Is plant-based becoming the new normal?

In the last decade there has been a global rise in interest in vegan or plant-based diets. Donovan Will, director of ProVeg South Africa looks at this increase in popularity and the current trends in plant-based meat products.

Boerewors and biltong; two South African culinary staples that epitomise our country’s love for meat. Surprisingly, these two products might also be South Africa’s biggest opportunity to make waves in the fast-growing plant-based food sector.

There has been a global increase in interest in vegan or plant-based diets, driven by consumer demand for healthier, more sustainable and ethical food choices. Even in South Africa, most people will know of at least one vegetarian, or even vegan. From a food industry point of view, things are significantly more nuanced than labelling consumers into such definitive categories - and nowhere is this more clearer than the market for plant-based meat alternatives. Burgers and sausages made from plant-based options like textured soy protein have been on the market for decades, providing a meat-like offering for vegetarians - the big shift in recent times has been two-fold. Firstly, there has been a significant improvement in the quality of these products and this has meant that in many cases they are now indifferentiable from their meat counterparts. Secondly, and more interestingly for the food industry, demand for these products is now being driven by flexitarians, who are consumers that are choosing to eat less meat and other animal products, but who do not cut these products out completely from their diets like vegetarians or vegans.

According to Donovan Will, the director of ProVeg South Africa (the local chapter of global food awareness organisation ProVeg International), these replacement products are a useful tool for anyone who wants to eat more plant-based, but battles with the idea of cutting back on the foods they have grown up with. “One of the primary reasons people battle to eat less meat or dairy is that they simply love the taste, so if food producers can offer products that provide the same taste and texture as meat, milk and cheese - just made from plants - then the research shows that they will move towards these options,” explains Will.

Will stresses that not all plant-based replacements are created equal, which is why ProVeg South Africa regularly highlights the options they believe South African businesses should use as benchmarks if they are looking to enter this space. “It’s vital for manufacturers and food service outlets to understand that they can no longer just make a product that is plantbased and expect vegetarian customers to be happy that they have an option. These options need to look and taste great, and need to be good enough for the nonvegetarian market too,” says Will.

The ProVeg top meat replacement list is surprisingly long, and features products from over 14 companies, and includes everything from chicken and beef replacements. This list includes new options like On The Greenside Flamed Grilled Tender Fillets and Herbivore’s new pea protein burger to more surprising options like FishStyle Fillets and Boerewors from South Africa’s leading meat replacement brand Fry’s, and even vegan biltong from Joburgbased Herbi Vohr.

On the milk alternative side, the options are even more surprising. In August 2020, the ProVeg South Africa team catalogued and tasted over 80 plant-based milk alternatives available in South Africa, and the list has been growing since then.

Finding plant-based alternatives for the F&B industry is a fast-growing industry that doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. We will be featuring regular articles from ProVeg South Africa exploring the innovations in the plant-based alternatives field in each issue of Food Review. Make sure to look out for it! •