around the centrality of meat from animals in American diets. What put plant-based meat’s meteoric rise on pause?  Let’s start with alternative meat’s sticker price.Year-over-year inflation has hit grocery bills harder than almost any other part of the economy, reaching 8.5 percent in March (compared to 5 percent for the broader economy). That’s caused shoppers to trade pricier meats, like seafood and steak, for chicken and cheaper cuts of beef. This could also explain part of the plant meat slump, as it costs around three times as much per pound as chicken, almost twice as much as pork, and is comparable to or costlier than beef......read on  https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/17/23682232/impossible-beyond-plant-based-meat-sales ......and......Sign up for the Meat/Less newsletter course. Want to eat less meat but don’t know where to start? Sign up for Vox’s five-day newsletter full of practical tips — and food for thought — to incorporate more plant-based food into your diet.