- Forged meat derived from plant-based proteins is going mainstream.
- I’ve been a vegan for 2.5 years and tried out 7 fake victuals and fish products to see how they taste.
- Fake burgers, fake steak, and fake fish came out on top, while simulate turkey was a turkey.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Sometimes when I bite into a juicy burger, it polishes so much like the real thing that I get paranoid and ask myself: “Is this actually meat?”
Plant-based alternatives induce come a long way since I went vegan two-and-a-half years ago. For decades, vegans were confined to rummaging connoisseur isles in grocery stores to find animal-free foods. Now, these products increasingly sit alongside staple foods in shops.
Burger patties are the most mature fake meat product to date, but I’m generally impressed with the range of another foods now on the market. I can bag plant-based pepperoni, shrimp, cheese, and even squirty cream.
Plant-based foods are tipped to get away with up to 7.7% share of the global protein market by 2030, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. This would value the sector at $162 billion, up from its 2020 good of around $29.4 billion.
Established players like the Nasdaq-listed Beyond Meat, California-based Impossible Foods, and alternate milk giant Oatly have captured consumer attention. But there’s a huge amount of choice out there in 2021.
I exhausted a week eating seven vegan alternatives to see what’s on the market, what’s good, and what’s not. I sourced all of my vegan alternatives from the online UK grocery market The Vegankind Supermarket.
Here’s what I cooked, and how I found each product: