Has the cult of veganism reached its sell-by date?

If recent headlines are to be believed, the answer is yes.
Spiked Online: Over the past few years, there has been an explosion of vegan processed food appearing in supermarkets. A growing number of the population also claims to be vegan. But there are signs this trend could be going into reverse. Demand for animal-free food and drink products has collapsed over the past year. One casualty is Swedish oat-milk firm Oatly, which has recently withdrawn its dairy-free ice cream in the UK. Another is the Yorkshire sausage-making company, Heck, which has scaled-down its vegan-friendly range from 10 products to two. Smoothie-maker Innocent, owned by Coca-Cola, discontinued its dairy-free range earlier this year. Supermarket sales of meat-free products fell by £37.3million between September 2021 and September 2022, according to the consumer intelligence firm NielsenIQ.
New figures to be released this week by NIQ (formerly NielsenIQ) reveal that in January this year, when people were encouraged to choose vegan products in “Veganuary”, sales of chilled meat alternatives fell 16.8% compared with January 2022 and frozen meat alternatives fell by 13.5%. Plant-based milk alternatives saw growth of just 0.9%, according to the NIQ data.
The challenges in the marketplace in the UK and overseas are reflected in values of the leading specialist vegan food manufacturers, which in some cases have plummeted. Shares in meat-free brand Beyond Meat have crashed, down from more than $230 after it went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in May 2019 to about $11. The meat-free market in the US is described by experts as “stagnating”.
Oatly’s share price peaked at more than $28 after its initial public offering on the Nasdaq in May 2021, but has since dropped to less than $2, with global sales volumes last year lower than forecast
There seems to be two main reasons. Rising inflation has been cited as one cause, as consumers have scaled back on branded and luxury eatables. Plant-based processed foods are generally more costly than the meat and dairy products they purport to replace. Another explanation is that producers of vegan food may have overestimated the size of the market for veganism, and now they are having to readjust to reality.

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