Official UK agents for
The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark

Author: DavidPannell

Understanding the vegan marketplace

The vegan marketplace is booming right now, with companies like Beyond Meat and Oatly being valued in the billions. But if only 2% of the global population identifies as vegan, then where is all this demand for plant-based products coming from? 

ESSEC Business School webinar:
Understanding the Vegan Marketplace

The vegan marketplace is booming right now, with companies like Beyond Meat and Oatly being valued in the billions. But if only 2% of the global population identifies as vegan, then where is all this demand for plant-based products coming from? David Pannell, co-founder of consumer consultancy Promote Vegan and co-founder of business community Vegan Business Tribe, takes a look at the plant-based marketplace as a whole, why so many consumers across all demographics are changing their buying behaviour, and what companies can do to respond to it.

Biography:

David Pannell is the co-founder of consumer consultancy Promote Vegan, co-founder of business community Vegan Business Tribe and a passionate advocate for the vegan business scene.

Having spent over 20 years working in marketing and helping businesses grow, alongside acting as a former ambassador for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, David now works with high-street brands and large food manufacturers to help them better understand and connect with vegan consumers.

In 2020, David and his partner Lisa Fox launched Vegan Business Tribe, a business community of over 1,000 grass-roots vegan companies and entrepreneurs. David is also the UK agent for The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark and Lisa writes the monthly business column for Vegan Food & Living Magazine, the UK’s best-selling vegan magazine.

David is also the host of the weekly Vegan Business Tribe Podcast, available on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect with David on LinkedIn here.

This talk was part of ESSEC Business School’s First Annual Vegan Finance Webinar. 

Watch back all the speakers from the inaugural event on the ESSEC website here.

In association with Beyond Animal.

Where to start in understanding the plant-based market?
Book an executive chat session with our experts.

Does your team need to understand the new plant-based marketplace and the complex motivations behind this new consumer’s buying choices?  We have worked with some of the world’s largest brands to give them the expert knowledge they need to connect with plant-based consumers.

Our introductory vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team where we will educate you on this radically different new consumer sector.  The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the opportunities for your brand within the plant-based and vegan market.

 

Learn more

We are now holding the majority of our session on Zoom or Teams, meaning your team can still get access to knowledge in a Covid-secure way.

The move away from meat. How the pandemic has turbo-charged plant-based.​

The pandemic has brought about many changes to our lives, but it has also made more people examine their relationship with animal products.

As supermarkets close their meat counters and companies who embrace plant-based products generate huge profits, we look at some of the numbers behind this shift and what that means for brands.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the market was already seeing growing consumer interest in meat alternatives. In 2017, research by World Vegan Day said that 56% of UK adults had now adopted some form of vegan buying behaviour without identifying as vegan or vegetarian. That might be meat-free days, consciously choosing plant-based substitutes or buying soy or oat milk instead of dairy.

But further research during the first lockdown showed a clear connection between the pandemic and the change in attitude towards our relationship with animals.  This was especially shown to be the case in younger, urban, customers with 1 in 5 UK consumers cutting down on meat products as a result of the pandemic. 43% stated their reason was out of concern for their health, environmental or animal rights reasons rather than a lack of availability during the lockdown. In Germany, Coronavirus outbreaks in meat processing plants resulted in a third of people polled by YouGov indicating they were planning to reduce their meat consumption.

What was being shown in research is now actively playing out on the shelves. Beyond Meat revealed that a staggering 93% of their plant-based Beyond Burger customers were not vegan, or even vegetarian. They were consumers who were also purchasing meat products but less of them. This was one of the first clear cases of a meat-alternative actively taking spend away from the meat sector. Their competitors, Impossible Foods, have also released similar statistics, showing that up to 95% of their customers are also meat-eaters.  They are now also turning their technical talents to developing Impossible Milk that is indistinguishable from dairy but without the need for a cow.

Across the high-street we’re also seeing a similar shift in demand. A new Vegan Butcher opened their doors in North London on World Vegan Day and sold out within their first day. Rudy’s Vegan Butchers took over 100 online orders in their first 10 minutes, with long queues outside their door before they even opened.

Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has also announced it is closing its meat and fish counters amongst declining meat sales, and is now stocking meat-alternative products (such as plant-based sausages and burgers) next to animal products in a number of stores.

