The impact of Veganuary

You may have missed it, but it is the end of “Veganuary” the month where we’re encouraged to eschew meat in favour of meat-free meals. Perhaps you gave it a go? We keep hearing how bad the meat industry is for the climate, so has the substitute meat industry actually made any difference to the amount of meat we eat? Stacy Pyett from 'Proteins for Life' is interviewed by Harry Lewis who went down to his local deli to investigate…

Harry - So I'm here at my local Sainsburys, and there's a good half aisle that's been just given over to these meat substitutes. It's quite a range as well. You've got your burgers, you've got your no-chicken chicken pieces, your no-ham ham slices, eight meat-free smoked bacon rashes, NYC, deli pastrami style, sandwich slices. I mean, what's that? I don't even what is that one made of? What is that made of? Made with microprotein. Microprotein? I don't even know where that is. I have to look that one up. We've all seen it over the past decade or so these substitutes are not necessarily even substitutes, just vegetable alternatives have become pretty commonplace and it feels like more and more of the aisle it's being handed over to them. One person that does know if this increase in product is having an impact on the market is Stacy Pyett from Wageningen University & Research. She's the program manager of proteins for life.

Stacy - That phenomenon that you have observed is pretty common across most of what Western Europe and North America. Right now in almost all of those countries, we're seeing growth upwards of 8% year on year in this category, which is extraordinary for the food market.

Harry - Yeah, 8% seems massive for this industry. Do we know where that extra food is going? Obviously for those replacements in particular, the intention is to take over the market from meat. Do we see a correlation in the reduction of meat consumption as these different brands increase in their sales?

Stacy - Not yet is my answer. We're not seeing a corresponding decline in meat consumption across those countries where we're seeing an increase in sales and plant-based alternatives yet.

Harry - Why aren't we seeing that correlation? What is happening is they're just more food on the market?

Stacy - Well, for one thing, I think, these products are still a niche. If we look at the global protein market these alternatives are growing fast, but from a small starting point. They represent less than 2% of the global market right now. And then the next question is how are people using these products? And the hope of course is that you're going to use a plant-based burger, to replace a meat burger. But we just don't know yet if that's what's happening.

Harry - Do we have any theories as to the patterns of consumption that are going on behind closed doors?

Stacy - We do have some theories. There's one possibility, which is what we call the halo effect. And we know that from the energy transition that we might be sort of overcompensating and rewarding ourselves in a way that negates the good effect. For example, if you, you know, you bought energy saving light bulbs, you might think to yourself, well, in that case, I can just take my car and drive back and forth to the supermarket because I'm saving over here and what we tend to do is overcompensate or over reward ourselves, it's possible that that's happening here, that people are taking, for example, a meatless Monday, but it, you know, Friday evening they're taking a double portion of meat to compensate. Another option is that there are genuinely people who are reducing their meat consumption in one segment of society, but another segment of society that is overcompensating or actually increasing their meat consumption. And that is sort of balancing it out. For that reason, we're not seeing a decline show up.

Harry - And I suppose the difficulty arises here because there are so many variables to consider. Absolutely

Stacy - People's behaviour is very complex. The easiest that we have to ask people about their behaviour is to ask them in the Netherlands, two thirds of people tell us that they're actively reducing their meat consumption, but that just doesn't square with the numbers that we have. So asking people is not an effective method to measure what's really happening.

Harry - I think one of the most attractive components to going meatless as well, definitely for some of the vegetarians that I know, is that it can be quite a cheap way to eat. My only thought is that over the past decade, these products have remained pretty pricey for something that's vegetable based. Do we expect that to decrease in the future? Stacy.

Stacy - You know, one reason for them being expensive at the moment is what I said before that they're still quite a small piece of the market. They're still rather niche. And we know that producing things on a large scale is always more cost effective than producing a small scale or a niche product. So there's good reason to hope that the price will come down.