Sales for many plant-based products have dropped significantly in recent months, and researchers at Dalhousie University wanted to know why..Working with Caddle, the university’s agri-food analytics lab surveyed 5,507 respondents in April regarding their consumption and perception of plant-based products. Although they have been around for a very long time in Canada, Beyond Meat has led the way with more aggressive promotion in the past five years..Nationally, 34% of respondents said they had consumed a plant-based meat alternative in the past 12 months. Consumption was lowest in Manitoba (22%) and highest in Nova Scotia, BC, and New Brunswick (36%). Of those consumers, 31% ate a plant-based meat alternative at least weekly, while 19.8% only ate it a few times per month..“Our data suggests the plant-based market is real in Canada, numbers are much higher than expected,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. .“The market and plant-based products clearly remain a work in progress, but price is unsurprisingly the biggest hurdle.”.Academics were surprised to find 48.2% of respondents believe the quality of plant-based alternatives in general is improving..“The fact almost half of Canadians believe plant-based products are improving is interesting,” said Janet Music, research associate at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. .“Canadians are clearly engaged and will continue to seek alternatives.”.Even so, real meat remains a favourite. Asked what their preferred source of protein is, 49.2% chose animal proteins, 28.1% chose both animal and plant-based, and only 12.3% chose plant-based proteins alone..Why do people buy plant-based products? A total of 30.7% did so for health benefits, followed by personal taste (12.6%), environmental benefits (12.1%), and animal welfare concerns (8.9%). .Price and availability remain challenges. Only 22.3% view plant-based alternatives to be affordable, and only 49% of respondents find these products at the store when they want to buy them. It’s worse at restaurants, at 30.7%..Results varied for dairy, where 42.2% of Canadians consumed a dairy alternative product in the last 12 months, with the percentage lowest in PEI (20%) and highest in BC (49%). More than half of those who ate dairy alternatives (50.4%) did so at least once a week.
