Plant & Cultured Cell-Based Meat Alternatives: United States

Plant & Cultured Cell-Based Meat Alternatives: United States

This report forecasts for 2025-2029 US plant-based meat sales in nominal US dollars. Total sales are segmented by type in terms of: beef; chicken; pork; veggie/fruit specified (such as black bean burger); non-specified meat (e.g., vegetarian hot dogs/links that do not specify an animal name such as pork, beef, or chicken); turkey; seafood; and other meat such as products that imitate the meat of animals such as duck, rabbit, lamb, and goat.

To illustrate historical trends, total plant-based meat sales are provided for 2018-2024.

Plant-based meat alternatives within the scope of this report include those that use plant proteins to attempt to replicate the flavors, functions, and/or textures of meat. These products' naming and advertising conventions often incorporate terms such as: plant-based meat, vegetarian/vegan meat, meatless meat, and words that are clearly altered forms of the names of the meat products that they are imitating (e.g., chick'n, saus'ge).

Similar products made with mushroom or algae proteins are also counted as plant-based meat alternatives in this report because they have the same function and similar processing methods. Additionally, many consumers consider mushrooms and algae to be plants even though they are technically not classified this way (mushrooms are fungi, some organisms called algae such as kelp and seaweed are protists).

Although tofu, tempeh, and seitan may be used as meat substitutes by some consumers, they are excluded from the scope of this report unless sold in a meat form or are otherwise specifically imitating meat. In other words, a vegetarian or vegan version of an animal product made with these ingredients (e.g., Tofurky plant-based roast, which is made from tofu and specifically imitates turkey) is included, but packages of tofu are not.

Similarly, plant-based meals or prepared foods that contain plant-based meat alternatives (e.g., frozen meals, pizza, burritos) are not included in this report because they also incorporate numerous ingredients/components that are not plant-based meat alternatives.

Additionally, this report examines the uncertain landscape for cell-cultured (or cultivated, lab-grown) meat products. Cell-cultured meat, poultry, and seafood products may go by many names in corporate and consumer culture, including "cultivated", "cultured", "lab-created", "lab-grown", "cell-based", "slaughter-free", "cruelty-free", "clean", "in vitro", and "synthetic" meat.

Retail sales in this report include sales through consumer retail channels such as: grocery stores and supermarkets (e.g., Albertsons, Giant Eagle, Kroger, Publix, Safeway, local grocers); mass merchandisers (e.g., Walmart, Target, Meijer); specialty grocery stores (e.g., Whole Foods, Sprouts, Trader Joe's); wholesale clubs (e.g., Costco, Sam's Club, BJ's); discount grocers (e.g., ALDI, Save-a-Lot); and apps and websites (e.g., Amazon, Thrive Market, Walmart.com, Kroger.com, Instacart).

A full outline of report items by page is available in the Table of Contents.

Related NAICS Codes:

• 111411 Mushroom Production
• 112519 Other Aquaculture
• 311612 Meat Processed From Carcasses
• 311615 Poultry Processing
• 311710 Seafood Product Preparation and Packaging
• 424470 Meat and Meat Product Merchant Wholesalers
• 445110 Supermarkets and Other Grocery (except Convenience) Stores
• 445210 Meat Markets