Does the plant-based sector need new branding?

For a while it seemed the plant-based food sector was on fire. Animal-free brands were having so much success that the prestigious magazine the Economist boasted the title The Year of the Vegan on its front cover in 2019.

Awareness of the cruelty and environmental impact of animal-based foods was becoming more and more pervasive, with more people adjusting their eating habits to confront this undeniable reality. The stock price of plant-based meat alternatives like Beyond Meat was through the roof, with the brand hitting their highest point in 2019, and the outlook for the plant-based sector looking brighter than ever.

As unfortunate as the Covid-19 pandemic was for the global economy and human health as a whole, it seemed, at least at first, that much of the global population was waking up to the fact that animal agriculture contributes to zoonotic diseases that can wreak havoc on society.  

Then something happened. Overall growth in the plant-based sector started to slow. Today, for example, Beyond Meat shares are at their lowest point since the company went public.

What happened?

As with most complex economic situations, the plant-based industry’s demise is a multifactorial issue. But there is one factor that can’t be denied nor avoided: lobbying efforts by the meat industry. Each year, meat, dairy and egg industry lobby groups dish out millions of dollars to pressure legislators to make or uphold laws that benefit them, while convincing consumers that these products are healthy, necessary, and just outright cool.

In the US, the beef industry has gone as far as paying influencers to make meat consumption appear fashionable to younger people, going as far as creating their very own Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA) Program, which teaches its pupils how to effectively downplay the health and climate impacts of meat consumption, while at the same time promoting it.

And these tactics appear to have been extremely effective at putting meat back on the menu of the average consumer.

The right branding for a plant-based future

Despite some very powerful and deliberate headwinds, the plant-based sector still has the potential to thrive, especially with the right branding and marketing adjustments. One example is knowing when to use the term plant-based or vegan in branding and labelling animal-free products.

Today, the terms vegan and plant-based are often used interchangeably, even though vegan refers more to the ethical movement, and plant-based refers to the diet or the product itself.

Consumer awareness of the term vegan is now widely understood in English-speaking countries, with 72% of Brits and 64% of Americans correctly identifying vegan labelled products as not containing any animal products or secretions, according to a 2022 study by ProVeg International.

The same organization, which promotes animal and cruelty free lifestyles throughout the globe, suggests that the term vegan can be off-putting to non-vegans because it can be perceived as restrictive and tied to a specific lifestyle rather than an option.

ProVeg suggests adding the term vegan (“suitable for vegans” is also an option) on their products, but on the back of packaging, with a more visible plant-based label on the front, though some brands, like Eat Just, prefer to say their products are “made from plants”.

We’ll be providing more effective branding advice for those in the plant-based sector in subsequent articles.

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