Page 30 - Food & Drink Magazine April 2021

PLANT-BASED SECTOR
Industry report:
Plant-based meat
market in Australia
The sale of plant-based meat increased by 46 per cent in Australia in the last financial year, but the economic opportunities of the local plant-based market remain largely untapped. Kim Berry takes a look at the state of the industry.
THE 2020 State of the Industry report from alternative protein think tank Food Frontier found that from FY19 to FY20, the Australian plant-based meat sector doubled its manufacturing revenue, workforce, and number of products on retail shelves.
Food Frontier CEO Thomas King tells Food & Drink Business in headline terms the data correlates to that of one third of Australians trying to limit their meat consumption.
“Those consumers and flexitarians want the familiarity and convenience of a burger for the barbecue or mince for the Bolognese, while others still favour more traditional plant- based options like tofu for the stir-fry or lentils for the burger.”
At the Food Agility Summit in March, Woolworths Group chair Gordon Cairns said the retailer saw a 60 per cent increase in plant-based protein sales in 2020.
This growth is reflected in the Australian plant-based meat sector’s manufacturing revenue, which nearly doubled from $35.2 million in FY19 to $69.9 million in FY20.
Employment increased
106 per cent from 265 to 547 people. That is 246 direct full-time equivalent (FTE) roles (up 137 per cent) and 301 extra indirect FTEs, an increase of 87 per cent, which relates to the sector’s purchase of up-stream inputs.
Average wages in the sector fell from $94,000 to $73,000,
reflecting the employment of more production workers as output increases.
With such rapid growth, King says governments need to support investment in R&D and infrastructure for the industry, as well as evidence-based regulation to ensure an even playing field for new players.
Fifteen years ago, ProForm Foods founder Stephen Dunn saw what is now obvious to all – the issue of feeding a global population with finite resources and space. A pioneer in the Australian plant-based industry, Dunn initially worked with CSIRO on developing technology to produce plant-based meat on a commercial scale.
His son and now CEO of ProForm Matt Dunn tells Food & Drink Business while his father was talking about global food supply in 2005, “it was only about four years ago we started to see the groundswell for plant-based foods in Australia take off ”.
THE DRIVERS
Food Frontier head of industry engagement Karen Job tells Food & Drink Business there are numerous reasons for plant- based growth, including consumer motivation.
“A primary motivator is health, but also ethics around
caring for the environment and animal welfare. But there is a bigger, more over-arching need for this,” Job said.
In 2019, EAT-Lancet Commission reported on the findings of 37 scientists who had spent three years analysing the best available data to form a global ‘planetary health’ diet. They took into account environmental sustainability, human health and food security.
Its findings recommended a 50 per cent global reduction in meat by 2050 and more than doubling the consumption of protein from pulses and grains.
“There is plenty of research from experts as well as the Lancet study that have shown there will simply be not enough animal protein to feed the population in 30 years’ time.
“It’s the need for plant-based protein that means this isn’t a fad, it is not a trend, it is so much more than that. This is an absolute necessity for feeding humanity on the planet and I don’t say that lightly,” Job says.
Pure Foods Tasmania has acquired two plant-based protein businesses in the last 12 months. CEO Michael Cooper tells Food & Drink Business the company’s goal is to earning more than $100 million revenue in five years by offering a range
30 | Food&Drink business | April 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au