The landscape for plant-based refrigerated and frozen foods continues to grow and change.
Nearly two-thirds (62%) of U.S. households buy plant-based foods, now an $8 billion market, according to the Plant Based Foods Association’s (PBFA) State of the Marketplace report.
“While plant-based consumers used to be primarily driven by health, many also cite reasons such as taste/flavor, environmental concerns and the desire to simply try something new for seeking out plant-based foods. Overall, although we continue to see that a majority of plant-based consumers follow flexitarian diets, their reasons for eating plant-based foods continue to expand and drive product innovation,” said Linette Kwon, PBFA’s data and consumer insights analyst. “Plant-based foods have come such a long way in the past several years, we can now find a plant-based option for virtually every conventional food. Foodservice operators also continue to invest in plant-based foods, providing more options for customers. Our distributor shipment data from Circana revealed that in 2023, certain operator segments such as workplace cafeterias, educational, healthcare and government institutions increased both their dollars spent and pounds purchased of plant-based foods.”
With new products hitting store shelves, achieving great taste and texture is still paramount for the plant-based manufacturer and their consumer.
“The biggest challenge for manufacturing plant-based foods is getting the taste and texture profiles right. With plant-based manufacturing, we cannot use standard equipment that exists today, such as mixers or food processing lines. Instead, we buy that same commercial external equipment and adapt it to our process and final product we want to get out of it. The equipment and process comes from a combination of technologies, influenced by both the animal meat and bakery industries, but fully customized to produce our plant-based proteins,” said John Seegers, chief technology officer and co-founder of TiNDLE, a foodtech company founded in 2020. “When we started to develop TiNDLE Chicken, we looked at a number of different global suppliers who source raw materials and were highly selective about the process. We sought to prioritize high quality, non-GMO ingredients, looking at many protein sources (beans, fava, rice, etc.) before landing on our mix of soy and wheat protein. This is a constant process though. We’re always looking for the best raw materials and continually developing different combinations of proteins to get the best outcome. It’s a process that never stops necessarily – we’re always innovating to achieve the greatest tasting foods.”
The R&D process for developing plant-based foods is different in terms of the technology being used.
“We are innovating on raw materials and ingredients that have been around and consumed by humans for years and years, but utilizing them in new and different ways, like protein extrusion or fermentation, to satisfy the needs of consumers today. Ultimately our mission at TiNDLE is to help accelerate the adoption of plant-based foods to slow down the climate crisis facing our planet,” Seegers said. “In terms of commercialization though, if you look at all the steps after sourcing the raw materials, the process is very similar. The process of packaging and freezing is the same and uses very similar equipment – some of the plant-based equipment is even sourced from animal meat processing. Ultimately, sourcing plant-based ingredients instead of using animal parts is the biggest difference and efficiency in our R&D process.”
While much of the innovation over the last several years has been in formats familiar to consumers – like nuggets, sausages and patties – there are plenty of opportunities for novel products.
“Specifically for plant-based meat, we are only starting to scratch the surface in terms of what’s possible for product development. Many of the popular products of the last 5 years have been familiar formats, whether it’s nuggets or chicken patties or burgers and sausages,” said JJ Kass, SVP of business development and U.S. managing director. “However, our category has the opportunity to expand on what people know today to be non-animal protein alternatives. Just this month, we launched our TiNDLE Stuffed Chicken product range in grocery stores on the East Coast. Those are offered in two new flavors: Chicken Parmigiana and Tikka Masala. The first of its kind in our category, the Stuffed Chicken range takes inspiration from the format of breaded and stuffed meat pockets – a modern twist on a traditional broccoli & cheddar stuffed chicken or a chicken cordon bleu.”
Julie House, senior director of product development at Oatly, a Swedish alternative dairy company, agreed.
“One of the main challenges in plant-based product development is creating really great alternatives that perform and taste just as good as, or even better than, their traditional counterparts, despite fundamental differences. In the alt-dairy category this often comes down to the different macronutrient compositions between dairy products and their non-dairy alternatives,” House said. “Speaking for the larger category, the main difference in R&D and commercialization for plant-based foods is the relative novelty of many of the products and technologies within our sector. In some cases, there’s still a lot of research and innovation to be done. Not to mention, the task of then introducing these newer offerings to consumers.
The plant-based market in the U.S. is ripe for innovation and consumer conversion. In fact, according to a recent flash poll released by Oatly in 2023, more than half (54%) of Gen Z and almost half (49%) of Millennials prefer plant-based milk to cow’s milk,” House said. “The idea of where our category will be in five years excites me – and while I can’t specifically say what Oatly has in the works, I do predict there will be a lot of advancement in certain sub-categories like plant-based cheese, for example.”
This June, nearly 20 PBFA member companies – Danone, Impossible Foods, Oatly, TiNDLE, and Upton’s Naturals among them – and association staff met with nearly 40 congressional offices as well as staff for the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. While on Capitol Hill, they urged increasing plant-based options in federal facilities and cosponsored the PLANT Act in an effort to ensure farmers and companies producing plant-based foods are eligible for USDA programs and assistance.
The association also discussed plant-based companies’ right to use what it calls “common sense labeling terms.”
A 2023 PBFA survey found that nearly 80% of primary U.S. grocery shoppers believe certification labels on food products are either “very or extremely important.”
“Many refrigerated and frozen plant-based categories continue to face challenges due to limited shelf-space in physical stores. However, our analysis this year revealed that plant-based foods occupy a larger share of online sales compared to brick-and-mortar stores, with 6.8% total share compared to a 3.8% share in grocery retail. This suggests that without the limitation of space, a larger variety of plant-based foods will be available to meet consumers’ needs,” Kwon said. “When we take a closer look at different refrigerated and frozen plant-based categories, we also see that each one has the potential to expand across specific markets or platforms. For example, although both plant-based butter and plant-based yogurt sales declined across the total U.S. market in 2023, their sales grew tremendously across convenience stores.
Similarly, while plant-based ready-to-drink beverage sales declined across the total U.S. market in 2023, their sales grew across natural markets. Even when we dive deeper within a plant-based category, we see a variety of categories that are gaining consumer interest. One example is how only certain plant-based frozen meals grew in dollar sales in 2023, such as soups and chili. Overall, while it is true that plant-based food sales declined in 2023, total U.S. food sales also declined, signifying economic challenges for the food industry overall. With a boost in sales following the pandemic, we now expect to see continuous, organic growth for the plant-based industry.”
