As the plant-based meat and dairy markets explode, Ben Cooper sets out why food companies must ensure products deliver on nutritional value.
Replacing meat with plant-based protein is incontestably beneficial to human health but that is not to say every plant-based alternative can be considered “healthy”.
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In an ideal world, this would be so but, if the world were perfect everybody would already have perfect diets which, as food industry executives are all too often reminded, they do not.
Achieving the now often coined environmental and health “win-win” of dramatically reducing livestock farming for the sake of the planet and meat consumption for the sake of our health depends on the food industry successfully converting plant-based protein from niche market to mainstream food category.
Health considerations drive growth
The recent strong growth in plant-based protein alternatives to meat and dairy shows this evolution is underway and market research identifies health factors as an important driver of consumer uptake.
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By GlobalData“When it comes to plant-based foods, consumers are primarily motivated by flavour and taste and health and wellness,” says Dr Sarah Marion, director of syndicated research at US research firm Hartman Group. “Animal welfare and sustainability play an important role, but are secondary factors for most current consumers of meat and dairy alternatives.”
In a Hartman Group survey, 33% of consumers cited liking the taste as the most important motivation for buying plant-based meat alternatives. Seeking more variety in the diet was cited by 25% of respondents while health and wellness attributes, such as low fat or salt, or avoiding ingredients found in meat products they perceive as unhealthy, such as antibiotics and hormones, were the most important factor for 24% of the poll. Animal welfare and environmental motivations were a lower priority registering 18% and 16% respectively.
The precise balance between these factors may vary between markets and by demographic but health and wellness will be a consistently significant driver. Moreover, Dr Marion adds while consumer adoption of plant-based products typically rests on health considerations and liking the taste, health is particularly important in triggering initial trial.
By extension, health is a particularly strong motivation for the important “flexitarian” market. Growing numbers of consumers looking only to cut down on meat have been a major factor in the growth of the plant-based protein sector.
Low-meat consumers, including flexitarians, now represent 22% of the global population according to the GlobalData 2018 Q4 global consumer survey. Veganism has been growing too but vegetarianism and veganism combined only represent 4% of the population in Europe versus 19% for those following a low-meat diet, and 7% versus 16% in North America.
The generally strong awareness of the health benefits of plant-based protein represents a powerful advantage for the sector. However, if the claims are debatable the consumer is not only short-changed nutritionally but, as has been seen before when ethical or health claims are revealed as exaggerated or false, resulting bad publicity risks tarnishing an entire category.
Primary areas of concern
Concern and debate regarding the nutritional value of plant-based protein products has centred primarily on levels of salt and fat. Research into salt levels in the UK and most recently in Australia has revealed high levels of sodium in many plant-based meat alternatives, while the new generation of meat analogues, led by the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, has been criticised for high levels of salt and fat. Meanwhile, there are concerns over the nutritional value of some plant-based dairy alternatives, particularly with regard to child nutrition.
Impossible Foods’ use of soy leghemoglobin to mimic crucial meat characteristics has also been a subject of intense scrutiny and controversy even though it has been certified as “generally recognised as safe” (GRAS) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The creation and development of new novel ingredients of this kind is likely to lead to further health debates as the plant-based protein sector grows and innovation continues.
As processed food products, particularly as they aim to adapt how a food group is consumed and what it can provide to consumers, plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy may be exposed to the criticism of being over-processed. Meanwhile, the use of multiple ingredients to make the necessary adaptations possible may also lead to “clean label” issues. These issues can clearly be seen in the debate surrounding the Impossible Burger and are likely to remain concerns plant-based protein manufacturers will have to respond to.
Regarding salt levels, a report published earlier this month in Australia by the George Institute for Global Health, VicHealth and the Heart Foundation, revealed high levels of salt in plant-based meat substitutes, mirroring similar findings in a report from pressure group Action on Salt in the UK a year ago. Analysing salt levels in some 560 meat alternatives between 2010 and 2019, the Australian study found meat-free bacon had the highest average salt content at 2g per 100g, more than a third of the recommended daily intake, followed by meat-free sausages with 1.3g per 100g.
The organisations behind the report are lobbying government to set sodium reduction targets for meat alternatives but are critical of the food sector for failing to make progress. There has been a 153% increase in the number of meat-free alternative products from 2010 to 2019, the report states, and no reduction in average sodium content over that time.
While the report shows average sodium levels for meat-free sausages, burgers and bacon are all lower than their meat equivalents, Clare Farrand, senior public health nutritionist at the George Institute and the report’s lead author, says the variation in salt content within the plant-based category is more significant. “What is most important is that some manufacturers are producing these products with much less salt so there’s no need for there to be that much salt in the product in the first place. If some manufacturers, can do it, others can do the same.”
