Appetite for plant-based foods growing

foods, said Michele Simon, executive director of PBFA. Consumers are mixing and matching meat and meatless options into their diets.

“The plant-based foods industry has gone from being a relatively niche market to fully mainstream,” Simon said in a statement. “Plant-based meat and dairy alternatives are not just for vegetarians or vegans anymore.”

Packaged-food companies that have struggled to grow sales of their traditional products are investing in fast-growing, plant-based products. 301 Inc., the venture arm of General Mills, has invested in three companies in the plant-based protein space: No Cow, Kite Hill and Beyond Meat. Cargill Inc., one of the world’s largest sellers of beef, formed a joint venture with Puris, which makes pea protein. And Hormel Foods Corp. offers a plant-based protein-shake product under the Evolve brand.

At $1.6 billion, milk alternatives, such as soy or almond, account for about half of all plant-based sales, which topped $3.3 billion last year.

With a seemingly endless stream of new sources — such as oats, hemp or peas — plant-based milks grew another 9 percent last year and now constitute 15 percent of all milk sales. By contrast, traditional cow’s milk sales were down 6 percent last year, spurring the dairy industry to seek intervention from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Two weeks ago, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced his agency would spend the next year gathering and reviewing input and research on dairy alternatives.

“We want to see if inherent nutritional characteristics and other differences between these products are well-understood by consumers when making dietary choices for themselves and their families,” Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb commended the food industry for its innovation in developing new products that respond to consumers’ quest for healthier options, but he tempered that by questioning if consumers are getting the protein levels and added vitamins they assume.

Addressing these and other efforts to regulate plantbased product terms, Simon of PBFA said, “It is important that regulators and legislators treat our industry fairly, and the playing field for plantbased foods is level and fair at the state and national levels.”