A supermarket shelf with vegetarian products
Photo: Daniel Bockwoldt / DPAThe food manufacturers Rügenwalder Mühle and Wiesenhof say they are benefiting from the growing demand for meat-free products. In the first half of the year, sales of meat-free products rose by 50 percent, according to Rügenwalder Mühle in Bad Zwischenahn. For some of the products, sales have even doubled.
The Rügenwalder Mühle is the market leader in meat alternatives in Germany - with a market share of around 40 percent, reports the "Handelsblatt" with reference to the market researcher IRI. Sales in the vegetarian and vegan range at competitor Wiesenhof have also been developing very well since January, a spokeswoman said: "The Bruzzler Veggie, for example, is clearly up on the previous year with sales growth of over 44 percent."
The market for vegetarian and vegan foods is currently developing from a niche towards the mainstream, said a spokesman for the ProVeg association, Alex Grömmiger. The association predicts that sales of vegetable sausage and meat alternatives will increase by double-digit growth rates in the coming years. "There is now an insane growth. And there is no food manufacturer that does not take up the topic," said Rügenwalder manager Godo Röben. Every supplier and every machine manufacturer adjust to this market change.
In absolute terms, however, vegan substitute products are still in the niche. According to ProVeg, the largest market in Germany so far is plant-based milk alternatives. Its share is estimated at around ten percent, with a strong upward trend. The market share of vegetable sausage and meat alternatives is still lower.
However, the ecological balance of these alternatives has so far been clouded by the fact that the soy plants required for this are often imported from South America and a lot of rainforest is cleared for cultivation there. From the point of view of the Association for Alternative Protein Sources (BalPro), an advocacy group of around 70 companies from the food industry, the cultivation of protein crops should therefore be regionalized more strongly. For example, the cultivation of soy still only plays a minor role in Germany.
Icon: The mirrorcaw / dpa / dpa-AFX
