‘Veganuary’ makes minimal impact on meat industry
Despite all the press and media hype around Veganuary, an update from Kantar Worldpanel shows it has not seen overall volumes for meat, fish and poultry (MFP) fall year on year.
Chicken continues to drive volume, with 390,000 more shoppers and 2 million more trips.
In the latest meat, fish and poultry update covering the 12 weeks to 27th January, Kantar explains it has not seen a huge change in purchasing trends in its markets after Veganuary.
As discussed in the last grocery market share produced by the organisation, it is seeing a rise in plant-based sales, but this isn’t just taking business from primary and processed meats.
Health conscious shoppers are helping to drive produce sales, but not hitting the MFP markets to the level it expected.
Nathan Ward, business unit director, MFP, explains: “Christmas is still lurking in the figures, but despite the media profile of Veganuary, the impact on our market is relatively low.
“As mentioned in our last update, there is limited evidence of us becoming a nation of vegetarians and vegans, with only beef, lamb and turkey seeing volume declines in the latest period.
Kantar Worldpanel’s Nathan Ward.
“Processed products have seen a slightly stronger decline, with bacon the largest driver of this volume loss as we see 4.2 million fewer trips containing bacon.
“When we focus on the last four weeks when Veganuary was running, we’ve seen flat volumes for primary meat and poultry, with fish still in strong growth, so any impact is minimal on the core categories.”
According to Kantar, chicken continues to drive volume and pull away from red meat volumes, with 390,000 more shoppers and 2 million more trips. Whilst legs and breasts continue to drive growth attracting 470,000 more shoppers to breasts and 280,000 more to legs.
The decline of beef volumes has been driven by steaks which are down 9.7%, with 420,000 fewer shoppers and 2.1m fewer trips this year.
Lamb continues to see the core roasting joints decline (leg -4%, shoulder -3%) and lamb chops down 8%, with fewer shoppers the key driver of these sectors.
Roasting volumes continue to fall, but this is part of a long-term decline for roasting joints overall.
Ward also said he looks forward to seeing the impact of Valentine’s Day in the next update in four weeks’ time.
Farewell to Liz Murphy
Lab-grown meat can result in more warming
