Brits are turning their backs on heavily processed fake meats and embracing humble legumes, driving a significant change in UK eating habits. This is demonstrated in data from NielsenIQ, analysed by climate advocacy group Madre Brava.
According to the group’s Britain Backs Beans report, vegan imitation meat products saw a 4.3 per cent reduction in sales for the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2025.
But this doesn’t mean that interest in plant-based foods is declining overall. In fact, the data also showed a growing appetite for nutrient-dense, whole ingredients, with sales of whole plant proteins, including beans, pulses, tofu, and tempeh, growing by 7.3 per cent in volume during the first half of 2026.
Lentils saw the biggest leap for dried legumes with a 23 per cent increase in unit sales, while canned and jarred butter beans saw an impressive 30.3 per cent jump.
Household budgets are thought to play a role in this change as plant proteins remain a cost-effective option over meat, especially when it comes to dried or canned legumes.
The report showed that UK shoppers bought more of nearly every kind of bean this year. Source: NielsenIQ/Madre Brava
Why UK shoppers are swapping fake meat for whole plant foods
It’s not just about price; the urge to cut down on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) also contributed to the 4.3 per cent drop in volume sales for imitation meats (those made from textured wheat, pea, or soy protein).
While shoppers are increasingly seeking out clean labels and natural ingredients, this hasn’t left all name-brand vegan products in the dust. Mycoprotein brand Quorn bucked the trend, seeing unit sales rise by 2.4 per cent following targeted reformulations to remove additives from its range.
Meanwhile, gourmet brands like the Bold Bean Co have bolstered the reputation of the humble bean, driving a 30.3 per cent increase in canned and jarred butter bean sales.
“[We’re] on a mission to make people obsessed with beans,” said Bold Bean Co’s Head of Category + Strategic Projects, Beth Latham. She celebrated how the more premium bean products have “reshaped how consumers think about beans, proving they are delicious and can be the hero of a meal.”
By sharing hundreds of mouth-watering bean-centric recipes on social media, the brand has inspired a more positive perception of beans. And it appears to have paid off, with the brand reporting that one in three of its customers are new to the category.
Retailers driving the increase in UK bean sales
A total of 29 brands and supermarkets have stepped up to support the shift towards whole plant foods by joining the Food Foundation’s ‘Bang in Some Beans’ campaign.
Sainsbury’s, M&S, and Lidl are among the supermarkets that have made commitments through the scheme, pledging to actively promote legume consumption.
Speaking on the trend, Chloe MacKean, food business transformation manager at the Food Foundation, said: “We aren’t surprised to see the rise in bean sales. Beans are a triple win for health, sustainability and our wallets.
“They are a healthy and affordable protein source, high in fibre and emit far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than animal protein.”
Roughly speaking, there are two types of vegans and vegetarians: people who have no desire whatsoever for a meaty meat substitute, and people who no longer eat meat but don’t (always) want to miss out on the meat experience. I have good news for the latter group: Future Farm’s ‘plant-based meat’ is now also available in the Netherlands.
The Vegetarian Butcher and Beyond Meat have gained a formidable competitor: Future Farm wants to conquer the world with exact meat replicas in terms of texture and flavour, but made from plants. No animal suffering, less CO2 emissions: I’m hugely in favour. The plant-based products, including the flagship burger that conquered Brazil in a short time, are known for their good quality; the products are available at Marqt, among others.
More than 2 million burgers
The main ingredients in Future Farm’s meat substitutes are peas, soy, chickpeas and beetroot powder to mimic the colour of meat. For people who do enjoy meat and its characteristic texture and flavour, it’s an absolute must-try. I tried the minced meatballs—and they did not disappoint: this really is a meat experience from here to Brazil.
You pay €3.89 for two burgers
Deliciously juicy
The meaty texture, which is barely distinguishable from real meat, is particularly striking. This really is an excellent meat substitute, without compromising on flavour, texture or juiciness. Future Farm therefore focuses mainly on meat eaters and flexitarians, less so on vegans. The fact that the products are a hit in meat-loving Brazil (after the US, people here eat the most meat in the world) is evident from the fact that Future Farm sold more than 2 million (!) burgers there in its first eight months.
Transparency in the (meat) production chain
Founder Marcos Leta is now setting his sights on Europe: “The Netherlands is the first market we are entering in Europe, but it certainly won’t be the last. We firmly believe that Future Farm will become just as successful here as it is in South America. Especially now that corona has increased pressure for greater transparency in the (meat) production chain and the way meat-processing factories operate is under scrutiny. Demand for sustainable and flavourful alternatives will only increase. I expect that in twenty years we will consume almost no meat at all.”
