New data have confirmed a growing trend in Poland for declining consumption of meat and rapidly rising sales of vegetarian replacement products.
Since 2018, the sale of fresh meat has fallen 7.5%, according to figures from market research firm GfK, cited by the Rzeczpospolita daily. Over the same period, sales of vegetarian substitutes for meat grew 480%.
“There are noticeable changes in consumer habits that producers and retailers cannot ignore,” GfK’s Grzegorz Mech told the newspaper.
“The last year has proved that the plant[-based food] trend is not a temporary fashion and will stay with us for good,” added Patricia Homa, president of the ProVeg Polska Foundation.
Data published earlier this year showed that sales of plant-based meat substitutes doubled in Poland in 2020, while those of vegan alternatives to dairy products rose by half.
Many of the country’s biggest meat producers now offer vegan and vegetarian ranges. Last year, one of them started selling a plant-based version of kabanos sausages, a popular snack traditionally made from pork.
You know Poland's changing when one of the country's biggest meat companies launches vegan kabanos pic.twitter.com/VffehfhQlt
— Daniel Tilles (@danieltilles1) October 1, 2020
Piotr Lubiewa-Manyżyński, planning manager at Carrefour Polska, says that the supermarket chain now stocks over 400 certified vegan products. Sales of its own-brand “GoVege” items have almost quadrupled over the last year, he told Rzeczpospolita.
Żabka, a large chain of convenience stores, says that its new “Plant Hunter” vegan brand “has been very well received by customers” and that it plans to launch further items this autumn.
Polling published last year found that 8.4% of adults in Poland – equivalent to around 3 million people – were following a vegetarian (6.6%) or vegan (1.8%) diet. Almost 40% of people who ate meat said they were making effort to limit their consumption.
In 2019, Warsaw was ranked as the sixth most vegan-friendly city in the world when it comes to restaurants. Bartosz Dmowski of Garden Gourmet – a branch of Nestlé offering vegetarian products – told Rzeczpospolita that the Polish gastronomy sector is showing a growing interest in their meat alternatives.
Main image credit: Nestlé/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
