Marketing: New Product Development and Promotion | Time for More Taste Testing?

Better taste and texture should be on the menu for plant-based food makers if they are to take advantage of growth opportunities.

This article in Grocery Gazette reports on new market research which suggests that fear of the taste of plant-based foods is a barrier to purchase for more than a quarter of the UK population.

Although 52% of us have sampled a meat-free product, 26% said they would buy more meat-free products if they could trust that they had good quality taste and texture.

The UK vegan food market is currently worth around £531 million and is very much in the growth stage of the product life cycle.

In the last two years alone, the number of plant-based shoppers has increased by 6.5%.

However, it looks like demand could increase even faster if food manufacturers can tackle the taste and texture issues which prevent around one in five shoppers from buying more plant-based products.

Over to the new product development teams, and then the marketing teams to set up those tasting kiosks in busy supermarkets.