DSM Food Specialties asked Trendata for insight into the US meat substitute, vegetarian and vegan market.
DSM Food Specialties supplies enzymes, cultures and probiotics to the food and beverage industry worldwide. The company believes food should be healthier, tastier and more sustainable. Plant-based food is therefore a market it has reason to understand.
DSM asked Trendata to provide insight into the entire meat substitute, vegetarian and vegan industry in the United States. This story first appeared on our blog in 2023. The findings belong to that market and that period. DSM and Firmenich completed their merger in May 2023, forming dsm-firmenich.
The question behind the analysis
One question ran through the work. Is the idea that meat should come from an actual animal still a contemporary thought?
The question matters for a supplier to the food industry. It touches how consumers define meat, and how far they accept alternatives.
Interviews can explore that directly, but people may answer differently than they behave. Studying what people look for offers another angle.
Monitoring market demand in meat replacement, vegetarian and vegan products
Trendata monitored market demand across these three connected areas. The analysis covered the US market, and looked at search behaviour as a signal of what people were looking into. That gave DSM an outside view of the market.
What the analysis showed DSM
The analysis gave DSM three insights:
- Which meat US consumers most wanted to replace. Demand signals showed which type of meat people most wanted an alternative for.
- A strong rise in interest in plant-based food. Interest in this area had clearly increased.
- People's expectations of meat. The thought that meat should come from an animal did not result in any active search queries.
The original story did not name that type of meat, and it did not include the underlying figures. We therefore publish these findings without them.
How to read these findings
Each finding has a limit worth stating.
The first shows where people looked for replacement. It does not show what they eventually bought, or how often. Orientation and sales are different things.
The second describes interest in plant-based food in the US at the time. It is no statement about current demand, or about other countries.
The third needs the most care. People may simply not search for something they take for granted.
So the absence of such queries does not prove that consumers had dropped the idea. It does show that this thought was not something people actively looked into.
What this kind of insight can inform
We do not describe here which decisions DSM took. For companies in a similar position, market insight of this kind can feed several questions:
- Which meat categories deserve development attention first?
- Which applications are likely to matter for customers in the food industry?
- How should a supplier talk about plant-based products with those customers?
Results depend on the company, the market and the moment. This case shows one application of the method, and promises no outcome for another company.
Reading a market before you move
The DSM story illustrates a broader point. A manufacturer sees its own orders and its customers' plans. It sees less of how end consumers are starting to think about a category. That part of the market forms outside the company.
Today we call this field Demand Intelligence: the structured understanding of how market demand forms, changes and is expected to develop. Customer needs are one of its three perspectives, next to market demand and brand position.
For any team facing a plant-based or similar category decision, one question comes first. Do you know how demand in that category is developing, at the level where you actually make choices?
