Food Today

Plant-Based Food

Plant-based animal substitutes, especially for meat, are booming. At the latest after the brilliant stock market launch of the U.S. company Beyond Meat, we know: The future is(s) plant-based. The plant-based flagship from Germany – Veganz – also got off to a successful start on the stock market. Every week, therefore, one may observe new product innovations: Whether the McPlant from McDonalds, the first plant-based hard-boiled egg called V-Love The Boiled from Migros, honey without bees from MeliBio or the chocolate Santa Claus with oat milk from Lindt. And the more substitute products come onto the market, the better they become. Where Beyond Meat’s patty featured more than 20 ingredients (some of them genetically modified), the Swiss company Planted uses only a few selected natural ingredients: Pea protein, pea fiber, sunflower oil and water – nothing else. In terms of taste, these have now come a good deal closer to the originals anyway, or have even reached them according to blind tastings.

The change in our eating culture can be seen above all in one area: meat. More than one in two Germans has significantly reduced their meat consumption in the past year – and it is primarily the younger generations who are flexitarianizing or even vegetarianizing and veganizing their diets. Analysts at A.T. Kearney predict that in just ten years, 28 percent of today’s meat products will have been replaced by plant-based alternatives or will be made from cultured animal cells. By 2040, it could be 60 percent.

Best Practices: PLANTED , IMPOSSIBLE FOODS, RÜGENWALDER MILL, MIGROS, GOOD CATCH, HUNGRY PLANET , MELIBIO

Image source: Unsplash