Why neither vegetable nor artificial meat could replace natural

According to NielsenIQ, sales of plant-based MEAT analogues in RUSSIA collapsed by 70.3% over the ten months of last year, while in 2021 the market grew by 24.4%. “Fake meat was supposed to save the world, but in the end it became just another fantasy,” a BLOOMBERG article recently published with this headline.
 
The surge in popularity of plant-based meat in the world began in the late 2000s, when in the United StatesBEYOND MEAT was born. They made a synthetic pea protein patty with water, coconut oil, canola oil, SALT, vinegar, starch, yeast extract, and other ingredients. And presented it as an innovative product. Company representatives advertised it as a healthy alternative to regular meat, because it is free of GMOs, gluten, soy, antibiotics, cholesterol, hormones and parasites. And it looks and smells like a real meatball.
 
Founder Ethan Brown dreamed that his products would simultaneously help solve the problems of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, climate change, natural resource depletion and animal welfare. The idea looked attractive not only to vegetarians and vegans. Meat-eaters - conservationists with the help of a vegetable patty could refuse meat burgers without giving up on them. Therefore, famous personalities like Bill Gates or Leonardo DiCaprio invested millions of dollars in the creation of vegetable analogues of meat.
 
In 2019, Beyond Meat products appeared in Moscow - they were served in expensive restaurants as an overseas marvel. And then domestic companies began to use this idea. Now vegetable analogues of meat are sold in ordinary supermarkets.

Western producers of vegetable substitutes planned to bankrupt the meat industry, taking more than half of the market from traditional meat by 2040. But producers of animal meat feel great. And Beyond Meat shares are down 80% in a year. The company laid off 20% of employees and suspended new projects. How did it happen that an industry that was supported by so much money suddenly ceased to exist?

Many meat eaters, who initially admired fake meat, carefully studied the ingredients, but could not find evidence that vegetable chops actually help reduce carbon dioxide emissions or lower blood pressure. For HEALTH, their benefits are doubtful, because it is a product of ultra-processing. Intensive industrial processes during their production destroy the natural structure of food ingredients.
 
Now consumers have already passed the stage of "first falling in love" with vegetable analogues of meat, and they have a sensible look at the product that was imposed on them in an aggressive PR company, says Sergey Yushin, HEAD of the National Meat Association. Even young people, open to everything new, suddenly discovered that eating a vegetable burger is "not sexy" and does not distinguish them from the crowd. And a vegetarian has a huge selection of plant products, and any cucumber or tomato looks much more attractive.
 
An undoubted factor in reducing the demand for vegetable analogues of meat is the limited possibilities of culinary processing. They are made only in the form of minced meat. It is unlikely that they can be stewed for a long time, marinated, dry-cured. In addition, the element of novelty of the product was greatly exaggerated. Various interpretations of supposedly meat products made from vegetable ingredients have been known for 150 years. Pea sausage was made in the middle of the 19th century. "Humanity was forced to consume surrogates during periods of global catastrophes, famines, wars. They were much cheaper," explains Yushin. For example, in 1806, chicory appeared as a coffee substitute.

In addition, the price of vegetable burgers remained quite high, while the cost of meat in our country was declining last year. At the same time, the consumption of pork and poultry increased. Buying vegetable ersatz is expensive, and not all vegetarians are wealthy people, says Yushin.

Claims about the alleged usefulness of these products have also been refuted. Scientists have not found any evidence of higher consumer properties in vegetable analogues of meat. "All the data was faked or based on fast, inaccurate study results," the expert explains. Yes, there are no GMOs and antibiotics in these burgers, but there may be bacteria. Such cases were in the usa. Consumers saw all this, which also affected the decline in demand.
 
Manufacturers of plant-based meat claim that it contains a lot of iron. But a study by the Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) showed that iron in plant analogues is in a form that is not absorbed by the body. The same with zinc. Plant-based meats are high in phytates, antinutrients that interfere with the absorption of minerals in the body. "So the attempt to make mankind live differently from the way it has lived for the last 70,000 years ended in failure," sums up Yushin.
 
Andrey Dalnov, head of the Rosselkhozbank Center for Industry Expertise, says that in a mature market, the struggle for a share of the consumer's stomach always intensifies. Manufacturers of ultra-processed products traditionally attack livestock farmers because they use cheap raw materials, maximize profits, and at the same time satisfy some other human needs (for example, to help nature). But all this as a result has the opposite effect, Dalnov believes. According to him, if the issue of food consumption is left to chance, SUGAR will inevitably win. This is because the perceived usefulness of a product remains subjective. The world cannot find a consensus that there are healthy foods. But large companies quite successfully manipulate the consumer. At one time, margarine was promoted as a healthy product, its sales grew, and butter - fell. Now exactly the opposite is happening: videos on TIKTOK, how butter is spread on bread, are gaining half a billion views.
 
Now, Western investors have taken a liking to a new fashion trend - meat derived from animal stem cells grown in bioreactors. Theoretically, they could be a better alternative to pea pseudo-meat. But this category will have to overcome even greater hurdles than plant-based meats, from the sheer amount of energy needed to produce food to prohibitive costs.
 
What about plant based milk?

With vegetable analogues of MILK in Russia - similar trends. According to NielsenIQ, if over 11 months of 2021 sales of plant-based milk analogues showed an increase of 17.2%, then at the end of the same period in 2022, sales in money fell by 0.7%.

Firstly, in previous years, the growth rate of the category was quite high due to the low base: the consumer willingly tried new things, but in the current economic conditions, the replenishment of the segment by new consumers has slowed down significantly, Aleksey Voronin, DIRECTOR of the Soyuzmoloko analytical department, explained to RG.
 
The second factor is limited solvent demand, which affects all industries and transforms demand both in the vegetable category and within the dairy category. "The trend towards savings, caused by a decrease in the income of the population, has led to the fact that the demand for more affordable traditional categories "pulls" part of the demand from modern categories and groups with a higher price. Thus, the consumption of drinking milk is growing, and yogurt is declining. A similar the situation with plant-based products: a higher price is becoming a factor in the reorientation of part of the demand for more affordable dairy products.This is precisely what hinders the expansion of the category of plant-based drinks at the expense of new consumers: in an environment where you have to save money,