Manufacturing and producing alternative proteins

Taste and texture

Along with price, taste is a top driver of consumer food choice, but many plant-based meat products still have significant progress to make in achieving the taste consumers expect. Lapsed consumers are most likely to say they stopped eating plant-based meat because they didn’t like the taste or texture or it’s too expensive. Sensory studies confirm that taste dissatisfaction is a major barrier to repeat purchase.

However, certain plant-based meat products are already achieving a sensory experience on par with consumer expectations. Consumers rate leading products in categories like plant-based chicken nuggets roughly on par with their animal-based counterparts in terms of overall liking, similarity, taste, texture, and appearance. 

Within categories, leading products capture greater market share than their competitors, demonstrating that progress in taste and texture can have real impact on consumer behavior.

Price

As of 2025, plant-based meat is 76 percent more expensive per pound than conventional meat in U.S. retail. About three in four consumers say they’re only willing to pay the same or less for plant-based meat. Narrowing the price gap between plant-based and conventional meat stands to remove a major purchase barrier for most consumers.

Health and nutrition

Delivering on consumers’ taste and price expectations is foundational to grow the plant-based meat category. Consumers also need to understand its differentiated benefits to switch.

Health is a top driver of food choice for many consumers and a key reason for them to consider plant-based meat—and GFI’s research suggests it’s also an underleveraged driver purchase interest. GFI found that consumers who associate plant-based meat with positive health attributes—like protein, fiber and gut health, low saturated fat and cholesterol, and being free of hormones and antibiotics—spend more on it, suggesting that clearer nutrition narratives can translate directly into purchasing behavior.

Awareness

Consumer awareness-building and education about plant-based meat are critical to grow the category, especially to attract new consumers and reengage lapsed consumers.

After taste, texture, and cost, lapsed consumers are mostly likely to say they stopped eating plant-based meat because they “never think about it.” Over half of plant-based meat holdouts say they’ve never tried it simply because they don’t see a reason to. In 2025, only about one in ten consumers claimed to have seen, read, or heard “a lot” about plant-based meat in the past year.

It’s clear that plant-based proteins have a foothold in the market and most consumers are open—but ultimately, they need to see and hear about these products and understand their value proposition much more than they do today to drive increased adoption. 

Our Plant Protein Primer is the go-to resource for understanding different plant-based protein sources. It includes an analysis of 19 plant protein sources with a summary comparing these sources on nutrition, functionality, price, flavor, and sourcing. For a quick glance, download the Plant Protein Landscape summary. 

View our Plant-Based Meat Manufacturing by Extrusion Guide for an overview of plant-based meat processing and directories of ingredients, pilot facilities, co-manufacturers, and related events. 

Join the thousands of people who have signed up for GFI’s massive open online course on the science of plant-based and cultivated meat. The six-session self-paced course covers the biological and chemical processes used to produce plant-based and cultivated meat, the environmental and economic drivers behind these sectors, and the dietary roles of proteins. 

Visit GFI’s in-depth pages on the science of plant-based protein, cultivated meat, and fermentation for a deep dive into these production platforms. 

Our primary consumer research and literature reviews contain insights for labeling and marketing language that appeal to consumers and drive purchase intent:

• Marketing and Promoting Plant-Based Proteins offers insights for retailer promotion as well as labeling of individual products. 
• GFI’s Retail Point-of-Purchase Motivators for Plant-Based Foods study provides effective category descriptors, product attributes, and packaging. 
• Our Strategies for Accelerating Adoption of Plant-Based Meat paper highlights evidence-based best practices for product development and messaging.

Here are three key tips for plant-based companies selling into foodservice:

Make foodservice sales sheets easily available on social media and your website. 

Emphasize the versatility of your products and show the applications and dishes they can be used for. Share data on how you can attract new customers, raise check averages, and/or lower costs. Include per-serving costs to make it easy for operators to calculate profitability.

Tasting and testing are believing. 

Do product training and tastings with your distributor sales teams and chefs. Also work with your operator prospects and partners on recipe development. Finally, partner with foodservice management companies and chef training groups like Forward Food to get your products in front of key decision makers.  

Make taste the primary message. 

Always emphasize flavor in your marketing and empower your foodservice partners to keep tastiness top-of-mind by providing image and descriptive assets they can repurpose. 

Key recommendations for effective plant-based product marketing and menu design include:

Lead with flavor.

Use indulgent language to emphasize that your product will offer familiar, craveable experiences consumers want.

Embrace the health benefits of plant-based.

Health is a key driver of interest in plant-based proteins; use health-positive language that highlights benefits, not what’s missing. These messages appeal to the nutritional halo of plant-based foods. 

Position plant-based dishes to succeed with flexitarians.

List plant-based dishes alongside other items rather than in a separate vegan/vegetarian section where they won’t be seen. 

Label dishes as “plant-based” or “plant protein.” 

Favor more inclusive terms like “plant-based” or “plant-protein” over the terms “vegan” or “vegetarian” to appeal to more consumers and increase purchase intent. 

Make plant-based options the default. 

Make protein an optional add-on and include plant-based protein offerings.