more than $4 per pound higher. And if you look at alternative dairy or plant-based milk, you’re only paying 30 cents more per item. I’m not saying that plant-based meat doesn’t deserve it. I’m not saying their costs aren’t there. It’s not about goug-ing. It’s just saying that you’re asking a consumer to pay up a lot. I think the other big one is we’ve seen a natural consolidation over the last, call it two to three years, from some pretty big expansion back in 2019-2021. I mean, those markets were up 30%, 40%. Alt-Meat: It was insane. DuBOIS: Here’s a product going into McDonald’s. Here’s another one going into Burger King. It was everywhere. What we’re seeing is sort of a natural retrenchment and consolidation, and not all brands get to win, you know. There are a lot of big meat processors that put [alt-meat] brands out there believing that they could win and that hasn’t happened. What we’ve seen is a natural selection, and that’s been a tough part in the marketplace. The other big difference is fresh vs. frozen. The fresh [meat] case is probably one of the most competitive market spaces in the supermarket. This is something people buy every week and they buy multiple different items. They know the prices. And these products get replenished multiple times a day in most supermarkets. When plant-based meat went in there, it doesn’t move as fast. Without those turns, it’s tough to keep your place there. The frozen side’s different. That is where plant-based meat grew up, and consumers, when we do the research, ex-pect to find it there. It’s a natural home. When you look at the future strength of where alternative meat is likely to need to make a stand, to me, it’s frozen. Alt-Meat: It also plays into the re-duced food waste trend, because fresh will spoil more quickly if you don’t get right to it. DuBOIS: Part of the thing as we’ve seen it from the numbers side is, sales went up into 2020, 2021, and yes, they’re coming down and it’s not pretty watching the sales declines, but the sales declines are different in frozen and fresh. Fresh, you kind of see the same continual down double digits almost every month. Frozen, now, we’re seeing slower, lower declines — much lower declines. That’s the beginning of where that turn begins to happen. about 19% of buyers make up 75% of the dollars. That’s a heavy concentration. So what? Unfortunately, a lot of the casual buyers have fallen out — the people who buy it a few times a year. That’s a lot of the pain you’re going to feel. That’s part of the volume that makes up any brand on that side. But now we’re down to the core. Keeping the core, that’s going to be one of the big things going forward. Alt-Meat: Do we expect these trends to continue to play out in 2025? DuBOIS: I’d say there are a couple of things that have to happen that I’m look-ing for, because the numbers still don’t play out in a really positive way. One, the packaging needs to be right, the price gaps need to be right and ev-erything else from a marketing side. Two, we’ve seen a nice splash of flavor and form come in from the industry. It’s the steak imitations. It’s spicy chicken nuggets that have popped. Flavors are really working in this different space. To me, kudos for those manufacturers that are making that happen. Alt-Meat: Is it beginning to happen or are we still waiting for that actual inflection point? DuBOIS: We need the actual inflec-tion point of it to go up. But the first step is slower decline. Even this last month or two, we’re only down about 1%. That’s better than 10% or 20% at this point. And the other side is, we’ve seen the buyer set come down to more of a core set of heavy buyers. In meat alternatives, 32 Alt-Meat February 2025
Alt-Meat February 2025: Page 32