1 packet of Garden Gourmet Incredible Mince (200 gr)
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon Mae Ploy green curry paste (or to taste if using less spicy)
300 ml vegetable stock
1 large carrot, sliced
1/2 zucchini, cut into strips or cubes
1/2 red pepper, in rings
Coriander, few sprigs, chopped
Basil, few sprigs, torn
Jasmine or Pandan Rice for 2, steamed or boiled
We were already fans of the Dutch Weedburger, the Beyond Meat Burger is achieving great success, and in the supermarket the choice of meat substitutes is becoming wider and the products are getting better. No one can bury their head in the sand anymore, our kitchens are increasingly open to variety, and we were happy to try the latest brainchild of the makers of Garden Gourmet.
It's called Incredible Minced Meat, is completely plant-based, and the funny thing about this variant is that it can be kneaded like minced meat is. Unlike many plant-based minced meat substitutes, this is raw and not pre-fried, so you can use it in more directions yourself. We tasted it as balls with sriracha 'mayo' and also Mexican spiced in a taco.
Do it yourself
For my Asian recipe, I just fried it loosely in the pan. It takes some getting used to that it does turn brown on the outside but remains pink on the inside; Because it looks like raw minced meat, I got so fooled that I was really waiting for it to cook and discolour on the inside. Keep stirring quickly. I didn't season the minced meat further, because I was going to pour a lot of spicy broth of Thai curry over it. I always use Mae Ploy's green curry paste: super spicy, a teaspoon is almost always enough, so you can use it endlessly. The taste is not very salty and you can increase it yourself with soy sauce, fish sauce or just salt.
Conclusion
This was a very tasty meal! It wasn't until I took the picture that the penny really dropped, that this was not only vegetarian but even vegan. Recommended, absolutely.
This is how you make it
Heat the oil over medium heat in a frying pan.
Fry the Incredible Minced Meat while stirring with a spatula until brown and cooked, for about 8 minutes.
Remove from the pan to a deep plate and set aside.
If necessary, pour another teaspoon of oil into the frying pan and add the curry paste.
Sear for 30 seconds and add the stock while stirring gently.
Bring to the boil, add the carrot and zucchini and heat briefly.
Spoon the minced meat over the rice (divided over two deep plates), and add the vegetables from the pan.
Carefully pour the remaining stock into the plates, and garnish with the red pepper and fresh herbs.
People’s personal experiences and family traditions are major hurdles to wider adoption of plant-based diets, a new study has found, highlighting a need to consider dietary choices “within their broader social and cultural context”.
Plant-based meat is too expensive, too processed, or just doesn’t taste that good – these are amongst the most common arguments you’ll hear people make when describing what makes these products unappealing to them.
According to a new study by the University of Stirling, there’s more to the resistance than the food’s nutritional or sensorial aspects.
“We found that participants’ attachments to traditional foods were often linked to collective memories, family gatherings, and cultural traditions in which those foods were embedded, rather than the consumption of the food itself,” the researchers wrote in Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations.
They noted that efforts to encourage people to eat plant-based food often focus on health, ethics, or the environment, while overlooking personal and social connections to food. Could that be the missing link?
The three primary themes of nostalgia
The study employed a qualitative research design with 24 regular meat-eaters, exploring their attitudes and memories related to food. The data was then analysed using a technique called reflexive thematic analysis.
This method embraces the positionality and lived experience of the researchers. Based on this, they identified patterns in the data and developed themes to explain their findings.
The data analysis revealed three primary themes: the traditional role of meat-based dishes in a sense of home, negotiating friends’ and families’ attitudes toward change, and cooking meat more for symbolic memories than for the food itself.
Many described nostalgic experiences as time shared together, with food rituals remembered from childhood. Some made a clear distinction between trying new plant-based meals and replacing nostalgic traditional food. Others expressed a lack of value and enjoyment in taking part in social gatherings without the latter, and that vegan alternatives did not elicit the same emotions.
Some participants raised concerns about their family members’ willingness to accommodate a plant-based dish preference during home visits, and many feared that their dietary choices could disrupt familial routines and shared experiences.
Courtesy: Filadendron/Getty Images
Along similar lines, communal consumption of animal proteins was considered integral to many cultural traditions. For instance, nostalgic foods – like turkey at Christmas – were strongly linked to family gatherings, celebrations, and cultural identities.
“Social pressure and emotional disconnection at the dining table during traditional celebrations can negatively impact acceptance of vegan practices among those who follow a vegan lifestyle, underscoring the need to consider dietary choices within their broader social and cultural context,” the study stated.
This is why, the researchers argued, changes in dietary habits “cannot be fully understood without recognising the symbolic and interpersonal significance of food”.
Community initiatives and targeted marketing campaigns could help overcome hurdles
Despite these barriers, when the participants were asked to reflect more deeply, many became more open to plant-based alternatives, especially if those foods could recreate the social experience or emotional meaning.