The message for companies looking to develop new product lines is clear. Plant-based is no longer the niche sector it was 10 years ago, (or even 24 months ago) with ‘vegan’ now breaking into mainstream buying behaviour. What started as a trend is now becoming the new normal, and it will only continue one way. Once a consumer starts adopting plant-based buying behaviours, they expose themselves to a whole range of studies, information and campaigning which then influences their behaviour further away from animal products.

 

400,000 people signed up to go Vegan for the Veganuary campaign in 2020, compared to 250,000 in 2019.  These consumers who are right at the start of buying plant-based may choose a different type of product to someone who has been buying vegan for much longer. This is why it’s important to develop familiar ‘like-for-like’ replacement products for people new to meat-alternatives, alongside more innovative plant-based offerings which really stand out as an exciting new choice for more established vegetarians, vegans and flexitarians.

Understanding these complex buying decisions is now especially important for manufacturers and retailers. Those who took the early lead on understanding plant-based have seen huge results in returns. Gregg’s annual report released in 2019 showed the launch of their vegan sausage roll helped drive a surge in customer numbers, generating a 15% rise in pre-tax profits. It’s worth pointing out that Greggs did this in a well-researched way, with clear markings to distinguish their plant-based products from the animal ones and operation procedures and staff-training that vegan consumers trusted to avoid them being served the wrong product. Other companies have launched into the vegan market without such clear understanding and faced a resulting consumer backlash against their brand.

Where to start in understanding the plant-based market?
Book an executive chat session with our experts.

Does your team need to understand the new plant-based marketplace and the complex motivations behind this new consumer’s buying choices?  We have worked with some of the world’s largest brands to give them the expert knowledge they need to connect with plant-based consumers.

Our introductory vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team where we will educate you on this radically different new consumer sector.  The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the opportunities for your brand within the plant-based and vegan market.

 

Learn more

We are now holding the majority of our session on Zoom or Teams, meaning your team can still get access to knowledge in a Covid-secure way.

Recent articles

Expert live panel: Future vegan product trends

We all know that the vegan sector has exploded, but what’s going to be the next big trend?

In this video recorded live at VegfestUK’s Summerfest Online, David hosts an expert panel including Louisianna Waring, Insight & Commercial Policy Officer, The Vegan Society and Dan Strettle, Owner, Alternative Stores and vegan himself for over 5 decades.  VegfestUK’s Tim Barford also joins us for some unique insight at the end of the session from his years of running the largest vegan consumer and trade shows in the UK.

This is a far-reaching discussion between recognised experts in the vegan marketplace about what’s hot right now, how the Coronavirus epidemic changed consumer’s buying behaviour and what’s going to be the next big growth area in ‘vegan’.

Key learnings from the session:

The vegan plant-based market and rise of vegan consumers:

The number of vegans in great Britain quadrupled 2014 – 2019 with estimates that 600k people in the UK now identify as vegan.

Studies have shown that research into the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, combined with documentaries like Cowspiracy, contributed to the rise in new plant-based consumers.

We’re still only at the start of the plant-based boom, and we’re now seeing veganism in places like it wasn’t before – such as investment.

Other signs of the growth in veganism is that Veganuary in 2020 had 400,000 people sign ups and 10% of children are being raised meat-free.

The vegan scene is now unrecognisable compared to decades ago where if you went out for a vegan meal you would end up with rice and a couple of vegetables.

Vegan celebrities have used their huge platforms to make the vegan message mainstream.

The customer for vegan products

There is no longer a typical vegan consumer and most people can now name a vegan friend or family member.

The end customer for vegan products is often not vegan or even vegetarian.

Companies need to understand that many customers for plant-based products are from mixed households and are looking for single products they will all consume.

There are many different entry points into veganism with older generations following the younger generations in their family.

What’s hot at the moment in vegan, cruelty-free and plant-based?

Cosmetics is seeing the biggest increase in products converting to vegan, along with ‘celebration’ bakery products, such as birthday cakes.

Decades-old products such as Sosmix are being rediscovered by consumers as they experiment with plant-based home-cooking.

Vegan cheeses are finally coming of age and demand for the well-known brands often outstrips supply.

‘Like-for-like’ products aimed at early vegan converts are proving hugely popular, and many brands are now veganising their products because consumers want brands to to transition with them.

