Sales of plant-based meat alternatives doubled in Poland last year

Sales of vegan substitutes for meat products in Poland increased by 107% in volume and 138% in value last year. Meanwhile those of plant-based alternatives to dairy rose by 50% in volume and 44% in value.

The data continue a growing trend in Poland for consumers to cut back on meat products, and in many cases switch entirely to vegetarian or vegan diets. As a result, the country has been ranked among the world’s vegan hotspots, with many restaurants and producers creating plant-based offerings to meet demand.

The latest data come from a study by GfK Polonia, a market research firm, for Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. It found that the proportion of households buying plant-based meat alternatives increased from 4% to almost 10% over the 12 months from November 2019.

The share of households buying plant-based dairy alternatives increased from 24% to more than 29% over the same period.

The swapping out of meat for plant-based substitutes is largely driven by “people up to 29 years old, without children, with higher-than-average incomes” and living on the outskirts of cities, Grzegorz Mech of GfK Polonia told Rzeczpospolita.

A survey last year already found that an estimated 3 million Poles no longer ate meat. According to the study by Ariadna, a research firm, 8.4% of Polish adults were following a vegetarian (6.6%) or vegan (1.8%) diet, and another 3.8% ate fish but no other meat.

Some 38.5% of people who ate meat said they were trying to limit their consumption and almost 60% of respondents declared a desire to reduce meat consumption in the next year or two.

The changes in eating habits may now have accelerated as a result of more home-cooking during lockdown, reports Rzeczpospolita. A study from last year cited by the newspaper found that, during the pandemic, 60% of Poles said they cooked at home more often and 25% that they were cutting down on meat.

Other lockdown behaviours included more healthy eating (48%), more “culinary experiments” (38%), more use of plant-based substitutes for meat (18%), and less dairy (10%).

Plant-based meat substitutes have been growing rapidly in popularity in Poland in recent years, with even many of the country’s biggest meat producers now offering vegan and vegetarian ranges.

In October one of Poland’s largest meat companies, Tarczyński, started selling a plant-based version of the classic Polish kabanos sausages. Żabka, Poland’s biggest chain of convenience stores, last year expanded its vegan offering to include hot dogs (pictured above) and sandwiches.

In January, Biedronka, a big discount chain, started stocking plant-based patties, mince and nuggets from Dutch firm The Vegetarian Butcher. Biedronka’s sales of its goVege brand tofu jumped 160% in the first half of last year, reported Rzeczpospolita.

“The articles from our own goVege brand, which we are constantly developing, enjoy the greatest interest of customers,” Biedronka’s commercial director, Marcin Domański, told Rzeczpospolita.

“We don’t have to explain the word ‘vegangurt’ anymore. Our products…compete with traditional dairy,” a representative from Jogurty Magda, which in 2016 became Poland’s first dairy company to offer a vegan range, told the newsapaper.

Specialist vegan and vegetarian eateries are also enjoying unprecedented popularity. Warsaw was recently ranked the sixth most vegan-friendly city in the world.

However, the turn towards plant-based food has faced a backlash from some conservatives in Poland, who see it as a threat to Polish traditions. Meanwhile, last year Polish farmers backed a proposal for the European Union to ban the use of words associated with meat in the marketing of vegetarian products.

Main image credit: Żabka/press materials

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.