Meat Alternative? Customer Intelligence on Your Target Market

With veganism on the rise, more and more shoppers are delving into the healthy, eco-conscious, and premium products that are coming from vegan brands. In fact, our recent vegan study revealed that 75% of the people buying vegan products claimed to also eat meat and fish. And only 12% of people who bought vegan products identified as vegans.

One of the biggest industries to gain traction under veganism is meat alternatives. Meat alternative brands are great for vegans, of course, but with growing eco-conscious shoppers, they’re also a wonderful way to reduce your carbon footprint. Buying something like Morning Star’s “Chik’n” Nuggets or Meatless Farm’s burgers isn’t just for vegans anymore!

With the category dynamics changing, vegan brands need to have their finger on the pulse and uncover customer intelligence about their target market to drive their brands forward.

In our ProQuo AI vegan study, we uncovered who’s buying vegan and what drives their purchases. We studied a variety of categories, including meat replacement, dairy-free, vegan beer, vegan cosmetics, and vegan household cleaning products. Using our 16 Driver framework, we discovered what people feel about three different meatless brands, as well as what they look for in the brands they interact with. Take a look at what the buyers of meat alternatives feel matter most.

Category Importance

Looking at the importance of our Drivers within the meatless industry, the top four most important were Performance (in this case taste), Innovation, Clarity, and Integrity.


Performance
Performance is any brand that fulfills its promise noticeably well – in the case of the meatless industry’s promise, it’s defined as great taste. Performance is the most important Driver in the Meatless category. This means that for meatless brands to stand out, they need to go above and beyond their competitors in delivering a product that’s truly delicious. Communicating this amongst a target audience is key to converting new users to the category.



Innovation
Meatless brands aren’t exactly a no-brainer. It takes serious creativity to turn plant proteins into products that resemble meat proteins. For brands that score high on Innovation, people notice that they’re doing things in new ways – always iterating, always improving. It’s no wonder that people want innovation from meatless meat!



Clarity
This Driver hinges on how clear the product’s purpose is in your life. You know what it stands for and what to do with it. For some meatless products, there may be some confusion from new buyers on how to prepare the product to make it taste its absolute best. That’s where Clarity comes in – how well each brand explains the preparation and how to eat it.


Integrity

Of course, one of the biggest reasons that people go vegan is for ethical reasons – to decrease their carbon footprint. Integrity is all about a brand that has principles, that chooses to do the right thing because of the clear values that it holds. Honesty around sustainability is important when dealing with meatless products – it establishes that you share values with your shoppers.

Looking to learn more about what’s performing well in the meatless industry, as well as other vegan brands? Check out our full vegan study for more on the meat replacement category, as well as dairy-free brands, vegan beers, vegan cosmetics, and vegan cleaning products.