We’re seeing a shift away from soya protein into ingredients with shorter supply chains such as oat, hemp and pea which can all be grown locally.

Companies can still go much further in categories that people might think are already be oversubscribed, and smaller companies can build a good niche following.

Some vegan services such as dating apps might not have a big enough audience to support a lot of competition.

What’s needed now?

Making vegan products accessible is key and products need to fit with where people are on their plant-based journey.

More investment and support is needed to scale up vegan companies so they can challenge and replace animal-based products.

Companies need to help their customers along the vegan journey, and how smaller vegan companies are using their ethics to draw customers away from big brands.

What trends are we going to see next?

We are seeing a growing trend towards sustainable sources for ingredients and shortening supply chains.

Demand for vegan pet food is growing, with lab-grown meat (which may be initially unpalatable to consumers) possibly becoming an answer in this area.

An undeveloped market sector is vegan products designed with specific health benefits, such as cholesterol reduction or heart benefits.

The demand for vegan ready meals and vegan pizzas is really growing, with these pre-created meals also activating as an alternative to a take-away or going out to eat during the pandemic.

We are seeing a move towards better nutrition in vegan replacements, whereas before much vegan convenience or ‘junk’ food was as poor nutritionally as it’s non-vegan counterpart.

Vegan child and baby is a new growth area, but more education is needed before it can become mainstream.

There is a trend towards cross-over products that everyone can have, not just the vegans in the family.

Packaging is playing a huge part in developing vegan products, but trade-offs need to be made when moving away from well-established plastics-based packaging (for example the transportation costs of products in glass bottles compared to plastic ones). Companies also need to work to bring these more sustainable packaging innovations to their whole line, not just the vegan products.

There has been a significant rise in vegan entertainment and ‘infotainment’, not just in big documentaries like The Game Changers, but ventures such as comics and graphic novels with vegan characters or messages.

The future of vegan products and services

We’re now seeing everything from vegan electricians to vegan taxi companies – but the key is they are not just serving vegans, they are serving the wider market but normalising the vegan message.

Positive vegan references are now commonplace in mainstream media and entertainment.

Research has shown that moving a meat-replacement product into the meat aisle results in sales going up by 20-30%.

Retailers are still favouring one industry over another, but this is changing and products need to win more predominant product placement.

The Vegan Society can work with retailers to conduct research on their specific customers and product location to increase sales.

Collaboration between vegan businesses, such as Meatless Farm partnering with One Planet Pizza and Applewood Vegan Cheese, are leading to staggering results and we need to see more.

Where to start? Book an executive chat session.

Does your team need to understand the new vegan marketplace and the complex motivations behind this new consumer’s buying choices?

Our introductory vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team where we will educate you on this radically different new consumer sector.  The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the opportunities for your brand within the plant-based and vegan market.

Make enquiry
Download PDF

Recent articles

Why change is hard at Oatly

Oatly made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed that American private equity fund Blackstone had bought 10% of the company for $200,000,000.

We take a look at why the champions of positive change decided to partner with backers who have such a chequered and controversial history – and were they right to do so?

Read More >

Why change is hard. Were Oatly right to partner with Blackstone?

Oatly made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed that American private equity fund Blackstone had bought a percent of the company as part of a $200,000,000 deal.

Lisa takes a look at why the champions of positive change decided to partner with backers who have such a chequered and controversial history – and were they right to do so?

Change isn’t easy.  These are the words that begin Oatly’s fightback against the backlash they have faced after accepting investment from Blackstone, an American private equity fund with a chequered history of what projects they have chosen to finance.

On face value, the choice to accept funding from Blackstone (in return for 10% of the business) seemed questionable. Plant-based is the food industry’s rising star at the moment, with brands such as Beyond Meat having no problems securing record levels of finance for a vegan product. Oatly would have had their pick of investors, so why would a company whose mission is based on ‘change’ choose such a partner to give them the money they need to scale up?

Once a company gets to a certain size, the opportunities to raise huge sums of cash from ethical sources become limited. ‘Vegan’ should not be just a closed economy. The reality is that if ethical companies had to only rely on plant-based money generation, then their opportunities to scale up to compete with well-established meat and dairy brands would be severely reduced.

