Meeting of the Plant-Based Minds: Food Leaders Consider a Coalition to Boost Industry

Plant-based meat makers—suffering from sales drops, stepped-up attacks from Big Beef and bruising press—are considering creating a coalition similar to those behind renowned marketing campaigns like “Got Milk?,” “The Incredible Edible Egg” and “Pork, the Other White Meat.”

While the group has not formally gelled, discussions among both small startups and bigger companies have intensified over the last six months. 

Industry insiders have cited a few flashpoints: media coverage, including Bloomberg Businessweek’s scathing story early this year calling faux meat “just another fad,” and the anti-regulation lobbying group Center for Consumer Freedom’s resurfaced jabs at the sector as “ultra-processed imitations.”

The goal initially was to convene the coalition this year with at least a handful of brands across the plant-based food industry, not limited to alt meat. But inflation-driven setbacks and other complications have delayed the effort, with those involved in the talks predicting the group will launch in 2024.

Pete Speranza, a 23-year veteran of General Mills who’s now CEO of plant-based company Wicked Kitchen, said those in the nascent industry could benefit from a professional alliance. 

“We’re saying to CEOs, ‘We’re not competitors, we’re advocates,’” Speranza told Adweek. “If we’re going to change the food system for the long haul, we’ll need to cooperate.”

Funding for the group—and the broad-based advertising that would go along with it—will be a major challenge, Speranza said, “because there aren’t a lot of profitable stories right now in the plant-based space.”

There’s no RFP out at the moment and no active search for an ad agency, but executives envision a multifaceted national marketing campaign as the centerpiece of the movement. They likely will approach creative shops with experience in the category, though they may be asking for pro bono work or discounted rates.

‘Category compatriots’

There appears to be widespread support for a coalition from players in the industry, with Daring Foods CEO Ross Mackay saying the collective power could help convince more retailers to carry the products and consumers to buy them.

“We believe this is the true catalyst needed to push the category forward,” Mackay told Adweek. “A unified approach would simplify the narrative, making it more compelling.”

Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness, who declined an Adweek interview, has publicly advanced the idea of a consortium, noting that he looks at MorningStar Farms and other companies as “category compatriots.” He has complained that plant-based food marketers, his company included, haven’t built a strong enough case for themselves with consumers.

“Now, the meat industry does quite a good job against us, and they’re highly coordinated, they’re well funded, and they’re pretty loud,” McGuinness said on the United Nations’ climate change podcast in March. “So I think we can borrow a page of that book and do it as a coalition, as plant-based companies, and we need to do that very soon.”

Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown—whose former IPO darling has been fodder for the negative news cycle with its well-publicized struggles, including a 40% second-quarter U.S. revenue drop and double-digit stock slide—touched on the topic of “bringing together industry coalitions” during a recent earnings call. Through a spokesperson, he declined to elaborate.

‘100% skeptical’

Not everyone is convinced that a coalition can make a meaningful impact, or that CEO-founders will agree on tactics or positioning.

And with existing marketing messages that vary wildly—some brands go bold and aggressive, while others have a light touch—a common thread may be tough to find for any creative work.

“I’m 100% skeptical that a group would get much of anything accomplished, especially in the short term,” Rachel Konrad, former head of communications at Impossible Foods and now chief brand officer at venture capital firm The Production Board. “And the bigger the group got, the harder it would be to do an edgy, breakthrough, memorable campaign.”

While not discounting the need to act because “they’re under siege,” Konrad said, hiring a crisis PR firm and dropping a campaign might at best get “a 24-hour pop of news coverage.” But at worst, the result could be “some shitty PSA that nobody will give a crap about.”

Money would be better spent on R&D to continue improving products’ taste and price, which have been key sticking points with consumers, she said, rather than trying to find the industry’s version of cotton’s “The Fabric of Our Lives.”

A senior-level marketer at an alternative dairy startup thinks ads that came from plant-based farmers rather than brands might land better. That would put the work in closer league with the iconic campaigns from collectives like MilkPEP (“Got Milk?”) and the Beef Farmers and Ranchers associations (“Beef, it’s what’s for dinner”).

“Consumers would be more likely to listen to a message if it comes from the small American farmer,” the exec said.

Damage done

Despite $1.4 billion in U.S. retail sales in 2022—a dip of 1% in dollar sales and 8% in unit sales from the prior year, per the Good Food Institute (GFI) and the Plant Based Foods Association—faux meat has a public perception problem evident in months’ worth of damning headlines questioning its viability.

Proponents say the reports of its death are greatly exaggerated: “The plant-based meat story is just beginning, and its growth is not inevitable,” Emma Ignaszewski, associate director of industry intelligence and initiatives at the nonprofit GFI, told Adweek. “But it’s really premature to count it out.”

The total retail beef business in the U.S. is estimated at $100 billion; the plant-based category hovers just over 1% in market share. Plant-based meat pulls better numbers in specialty stores, where food trends begin, with 15% share of total meat sales compared to 2.5% in mass channels, per GFI, though it’s 67% pricier per pound than animal meat.

Dairy alternatives, a substantial category with 16% market share and $2.8 billion in 2022 sales, have also been battered by recent “real” versus “fake” themes in ads from MilkPEP and the California Milk Processor Board.

Meanwhile, corporate lobbyist Rick Berman and his CCF have found new audiences and influencers on social media for messages that paint the category as tech-driven Frankenfood, including a Super Bowl spot from 2020 that ran in a single market (Washington, D.C.).

Given the contentious environment, some industry watchers wonder why a coalition hasn’t already formed.

“Most of the negative attacks started at least four years ago—they’ve been evolving ever since—and it’s very hard to come back once you’ve lost consumer trust,” Jenny Stojkovic, founder of the influential Vegan Women Summit and general partner at VC firm Joyful Ventures. “Moving as a whole and doing the category marketing is long overdue.”

Could the gestating effort be “too little, too late,” asked Wholly Veggie co-founder John Bonnell, though he thinks an industry alliance may be “the only way to counter the meat and dairy lobby, with pooled resources and national-level PR, one or two clear messages hitting over and over again.”

Climate influencer Andrea Learned said there are precedents to study, and the plant-based food industry should take cues from the renewable energy sector and its successful coalition building.

“It’s the classic rising tide, which requires people to set aside nitpicking and niggling and self-interest to get things done,” Learned said. “All it will take is three leaders to step up and grab the reins: They’ll win so big in the long run—they’ll end up looking like geniuses in retrospect.”