The plant-based meal category, comprising frozen and shelf-stable meals, is worth USD377m and dollar sales of plant-based meals grew 8% in the past year and 25% over the past two years, according to a recent report by The Good Food Institute.
Furthermore, frozen plant-based meat accounts for 66% of all plant-based meat dollar sales, while refrigerated plant-based meat accounts for 33% and shelf-stable plant-based meat accounts for just 1%. Dollar sales of refrigerated plant-based meat grew 63% over the past year, much more rapidly than dollar sales of frozen plant-based meat, which grew just 4%. Over the past two years, dollar sales of refrigerated plant-based meat grew 125%, while dollar sales of frozen plant-based meat grew 15%. According to the report, this reflects a shift in both product innovation and merchandising strategies, with refrigerated plant-based meat increasingly shelved in the refrigerated meat case.
The top-selling forms of plant-based meat are burgers, followed by links (sausages and hot dogs), and then patties (chicken patties and breakfast patties). Sales of burgers reached USD283m; sales of links reached USD159m and sales of patties reached USD120m.
Lastly, the report also compared the refrigerated versus frozen dynamic among plant-based meat product types. As such, refrigerated plant-based burgers grew 123% over the past year and a massive 555% over the past two years, while frozen plant-based burger growth declined by 4% over the past year and grew at only 1% over the past 2 years.