Global organisations are currently scooping up growing plant-based brands as they recognise the direction the market has taken. If someone takes a specific stance against Oatly taking investment from Blackstones, should they also take a stand against Ben & Jerry’s new range of vegan Ice cream knowing the company is now part of the Unilever brand family? Or should we realise that for a plant-based brand to break through the glass ceiling they will need to accept funding from non-vegan investors? Is it possible to increase the plant-based sector if all that we’re doing is keeping the cash-flow within a vegan circle? 

Even if you are going the crowdfunding route (and I would argue that the 400 million dollars Oatly now requires to break into the mainstream go beyond this option) then you’re not going to have a choice about who is investing in your company. Vegans and non-vegans alike will own equity in the business. If you look closer at any large vegan company which has sold equity in their business via any method, then the vast majority of the time we’re going to find connections that they may not like. Even if you think about bank loans and the interest paid in return – how many banks can claim to have only funded completely ethical businesses and projects?

A very high-profile social media campaign was run against Oatly's decision to partner with Blackstone

Let’s take a look at Oatly’s journey. Originally, their distribution was exclusively through independent organic and vegan stores. They took an ethical decision to eschew the supermarkets who made a large part of their profits from meat and dairy products. But if they wanted to reach out and reach a wider audience (ie the main part of the population who did not visit vegan retailers) and convert them to plant-based, then could they instead work in partnerships with supermarkets to bring change from within? Oatly were one of the leading voices in opening up a new sector on the supermarket shelves which has paved the way for many other plant-based brands to follow and reach a huge new audience in return. At the same time it proved to the supermarkets that there was a market (and money to be made) from stocking vegan products.

Oatly has now put investment and finance in their sights in the same way. Their decision to work with Blackstones seemed to be in full knowledge of the controversy surrounding the ventures their 4 trillion dollars has also funded. Can Oatly engage with Blackstones and prove they can make as much profit from backing sustainable, ethical companies such as theirs? Can they even steer and influence other funds to actively look to back more plant-based companies – by seeing the market-leader finding success from more ethical investment opportunities? At this point, we don’t know, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try.

I will say from my own experience that even the most non-vegan organisations can be a curious bunch and haven’t been able to ignore the trend towards plant-based. Even on a personal level, I’ve had many surprisingly positive conversations with large non-vegan companies, where the people in charge want to ask questions about veganism, or tell me that their daughter has been vegan for a year, or ask if palm oil is vegan (let’s not start that conversation!).

It is our duty to guide unethical businesses towards the right path. This must be done at first by dangling a money carrot, but what’s more important is where you’re leading them.

Read Oatly’s statement in full here:

www.oatly.com/int/climate-and-capital

Where to start? Book an executive chat session.

Does your team need to understand the new vegan marketplace and the complex motivations behind this new consumer’s buying choices?

Our introductory vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team where we will educate you on this radically different new consumer sector.  The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the opportunities for your brand within the plant-based and vegan market.

Make enquiry
Download PDF

Recent articles

Consumers say they are consuming less animal products as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic

In the wake of the Cornavirus, more consumers are questioning the link between our commercialised relationship with animals and the rise in infectious diseases. But with the World Health Organisation and NHS doctors also advocating people move towards a plant-based diet, how is this impacting buying behaviour?​

A survey conducted by The Vegan Society has found that 1 in 5 UK consumers cut down on meat consumption during the Coronavirus pandemic. The survey also found 15% have reduced their general animal product intake including eggs and dairy during the lockdown period.

Although this can, in part, be attributed to less availability of foodstuff during the early days of the pandemic, only 40% of the 1,000 consumers polled gave this as a reason, with ‘health reasons’, ‘animal rights’ and ‘environmental’ making up the majority of the rest of the responses.

Combine this with the open letter from more than 200 NHS doctors and staff to the UK Government urging them to make radical changes to the current unsustainable and unhealthy food system. In this letter, they say that “this [food system] has added to the UK’s COVID-19 pandemic death toll” and call for a tax on industrial animal farming and “subsidies to support the UK population in adopting a predominantly whole food plant based diet for both human and planetary health.”

The open letter from NHS staff, calling for support to help move the UK population to a predominantly plant based diet.

