Plant Based Foods
Statista: American Spent $8 Billion on Plant Based Foods
by Felix Richter,
Aug 21, 2024
Having long been limited to a handful of mostly soy-based products, plant-based alternatives to dairy and meat have made giant leaps forward over the past few years. Thanks to advances in food science, people can now enjoy a creamy oat milk cappuccino, have a tasty burger based on pea protein or even try chicken-free chicken nuggets that mimic the real thing surprisingly well.
And whether it’s due to allergies, intolerances, voluntary diet choices or simply to reduce the carbon footprint of their food intake, many people are enjoying the new variety of plant-based alternatives to dairy and meat. According to the Good Food Institute's State of the Industry report, plant-based foods are a multi-billion dollar market in the United States, with milk alternatives by far the largest category at estimated retail sales of $2.9 billion in 2023. Plant-based meat and seafood remains the second largest segment, despite growth coming to a halt lately.
The Good Food Institute partly explains the slowdown in some categories with higher food prices overall, which may have impacted plant-based alternatives disproportionately. "In an inflation-driven market, many consumers chose to trade down within protein categories, posing salient challenges for plant-based categories whose products often sit at a premium to their conventional counterparts," the GFI notes. The average premium for plant-based meat sold in the U.S. last year was 77 percent compared to conventional meat, according to SPINS data, explaining why consumers on a tight budget might opt against it.
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Katharina Buchholz,
Aug 22, 2023
The U.S. plant milk market is a $2 billion industry that grew by 6.4 percent last year. According to the National Consumer Panel, 41 percent of U.S. households purchased plant-based milk alternatives in 2022 and 76 percent of these customers turned out to be repeat purchasers. This is despite the fact that plant milks were on average 87 percent more expensive in the country than traditional cow's milk that year. A majority of respondents who buy plant milk said it was healthier and that they liked the taste, but one third also mentioned the environment as a purchasing driver.
However, U.S. consumers are routinely buying the least environmentally friendly among plant milks - almond milk. It uses almost 60 percent of the water that is needed for an equal amount of cow's milk, compared to just 43 percent for rice milk and just 8 percent and 4 percent for oat and soy milk, respectively. As of June 2022, 12 months worth of U.S. almond milk sales came to almost $1.3 billion. That's a long way ahead of oat milk's sales which were worth around $528 million. Soy milk was the only other plant milk turning over more than $100 million in annual sales, while coconut, pea, rice and cashew play a smaller role in the market.
As California produces 80 percent of the world's almonds, U.S. almond milk supply exclusively comes from the drought-stricken state. In terms of CO2, plant milk's footprints are more similar to one another at 0.7-1.2 kg per liter compared to 3.2 kg for cow's milk, with almond milk actually exhibiting the smallest footprint.
The positive aspects of oat milk seem to have gained more attention recently, however, as the milk substitute was embraced by conscious brands. Oat milk sales rose by more than 50 percent between June 2021 and June 2022, according to industry source SPINS. Pea milk, which has been making strides because of its high protein content that rivals soy, grew sales by 27 percent, albeit to a still rather low $60 million
You will find more infographics at StatistaAugust 22 is World Plant Milk Day. The day is intended to celebrate the alternatives to dairy-based milk, including varieties of oat, almond, pea and coconut milk, among others. These substitutes are growing in popularity around the world, driven partly by consumers’ increased awareness of their environmental benefits and the importance of food sustainability.
Data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey shows that while plant-milk consumers are still a minority in the U.S., those who have tried a milk alternative in recent months are highly likely to consume it again. As the following chart shows, the U.S. brand Silk is the most popular among U.S. consumers, having been tried by just over a third of respondents in the 12 months prior to the survey. Of those, 86 percent said that they would likely drink it again. California’s own Blue Diamond Almond Breeze was similarly popular, having been consumed by three in ten respondents recently, with 84 percent of respondents saying they would consume it again. By contrast, the Swedish brand Oatly, which is one of the most popular milk substitute brands in Europe, was tried by just 10 percent of U.S. respondents in the run-up to the survey.
As part of the same survey, Statista also asked U.S. adults about which aspects are most important when deciding which milk alternative brands to buy. The most common answers were high value, the brand being honest/trustworthy, authentic and reliable.
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