The research also found that friends were seen as more flexible and accommodating of plant-based diets than family, and that traditional food practices were harder to change and had a greater potential for conflict.
“Our research shows that dietary change is not just a practical or nutritional issue. Food is tied to identity, belonging, and family life, so vegan advocacy, activism, and public health messaging needs to engage with those emotional and cultural attachments,” said lead author Aga Kosla.
“This study highlights that resistance to plant-based diets is not simply about taste or convenience, but about maintaining continuity with the past and preserving meaningful traditions. Interestingly, participants often realised that it was the shared experience, not the specific ingredient, that mattered most,” she added.
The researchers underscored the importance of organising community-based initiatives, like cooking classes and nutrition education, to help replace nostalgic foods with vegan options while easing the common feelings of loss.
Developing marketing campaigns that highlight the importance of shared food memories can be an effective tool. And exploring the psychological aspects of food nostalgia and their influence on dietary decisions among meat-eaters is critical to understanding attitudes towards the protein transition.
“Recreating nostalgic or culturally significant dishes using vegan ingredients can make dietary change feel more accessible. This could also help reduce the social barriers people face, particularly in family settings,” said Carol Jasper, a psychologist and primary supervisor for the project.
“Like culinary traditions from the past, the food of the future, crafted without the inclusion of meat and other animal-derived ingredients, may also evoke a sense of nostalgia and encourage the creation of new customs that can resonate with and enrich future generations.”
Beyond Meat's new mycelium and avocado oil steak filet is now available at Wegmans and H-E-B after topping the brand’s online sales charts
Beyond Meat has brought its highly anticipated Beyond Steak Filet to US supermarket shelves. The plant-based whole-cut filet is making its retail debut at Wegmans and H-E-B stores across the United States.
The Beyond Steak Filet is the brand’s first product to use mycelium and also incorporates ‘heart-healthy’ avocado oil, which helps lower the vegan steak’s saturated fat content.
The retail launch follows an exceptionally successful trial on the brand’s direct-to-consumer website. Since its online introduction in October 2025, the filet rapidly climbed the ranks to become the site’s top-selling product. Customers have widely praised the innovation for its realistic texture, succulence, and impressive nutritional profile, prompting this wider commercial rollout.
Beyond plant-based steak with mycelium
Designed to mimic the tender, juicy quality of a high-end steakhouse cut, the new product represents a significant technological leap for the company. It marks the first time Beyond Meat has incorporated mycelium into its product portfolio. The mycelium, which is the dense, fibrous root structure of fungi, helps replicate the texture of traditional whole-cut meat.
The plant-based steak is designed to sear beautifully in a hot pan, making it versatile enough to use as a classic centre-of-the-plate protein, or to slice into tacos, salads, and grain bowls.
In a press release, Ethan Brown, Founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, called the Beyond Steak Filet “our most compelling centre-of-the-plate innovation since the Beyond Burger.”
He remarked that while “consumers are typically advised to limit their consumption of steak, the remarkable nutritional profile of Beyond Steak Filet means you can turn any meal into a steak occasion.”
Aside from offering a delicious, authentic steak experience, the Beyond Steak Filet focuses heavily on health-conscious consumers. Each serving boasts 28g of plant protein and 3g of fibre, whilst containing just 1g of saturated fat derived from heart-healthy avocado oil.
True to the brand’s core philosophy, it contains no cholesterol, added hormones, or antibiotics, and is completely Non-GMO Project Verified.
Additionally, the filet is one of more than 20 products in the company’s line-up to secure a Clean Label Project Certification. This independent accolade rewards products that meet strict criteria for ingredient purity and environmental transparency, addressing a growing consumer desire for simpler, less processed meat alternatives.
US non-profit Food System Innovations has launched an AI-led Food Intelligence Lab to create better-tasting alternative proteins with an open-source model, in an effort backed by the Bezos Earth Fund
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in food tech is ramping up faster than you can grill a burger.
US startup Shiru is using the tech to discover new sustainable proteins and ingredients. Israeli firm Celleste Bio is pairing biotech with computational AI to make cell-based chocolate bars, in partnership with Mondelēz International, and Chile’s NotCo has pivoted from being a CPG company to an AI startup that helps food companies accelerate product development.
Others are leveraging the tech to improve the taste, texture and nutritional credentials of alternative proteins like plant-based meat and dairy. This was one of the focuses of the Bezos Earth Fund‘s $2M grant to Food System Innovations (FSI), a philanthropic impact platform investing in the transition to a sustainable agrifood system, last year.
Large-scale taste tests by Nectar, FSI’s sensory analysis arm, show that Americans are not happy with how most vegan products taste. Only around a third of these consumers like the average alternative, compared to over three in five who find the taste of conventional meat and dairy appealing.
