A new report predicts consumers will reduce the amount of meat they eat in 2023.
“A diet blending animal and vegetable proteins results in a more affordable household food budget and planetary budget,” said the 2023 trend report from Nourish Food Marketing.
In a recently released 2022 public trust report from the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity, about 25 per cent of respondents said they were responding to high food prices by reducing meat consumption.
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“Consumers are naturally becoming less carnivorous due to climate change and animal welfare concerns,” the Nourish report said, and inflation is accelerating the trend.
Global online surveys in 2021 and 2022 showed that people identifying as a “carnivore” dropped to 28 per cent in 2022, from 33 per cent in 2021.
Fifty-one per cent said they were omnivores, up from 49 per cent in 2021, and 13 per cent said they were “flexitarian,” meaning they eat a vegetarian diet but occasionally eat meat. This is up from 10 per cent last year.
The number of vegetarians and vegans remained steady at three per cent and one per cent, respectively.
Consumption of “faux meat,” like products from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, has faltered, the report added.
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A Nov. 21 report by the New York Times said Beyond Meat’s stock has slumped nearly 83 per cent in the past year and sales are expected to show “only minor growth” in 2022.
Volumes of plant-based meat in general have been down for 22 consecutive months, the Nourish report said, adding it could be due to inflation or companies may have reached the maximum number of people willing to buy their products.
“The novelty factor of faux meats spurred trial, but now that honeymoon period is over,” Nourish said.
Consumers want “clean labels,” it wrote, and will embrace whole foods again. Calls to “clean up ingredients lists” of plant-based analogues will get louder, it added.
However, Nourish also predicted that traditional agriculture won’t be able to support a growing global demand for protein.
“In North America, most of us consume more protein than our bodies can use, anyway,” it said. “If meat reduction rather than elimination makes the most consumer sense, then the industry will have to use less resource-intensive production methods.”
It put forward grass-fed beef as one solution, with lab-grown or cultured meat as a near-future alternative.
