Ethan Brown, the CEO of alternative meat company Beyond Meat, hinted earlier this week that a plant-based poultry product is in the works for 2020.
“You’ll see some exciting things from us in the poultry space in 2020,” Brown told Bloomberg on December 16. “I can’t name specific partners or developments.”
Beyond Meat partnered with KFC for a successful one-day test of alternative meat nuggets and wings earlier this year in Atlanta.
Plant-based beef and sausage products from Beyond Meats are already available in more than 58,000 locations worldwide. The company – recently named Disrupter of the Year by FoodDive – could reach $1.8 billion in revenue by the year 2025, up from an estimated $275 million in 2019, UBS analyst Steven Strycula said.
Barriers to plant-based chicken
Chicken is one of the most popular meats with consumers. Americans will eat an average of 96.2 pounds of chicken in 2019, according to the National Chicken Council.
New plant-based beef products better mimic the taste and texture of real meat, increasing the popularity and sales of these products. However, as of yet, none of the commercially available products taste like chicken or turkey.
Other companies are hard at work at poultry alternatives. UK-based Daring Foods plans to release their version made of five non-GMO ingredients – water, soy, sunflower oil, salt and natural flavoring (a mix of paprika, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mace and cardamom) – throughout the US in February of 2020.
Honeymoon period for alternative meat?
Many are wondering if this will be a lasting trend or a passing fad. Sales of plant-based food that mimic meat, milk and eggs increased 31% in the last two years and are currently valued at $4.5 billion. This number could reach $140 billion over the next decade.
Plant-based proteins will be a popular consumer trend for the next decade, but growth may slow when new food and beverage trends arrive, Tom Reeves, industry manager at Euromonitor, predicted during a recent webinar.
These products are marketed as healthier and better for the environment, he noted. As a result, meat alternatives are in a ‘honeymoon period’ with customers, and the excitement may wear off with the introduction of new products to the marketplace.
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