This is a significant change in tone.  There have been some very high-profile campaigns from charities such as Viva!, highlighting that 3 in 4 of the world’s new or emerging infectious diseases have come from consuming animals or animal agriculture, and ethical consumers in general are becoming more aware of this link.  However, recent lobbying moving from the third sector (charities and not-for-profit) to the public sector is a significant step with the World Health Organisation’s official guidance for a healthy lifestyle now recommending eating “a nutritious diet based on a variety of foods originating mainly from plants, rather than animals.”

What does this mean for food producers?

As parts of the world are slowly starting to emerge from lockdown there is a real desire – from both public and Governments – to stop something like this happening again. Consumers have had an unprecedented time of reflection and learning, and with all supermarkets now promoting their own plant-based alternative lines the first steps towards meat and dairy reduction doesn’t seem as daunting as it was several years ago.

And this is important.  The vast majority of consumers are not looking to give up meat and dairy entirely, but a 2018 study showed that a quarter of evening meals in UK households were already meat-free and the recent pandemic will only have increased this percentage.

It is obvious that the pandemic and lockdown have brought forward the plant-based sector by at least 12 months, if not more.  And companies who were planning to slowly move their offerings towards plant-based alternatives may well be caught out by the huge rise in demand as the world opens back up for business. Quick service restaurants, famous brand lines and even institutions such as the British Navy are being lobbied from within to move towards plant-based food and nutrition. 

How Promote Vegan help you understand the vegan and plant-based marketplace

Promote Vegan is run by experts who live, love and breathe the vegan sector. We know the marketplace intimately and will help your brand discover the knowledge, authenticity and authority required to successfully engage with vegan consumers.

We are also the UK’s official agents for The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark, and can help you register your product to give customers the utmost confidence in your product.

We can either be your team’s ongoing plant-based consultants proving specialist sector knowledge, or work with you on one-off engagement or development projects.

Where to start? Book an executive chat session.

Does your team need to understand the new vegan marketplace and the complex motivations behind this new consumer’s buying choices?

Our introductory vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team where we will educate you on this radically different new consumer sector.  The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the opportunities for your brand within the plant-based and vegan market.

Make enquiry
Download PDF

Recent articles

Why change is hard at Oatly

Oatly made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed that American private equity fund Blackstone had bought 10% of the company for $200,000,000.

We take a look at why the champions of positive change decided to partner with backers who have such a chequered and controversial history – and were they right to do so?

Read More >

Lord Sugar spoke out at the launch of a new vegan range at The Dough Bakehouse which he runs with the winner of last year's The Apprentice.

According to Mintel, almost a quarter of all new food products launched in the UK last year were vegan. And now Alan Sugar has added his weight to the booming marketplace by comparing companies who don’t respond to the market as being like Kodak.

“From a business point of view one can’t blame companies and businesses, including our own, for jumping on the bandwagon and starting to produce vegan products. That’s exactly why we are doing this. That’s how you remain in business.”

He continued, “If there is a demand for a new kind of product like a vegan item then of course you need to cater for it, and those that haven’t will fall behind, it’s as simple as that. It’s a bit like the demise of Kodak, they kind of ignored the digital revolution, and they went from a company that monopolised photography to zero, basically. You see things like that happen, and the same will be applied to food.”

Photo copyright Dough Bakehouse Ltd / Instagram

How do you understand and adapt to the vegan market? Bring in the vegan experts.

You didn’t need Lord Sugar to point out there has been huge growth in the plant-based marketplace, but you might not be sure about the opportunities for your brand within it. Or perhaps you already have a vegan product but you don’t understand why it’s not taken off yet.

The Promote Vegan ‘executive chat’ session is a one to two hour discussion with your senior executive team at your offices. Together, we will explore the size of the plant-based marketplace and identify the radically different consumer behaviours that are behind the rise in demand for plant-based products. 

The session will also facilitate discussion between your team about the market and the opportunities for your brand.

Download more information about the session as a PDF:

Download PDF

Recent articles

Why change is hard at Oatly

Oatly made the headlines for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed that American private equity fund Blackstone had bought 10% of the company for $200,000,000.

We take a look at why the champions of positive change decided to partner with backers who have such a chequered and controversial history – and were they right to do so?

Read More >

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Promote Vegan is a trading name of Vegan Sales Accelerator Ltd.  Registered in England & Wales Company number: 05827419

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Official UK agents for The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark

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