“It is great the market is expanding but in general salt levels aren’t low enough to class them as healthy products”
Nevertheless, Farrand welcomes the new product activity in the plant-based protein area and acknowledges its contribution in shifting diets away from meat, a view shared by Mhairi Brown, nutrition policy coordinator at Action on Salt. “It is great that the market is expanding but in general what we’re seeing is that salt levels aren’t low enough to class them as healthy products,” Brown says.
Plant-based foods as “gateway foods”
For Michele Simon, executive director of US trade body The Plant-based Foods Association (PFBA), the suggestion all plant-based protein products should strive for the lowest levels of salt and fat ignores a very important strategic issue for the category, namely providing “transition foods or gateway foods” into a plant-based diet, which is a matter of huge significance to wider global aims.
“In order for people to want to reduce their meat consumption you have to make it palatable,” Simon says. “You have to give them a similar experience that they’re used to. There’s nothing new in calling for meat reduction. We’ve been doing it for decades by recommending beans and salads and quinoa. Unfortunately most people aren’t willing to eat a diet based on those very healthy foods.
“We have to help people along with what they’re used to. It’s a way to get people into a plant-based way of eating that they can understand, that is acceptable, that doesn’t require sacrifice. This is the most important thing. It has to be enjoyable. They can’t feel like they’re eating rabbit food. That is just reality.”
The Hartman Group survey data appears to support this approach, with taste and flavour nine percentage points higher than health considerations in terms of consumer priorities.
However, Nestlé emphasises the need to meet both taste expectations and achieve favourable nutritional comparisons. The latest version of Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet Incredible Burger contains 13.3g fat per 100g, as well as 3.8g fibre and 14g of protein. “In the case of fibre, the Garden Gourmet products provide a beneficial nutrient that is not present in beef or pork,” a Nestle spokesperson on plant-based foods points out. “We have worked hard to make sure our products compare favourably in terms of nutrition and the Incredible Burger and Mince have both been assessed as Nutri-score A.” Nutri-score is a nutrition label selected by the French government in March 2017 and is being used voluntarily in France and certain other western European markets.
Front-of-pack nutritional labelling should provide some insurance against consumers unwittingly buying products containing high levels of salt or fat in the mistaken belief they are healthy. Nestle points out its Incredible Burger and Mince both have an A rating in the Nutri-score system, with 13.3g fat per 100g, along with 3.8g of fibre and 14g of complete protein.
A “health halo”
However, The George Institute’s Farrand has concerns. “We do need to be careful because these products potentially do have this health halo and it may trigger consumers to automatically associate that these products are healthy for them and therefore not check the label, and realise there is actually a healthier version of this exact type of product on the market,” she says.
Criticisms raised by health campaigners are based only on the nutritional value of plant-based protein products. However, there are some who believe the value of plant-based food has to be seen in the context of its combined health and environmental benefits. Referring to Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat specifically, Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says: “These are not health foods. That said, there is our own personal health and the health of the planet and I don’t think we can separate the two.”
At the PFBA, Simon makes the same point, only rather more forcefully in robust defence of the category and her member companies. “The critiques I’ve seen are extremely over-simplistic and reductionist to the point of absurdity. So, if you’re just going to compare nutrition facts that seems like a very narrow view of things. First of all, there are a variety of options out there on the market, some have lower sodium, some have higher,” Simon tells just-food.
“Health means far more than just nutrition. Health means the destruction industrialised meat production causes”
“But it is, to me, such a minor issue compared to the disaster that is industrialised beef production in particular, and meat production overall. We can’t just narrowly define health or think about the comparison in such a narrow way because health means far more than just nutrition. Health means antibiotics and water run-off and the whole host of environmental factors and destruction that industrialised meat production causes.”
Simon also gives short shrift to suggestions the variable nutritional content of plant-based milks, notably the deficiencies in calcium and Vitamin D, could pose a risk to children if their parents do not understand some may not provide necessary nutrients and these will have to be obtained from other sources.
Simon contends health debates in relation to the nutritional content of plant-based alternatives are being stoked up by the dairy and meat lobbies. The use of traditional dairy terms like milk and cheese in the labelling of plant-based products was the subject of an extensive consultation by the US FDA, and the dairy sector has been lobbying hard for the terms to be restricted to the dairy market. In its submission, CSPI argued against this but did recommend plant-based alternatives carry a warning if they are not a nutritionally suitable replacement for milk for children.
The future – life in the mainstream
Concerns relating to the nutritional profile of plant-based foods ultimately come down to transparency and responsible marketing.
If consumers are fully aware of the nutritional value of the products, there is no misleading halo. However, this is also a function of so many new consumers moving towards a plant-based food diet and therefore is likely to continue to be an issue as plant-based becomes increasingly mainstream.
The fact that scaling down animal agriculture is critical in battling climate change and reducing red meat consumption vital in addressing an escalating global health crisis makes the switch to plant-based protein an environmental and health “win-win”, but also makes the successful development of the plant-based sector a matter of vital global significance. Anything that threatens to hamper the growth of the category must be judged in that context.
