Plant-based proteins are no longer a side dish in diets

A GOOD vegan milk needs to look like milk and taste like milk, whether it’s a fatty version, preferred by bakers, or a skimmed one, favoured by the health-conscious. And, for coffee-drinkers, it should ideally foam like the stuff from a cow. For years manufacturers have had trouble hacking this delicate imitation game. Rapidly rising revenues suggest that they are getting much better at it. In America alone, US$2.6bn of plant-based milk was sold in 2021, up from US$2bn in 2018.

Pseudo-milks are only one category in the growing assortment of passable plant-based alternatives to animal products. There are now convincing versions not just of meat but of cheese, eggs and even prawns. Burger King and McDonald’s sell vegan patties; Chipotle has made a plant-based chorizo. Last year the world’s largest producer of canned tuna, Thai Union, launched a plant-based line. Growing sales show the growing taste for this type of foodstuff. BCG, a consultancy, reckons that global revenues from alternative proteins could reach US$290bn by 2035—and that is a cautious estimate.

Eager investors have poured into the business like oatmilk into a latte. Alternative-protein companies lapped up US$5bn in investments in 2021, 60 per cent more than in 2020. Oatly, a Swedish firm that makes plant-based milk, raised US$1.4bn on its Nasdaq debut last year. Impossible Foods, which makes meatless burgers, raised US$500m in November, valuing the firm at US$7bn. In February Nestlé, a packaged-goods giant, acquired Orgain, which makes plant-based protein powder, for an undisclosed sum rumoured to be around US$2bn. Can the feast last?