Sales of plant-based products have dropped significantly in recent months, giving livestock producers the opportunity to rejoice in knowing that Canadians much prefer real meat. Turns out that “Price” was the biggest factor.
The drop in plant-based sales prompted researchers at Dalhousie University to investigate. Working with the university’s agri-food analytics lab, the team surveyed 5,507 respondents in April regarding their consumption and perception of plant-based products. The results indicated that 34% of respondents had consumed a plant-based meat alternative in the past 12 months. Consumption was lowest in Manitoba (22%) and highest in Nova Scotia, British Columbia, 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. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab, said that “price is unsurprisingly the biggest hurdle” for the industry.
When respondents were asked for their preferred source of protein, 49.2% chose animal proteins, 28.1% chose both animal and plant-based, and only 12.3% chose plant-based proteins alone.
