Brand Review Meat substitutes: which brand claims strongest position among meat substitutes?

Brandreview provides strategic insight into the positions brands occupy in the minds of consumers. In this brand review, we take a closer look at the meat substitute industry, where the mental market position was mapped for 10 of the most frequently mentioned meat substitute brands.

The purpose of the study is to identify consumer needs and perspectives. What do consumers base their choices on when buying meat substitutes? Validators came up with 13 key needs and/or situations (Category Entry Points) for choosing a meat substitute. Brandreview is part of the Consumer Behavior Monitor, initiative of Validators and VU Amsterdam to measure the effect of a crisis on consumer behavior since 2020. In this article you can read the main outcomes.

New insights needed to re-grow meat substitutes market

Compared to other industries, the relevance for the meat substitutes category is not very high (yet). Also due to the recent decline in volume and sales of the meat substitutes market after years of growth, the category cries out for new insights.

The range of meat alternatives continues to grow, but this is no longer driving sales growth. The same applies to the use of promotions. Until 2020, this drove growth, but that is no longer the case. The increase in recent years was partly due to the pandemic, as consumers became more health-conscious, ate less meat, and sought healthier alternatives—namely, meat alternatives. Physical availability also played a role. Because the hospitality industry remained closed due to COVID-19 measures and people were doing more grocery shopping, sales of meat alternatives increased.

Figure 1: Volume growth of meat substitutes flattens out

Women more interested in meat substitutes than men

The Brand Review shows that the relevance for meat substitutes is a lot lower compared to other industries, but also that there are big differences in consumer needs in this between men and women as well. The chart below shows the two most relevant and two least relevant needs/situations.

Figure 2: Top 2 CEPs with highest and lowest relevance

'For dinner' is the most important situation for buying meat substitutes, half of those surveyed consider this the most relevant CEP. In addition, 49% say they sometimes buy meat substitutes just to try it out. Interestingly, women find this more relevant than men (59% versus 39%). Not only on this CEP do we see a big difference between men and women, across all CEPs there is a higher relevance for this category for women than for men. These insights indicate that there is still a lot of growth potential and hooks for marketers to capitalize on.

As indicated earlier, the use of promotions no longer boosts the market. This is also reflected in the results of the CEPs "offer" and "cheaper than meat" (24%), meat substitutes are bought the least because of the latter CEP. Besides the fact that offers are frequent, many meat substitutes tend to be more expensive than their animal counterparts. But price thus plays the least relevant role in the purchasing process. Buying meat substitutes for a partner also emerges as a least relevant reason (28%). This is a striking percentage, since 47% of the target group does buy it for themselves.

Meat substitutes are more prevalent among the younger age group (18-34)

In addition, we also see a difference between age groups. Among young people aged 18–34, two-thirds (67%) say they buy meat substitutes to try them out. This percentage is significantly lower among those aged 35–54 (50%) and those aged 55 and older (33%). Across all CEPs, the relevance is higher for the younger age group compared to the two older age groups. The same findings also emerge from a similar study by McKinsey in other EU countries.

Figure 3: Change in eating habits during corona across generations

Market shares in meat substitutes industry

Figure 4 shows that The Vegetarian Butcher claims leadership, but is closely followed by competitor Valess. The Vegetarian Butcher is both the most bought and the most thought of among those surveyed. For both De Vegetarische Slager and Valess, they are bought more than thought of, The mental market share is lower than the real market share. This often creates a vulnerable position. As soon as one brand is more top-of-mind with consumers, the other brand will start losing share. Albert Heijn's own brand is nicely balanced - its mental market share is almost the same as its real market share - and thus manages to keep consumers loyal. If we look at the Naturli and Boon brands, we see that they are thought of just a bit more, although generally low, than bought. This may have to do with physical barriers, such as in-store availability.

Figure 4: Mental versus real market share of meat substitutes

The power of the slogan and the DBAs

If we look at the market shares of the meat substitutes brands, we see the power of the slogan and Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs) reflected in the mental market shares. The Valess brand, with its slogan 'Incredibly delicious and vegetarian', performs above average on the CEP 'delicious'. The Beyond Meat brand, identified by its green logo with a white bull wearing a cape, scores above average on the CEPs 'environment' and 'animal welfare'.

Private label AH large mental market share on CEP 'cheaper than meat'

Figure 5 clearly shows that for Albert Heijn's own-brand meat substitutes, the CEP "cheaper than meat" is strongly established in consumers' brains.

Figure 5: CEP 'Cheaper than meat'

Competition

The various CEPs measure the number of brands being considered. If many brands are considered in a category, competition is greater. The number of competitors within the meat substitutes industry ranges from 3.2 to 4.5. In terms of ROI, it can make quite a difference in which need you want to grow. For example, the least competition is on "monthly" and the most competition is on "animal welfare. As a new meat substitutes brand, it is wise to pay attention to the relevant CEPs where there are still relatively few competitors.

Structure Brand Review

In 2018, VU Amsterdam and Validators launched the Institute for Brand Analytics. The goal of this collaboration is to make brands steerable and market share measurable in the minds of consumers. After four years of research on over 300 brands, we arrived at a method that could measure the strength of brands and make predictions about market share. Starting in August, a specific industry will run each month as part of the Consumer Behavior Monitor. First, an online qualitative preliminary survey tests consumer needs (CEPs) and then a Brand Review measurement.