Price, taste and texture, along with health and nutrition have been the key challenges affecting plant-based products’ success with consumers over the last few years. Asia Pacific faces an additional challenge of boosting the relevance of plant-based products in a region where alternatives to meat and tofu-based products are already established. These challenges continue to be discussed by plant-based leaders and innovators, such as at the Plant-Based Foods and Proteins Summit Asia 2023, which was organised by Bridge2Food and held in Singapore.
The hype behind plant-based food is being driven by rapid innovation, with a sharp acceleration of product launches driving consumption through curiosity and the attraction to novelty.
Consumption of meat and seafood substitutes for Asia Pacific peaked in 2021, with 42% growth
Source: Euromonitor International
This was a year later than in North America and Western Europe, where growth reached a peak in 2020 - up by 46% and 36% respectively, in retail value sales terms.
Category refresh expected
Innovations in the market over the last few years included products widely acknowledged by food producers as not ideal in terms of taste. Some products also lacked proper labelling.
The focus for industry players now is to regenerate interest among consumers as future growth is set to soften, with consumers reacting to unpleasant experiences with products rolled out during this early era of innovation.
Ongoing strategies in Asia Pacific
Price:
- Shift from lowering ingredient and input costs, to lowering business costs. Industry players are focusing on localising production and labour and reducing food waste. They are also exploring converting side streams into revenue, which includes improving supply chain practices.
- Greater consideration of cost-effective formats, given that distributing frozen products requires higher costs. Between 2018 and 2023, shelf stable meat and seafood substitutes has generated slower traction, with only 6% growth in retail value sales globally and an even lower 1% in Asia Pacific. In comparison, frozen meat and seafood substitutes grew by 11% globally and by 28% in Asia Pacific. Shelf stable products are thus seen as an underdeveloped whitespace, albeit competing more directly with popular ambient seafood products in the Asian market such as canned tuna, sardines, and mackerel.
Taste and texture:
- Accelerating education in the HORECA (hotels, restaurants and catering) channel and working with chefs to champion plant-based products, particularly in local recipes. Innovators are focusing on masking undesirable flavours and beany notes, while complementing other parts of local Asian dishes.
- Highlighting the versatility of plant-based ingredients. For instance, Hegg, a powdered egg alternative, partnered with Killiney Kopitiam in Singapore to produce an eggless kaya (coconut jam) alternative.
Health and nutrition:
- Greater focus on streamlining terminologies and working with government bodies, health agencies, and building partnerships to strengthen the nutritional profile and health proposition of plant-based food.
- Balancing clean labels (fewer, simpler and natural ingredients) with functional ingredients that can position a product as food as medicine, especially as 45% of Asia Pacific consumers say health and nutrition properties are influential features (Euromonitor International’s Voice of the Consumer: Lifestyles Survey, Jan-Feb 2023).
What to expect in 2024?
- Where to play: Seeking the right channels with like-minded partners
Cost-cutting efforts have fuelled a need to seek effective ways for market entry, which includes understanding channels to provide consumers with better access and exposure to plant-based ingredients. An example is in the emerging coffee and dessert foodservice landscape - it utilises significant amounts of dairy and seeks new ways to captivate consumers.
Identifying growth opportunities through both foodservice and retail could help to bring new innovations to consumers in a more sustainable way.
- How to win: The search for emerging applications of plant-based ingredients
Brands and innovators are moving away from consumer-facing final products and towards developing plant-based fats/other commodity ingredients, alongside a deeper analysis of unique challenges and refinement techniques to address within meat, seafood, and dairy.
There is a huge need to understand the complexities of appetising, convincingly healthy and affordable products offering specific value in diverse Asian cuisines – by mapping out emerging product categories and gaining inspiration from new product development.
- How am I doing? Consolidation and volatility raise the need for brands to consistently measure performance
Given that plant-based foods have yet to carve out a sustainable place in the food industry, brands are uncertain of their future growth prospects. Creating measurable benchmarks of performance and keeping pace of competitors are essential to remain relevant and anticipate headwinds, such as pivoting to a new strategy or driving activities in a growth sector to keep afloat.
Read our article The Food Industry in the Coming Era of Food Insecurity for further analysis on sustainable food solutions, and Vegan or Plant-Based: How Non-Animal Food is Sold to understand key positioning strategies across markets.