Sales of meat substitute products in Finland are decreasing and do not appear to be of as much interest to consumers as before.
Most meat analogues are derived from beans, dairy, mushrooms, fruit and/or grains. Since they first emerged, oat-based meat replacement products, for example, have become common on restaurant menus and in supermarkets across the country.
But over the past year, sales of meat substitutes at grocery stores run by retail giant Kesko have fallen by just over 10 percent. A similar decrease has been observed at S-Group supermarkets.
S-Group sales manager Juha Nieminen said he thinks the decrease is due to consumers aiming to save money, noting that meat replacements can themselves be substituted with more affordable proteins like beans, soybean meal or other ingredients.
Nieminen said that because of a decline in purchasing power, shoppers are also choosing cheaper alternatives in other food categories.
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However, Kesko's sales and purchasing chief, Janne Vuorinen, thinks there's another reason for the dropoff in meat substitute sales — the novelty has worn off.
"There are always people willing to try new products, but not as many to keep buying them," he suggested.
The situation is different at Lidl supermarkets, however. Sales of meat substitute products are up because the no-frills chain recently expanded its meat substitute product range. At the same time, Lidl has also observed increased sales of tofu, bean, lentil and soy meal products.
In November, Lidl carried out a customer survey, and found that fewer of them are planning to buy a Christmas ham this year.
In 2022, 84 percent of customers were planning to have a holiday ham but this year that proportion dropped to 81 percent. About 15 percent of the respondents said they planned to buy less ham than they have before.
In a press release about the survey, Lidl purchasing director Thomas Heinrichs said that although ham still plays an important role during Christmas dinners, people are not necessarily eating leftovers for days on end.
"A smaller piece is enough to maintain the ham tradition," he said in the release, adding that people seem to be paying more attention to the amount of meat they are consuming.
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