Plant-based meat market, consumer perception and factors affecting their decisions

Abstract

Plant based meat is the product designed to imitate meat. The market is expected to grow at a rate of 12% CAGR for the next five years. The major drivers for the it are increasing health consciousness as consumers want to know what they are taking in their body, rising awareness about negative environmental impact due the GHGs emissions, more number of people turning vegan and high demand of quality & nutrient rich food to feed the increasing population. We tried to understand the plant-based meat market & consumer perception in India. The methodology for the study includes secondary research involving literature review on the growth drivers, plant-based meat market and consumer behaviour in other countries. The primary research involved three focused group discussions and two interviews in the qualitative research component and a survey for the quantitative research. According to our findings, there is 70% awareness about the plant-based meat but the only 15% of them has tried it. However, none of them were regular consumers. The plant-based meat industry is at nascent stage in India, thus, there is a huge scope to serve the customers of this segment. Additionally, the number of people who want to try is high, but availability is the major constraint. The various attributes considered important by the customers were taste and texture & nutritional value as the top two, followed by health benefits/ concerns and animal welfare respectively. There are different needs for the vegetarians and non-vegetarians to accept plant-based meat in their diets. While the non-vegetarians go for the taste & texture, the vegetarians are attracted by the nutritional aspect of it. Most of the customers were ready to pay prices for plant-based meat similar to that of conventional meat because they considered it as a substitute and were not willing to pay premium prices. The challenges lie ahead in terms of food regulation guidelines. Since, the sample size of the study was limited to our peer group, we were not able to know the insights & perceptions of other age groups. There need to be separate strategies for the vegetarian and non-vegetarian customers followed by further scope to study 4Ps in the segment.