A new narrative for meat alternatives
- Consumers are losing interest in sustainability and turning towards health
- If plant-based refocuses on health, it could prove a liability due to association with UPFs
- A better focus may be on mindful meat, associating itself with heritage, nature and community
- Cultivated meat needs to lose its association with artificiality and focus on animal welfare if it wants to draw consumers in
It’s not a good time to be a meat alternative brand. As consumers lose interest in sustainability and focus more on their health, meat-free food is slowly falling behind.
The narratives driving meat-free alternatives – often based on sustainability and animal welfare – may be a liability for the sector, as ethics recede as a priority for consumers.
Two new reports from EIT Food explore how meat alternatives, as well as cultivated meat, can reshape and reform how they market themselves to better connect with consumers.
Plant-based may be on the decline
In recent months, consumers have begun to shift away from plant-based food and back towards meat and dairy.
It’s not quite a downturn yet – growth is still seen as likely by many sources, and one even predicts the market to triple by 2035 – but there has been a shift in consumer sentiment nonetheless.
The market has seen a “recalibration”, as consumers turn away from ethics and sustainability, instead prioritising health and taste.
Furthermore, consumers increasingly associate plant-based options with ultra-processed foods, which many distrust.
Conversely, meat and dairy have been consumed for thousands of years and are associated with naturalness.
Can meat alternatives reinvent themselves, and reorient away from such negative associations?
Plant-based: ‘Mindful meat’ and indulgence
“So far, I don’t think many plant-based companies have been focusing on health,” says Lauren May, a researcher at the Future of Food Institute and one of the authors of the EIT reports.
But they shouldn’t necessarily do it now, even with the popularity of healthy food.
Focusing on health has the potential to be an effective strategy, she suggests, but is also risky due to the perception that plant-based products are ultra-processed. If this narrative is too entrenched, flipping it on its head may not resonate.
A more successful narrative, suggests May, could be one around “mindful meat”. Iconography around mindful meat focuses on nature, quality, community, and a sense of pride in heritage and tradition, contrasting with iconography of processed meat.
Plant-based meat has potential to use this imagery.
“Reframing plant-based meat products (using) community, togetherness, those narratives that people associate with meat . . . that it’s tied to their culture, their celebratory occasions, their Sunday dinners with the family. If we can reframe plant-based meat to fit in with that culture and identity, that might help.”
Most people who are entrenched meat eaters are unlikely to be shifted towards plant-based. It’s those people in the middle, who are already trying to cut down on meat, who may be convinced.
Another potential narrative could be around indulgence. If plant-based meat is positioned, rather than as a sustainable alternative, instead as an indulgent category, “as pleasurable as meat to consume”, it could find success, suggests May.
Of course, this approach relies on the product itself being tasty. People are often sceptical that plant-based meat products will taste as good as animal-based, as much as manufacturers may promise that they are.
Cultivated meat: A new frontier
Cultivated meat is, for most consumers, literally a food of the future. It’s only available in a handful of countries – Israel, Singapore and the US – and European consumers largely experience them as a theoretical concept, rather than a food to actually consume.
This does not, however, mean that there isn’t an established narrative about them.
Scepticism is already widespread, suggests May – the sector cannot simply start with a blank slate because, despite the fact that most people haven’t tried it, narratives around cultivated meat are already entrenched. “People already have images of white lab coats in their mind.”
The high-tech framing of a lot of cultivated meat marketing detracts from its appeal, and companies will have to work hard to change this narrative.
Because of its artificial nature, many consumers are also sceptical about its health benefits, especially due to it being a novel product.
However, one thing consumers do care about is animal welfare. Many see this as the biggest benefit of cultivated meat, especially those already on board with reducing their meat intake.
EIT suggests that these concerns should be leveraged in the marketing of cultivated meat.