“The decline of plant-based food isn’t the end of the movement; it’s a reckoning with what today’s health-conscious consumer truly values: real, clean, balanced living.”
Rob Blackburn, Head of MacGregor Black’s Food & Drink Practice
This year, Quorn celebrates its 40th year in business. In that time it has become a master in the delivery of high-protein, low-fat meat substitutes for a growing number of health, environmental, and ethical consumers.
So much so that, like Hoover, Google or Xerox (for our American friends) before it, Quorn is a brand name so eponymous it actually overtakes the product category it sits in.
Its longevity in the market proves meat free, vegetarian and vegan diets simply cannot be dismissed as passing fads for a ‘woke generation of avocado-eating, latte-drinking, over-privileged students.’
For any business, successfully operating for 40 years is quite an achievement; to remain at the forefront in the food industry makes it even more outstanding. So we should be lauding its success.
Quorn’s Recent Struggles Reflect a Changing Market
But instead, we have to try to account for what is a well-documented decline in performance in recent years. What is going on at Quorn, and what is going on with the wider meat-free, vegan, and plant-based industries as a whole?
Well, Quorn itself attributes the wider difficulty in trading conditions we’re all experiencing. In comments from its parent company, Marlow Foods, on what was a difficult trading update in September of last year, it put its declining figures down to increased costs of producing its unique mycoprotein ‘fungus,’ which its meat substitutes are made of.
A decline in industry-wide demand for meat-free products wasn’t discussed, but there can surely be more than just coincidence that accounts for Quorn’s 8.6% fall in retail-related sales and the wider meat-free decline of 9.7% over the same 12-month period to the end of 2023.
Rival products have undoubtedly nibbled into their market share, so that may well be a factor. But equally, in recent months, there appear to be some green shoots of recovery among what many perceive to be a troubled industry.
Quorn itself, having restructured its business under new leadership, shows some promise of a return to profit. While we wait for full year figures with anticipation, there are some rumours of a profitable year based on a hugely successful final financial quarter
Meanwhile, Beyond Meat’s comeback story appears to have stalled. Once a darling of the stock market following its headline-grabbing IPO in 2019, the plant-based pioneer has struggled to maintain momentum. Despite signs of progress in 2024 after an operational overhaul, recent results tell a different story. In Q2 2025, sales dropped nearly 20% year-on-year, with revenues falling short at $75M – below even the company’s downgraded expectations. Product volumes slipped by 19%, gross profit shrank by over a third, and while operating losses narrowed slightly, net losses still came in at $33M. The business responded with a 6% workforce reduction and a brand refresh, suggesting it’s now fighting to reposition itself in an increasingly competitive and price-sensitive category.
Why Health-Conscious Consumers are Turning Away
There can, however, be no denial that the popularity of the meat-free movement is retracting. But why? According to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), meat-free demand fell again, the fourth consecutive year, while meat and dairy products, in its report from earlier this year, actually enjoyed a slight 1.4% bump in popularity.
Perhaps the way free-from and meat substitutes are produced and subsequently marketed has to shoulder some blame here. Better consumer understanding that ‘ultra-processed foods’ aren’t as good for us as natural products means many are now putting products such as Quorn in the same bracket as the fabled turkey twizzlers and dinosaur nuggets as ‘ultra-processed.’
The very products operations like Quorn may have been trying to target are now unhappy bedfellows in the list of goods health-conscious consumers simply won’t put in the shopping trolley. The irony.
It would appear, therefore, that the route to success might be more alignment with ‘clean living’ rather than promoting themselves as meat substitutes. Because we’re living cleaner, far healthier lifestyles.
British drinking culture is on the wane. According to DrinkAware, more than a fifth (21%) of young adults aged 18 to 24 say they now abstain from drinking completely. That’s up from the 14% who claimed to abstain fully in 2017.
It’s the norm to go to the gym. UK gym membership in 2024 is now at 11.4 million, a new record. At the same time, the Gym Group, one of the leading national gym chains, says a survey of its young members aged 13 to 28 showed that more than a third (37%) viewed gym attendance as a social activity, with very nearly half of them (42%) saying they’ve met and made new friends at the gym.
And with that comes the desire to fuel your body with a balanced and healthy diet.
Gone is a generation brought up on heavy drinking, late-night kebabs, and unhealthy carbs as a recovery. They are now fuelling pre- and post-gym workouts with intelligent decision-making on just how much of the right levels of red and white meat and fish should be healthily consumed. Vegan, vegetarian, meat-free, and plant-based options have a justified place at the table here.
We went years being told meat substitutes would save us and the planet. While it remains true, a fresh understanding of how to fuel ourselves properly means those looking to lead far healthier lifestyles than their parents may have at a young age means moderate intake of meat products is once again a widely accepted part of a healthy, balanced diet.
The Future of Meat Free Depends on Finding the Right Balance
For environmental and ethical reasons, as well as health benefits, the meat/no meat debate remains a contentious issue for many, so we’ll certainly be making no definitive calls on what the ‘right’ approach is here. There are people far more qualified than us to hold such positions and who will argue passionately for both sides.
And let’s not kid ourselves, the meat-free and meat substitute market was still valued at more than £1.1 billion in 2024 alone. There remains a healthy market demand for the right product at the right price.
Retractions in the plant-based and meat-free markets are showing signs of flattening out. Beyond Meat’s return to profit, as exemplified earlier, may show enough signs that the pendulum for some of the biggest players in the market is simply starting to find its natural gravity. It’s up to them to now respond and find what might be a new, in-demand position in the marketplace.
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