Companies know this. Analysis suggests that among the world’s largest food producers – think Nestlé, Walmart and Kraft Heinz – 90% continue to launch and promote new plant-based products even as 77% believe concerns over taste, cost and nutrition are hindering consumer uptake.
To solve this bottleneck, FSI has launched a new Food Intelligence Lab to develop open-source infrastructure to accelerate AI-driven alternative protein development, enhance their sensory profiles, and shorten commercialisation timelines.
“The Food Intelligence Lab combines multiple data streams, including sensory panel data from NECTAR, instrumental measurements like texture and pH, molecular composition data, and prior experiment history, to design algorithms that can guide that optimisation process,” Anna Thomas, a computer scientist at Stanford University and director of machine learning at the lab, tells Green Queen.
“We treat food formulation as an optimisation problem: how do you maximise consumer satisfaction – taste, texture, overall liking – while meeting constraints like cost, nutrition, and manufacturability.”
How FSI’s Food Intelligence Lab will improve alternative proteins
Courtesy: Proxy Foods AI
FSI argues that more R&D is needed to improve the taste of animal-free proteins, but companies are constrained by limited budgets, fragmented datasets, and long development cycles. And though AI can accelerate product development, the sector has lacked the integrated data infrastructure needed to reliably predict consumer outcomes, such as taste and texture.
The Food Intelligence Lab will generate and curate large-scale datasets, including sensory data from Nectar and instrumental measurements of alternative proteins (like texture profile analysis, pH, and shear tests) to establish public benchmarks for sensory prediction and formulation design.
It will develop open-source models to improve product design and prediction tasks, while working with companies, non-profits, and researchers to translate these into practical applications.
The lab has collaborated with Washington, DC-based Proxy Foods AI to co-develop an Expert-Guided Bayesian Optimisation (EGBO) system using the latter’s AI food scientist agent. This is an algorithm for black-box function optimisation, where a domain expert (like a human or large-language model) selects a small subset of variables for Bayesian optimisation and may expand it over time.
This EGBO improves the sensory performance of a dairy-free Greek yoghurt by 29% in just 10 formulation iterations over five days, matching the animal-based benchmark on three of four sensory attributes: consistency, creaminess, and tanginess.
“Our model is designed to work alongside food scientists, allowing domain experts to guide which variables matter most while the algorithm efficiently searches for better formulations. The system recommends the ‘next best experiment’, helping teams iterate far more quickly than traditional trial-and-error approaches,” explains Thomas.
“We’re also building a broader ecosystem beyond a single model. The lab is developing open-source benchmarks like TasteBench, evaluating foundation models for sensory prediction, and working with a range of partners across start-ups, academia, and industry to translate these tools into real-world R&D workflows.”
TasteBench is a benchmark designed by FSI researchers, with both food- and molecular-level prediction tasks publicly available. They evaluated existing foundation models and other baseline methods for predicting sensory similarity to the target animal product, finding that the best AI model is competitive with the median individual Nectar panellist.
Reckoning with AI’s climate impact
Courtesy: OpenAI
The lab is tackling one of the leading causes of climate change. Animal agriculture accounts for up to a fifth of global emissions, uses up 30% of the planet’s freshwater, and occupies 77% of all farmland. But it only supplies 17% of the world’s calories and 38% of its protein intake.
The system is inefficient and unsustainable, and AI can help streamline the transition towards more sustainable proteins. However, the tech itself has climate questions looming over it.
Research suggests the technology is likely to increase energy use and fuel climate disinformation. A UN report this month argues that AI’s actual climate impact doesn’t account for inference, or the use of models to answer everyday prompts.
For instance, the energy required to generate a single AI image is enough to power a 10-watt LED bulb for 17 minutes and to use 2 tablespoons of water. Not to mention, data centres for AI are regularly accused of leeching resources from public infrastructure.
In Querétaro, Mexico, expanding computing infrastructure is taking up water supplies amid prolonged droughts. And in Uruguay, plans for a water-intensive data centre clashed with a 2023 drought depleting Montevideo’s freshwater reserves and making tap water unsafe for consumption.
“It’s a valid and important concern, and one we take seriously. Our view is that AI in this context needs to be evaluated on net impact,” says Thomas.
“Food systems account for roughly 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock alone responsible for a significant share. If AI can materially accelerate the shift toward better-performing, more affordable sustainable proteins, the downstream emissions reductions can be substantial,” she adds.
“That said, efficiency matters. Our work is focused on targeted, domain-specific models rather than extremely large, general-purpose systems. Techniques like Bayesian optimisation are extremely lightweight compared to frontier AI approaches, and they are designed to reduce the number of physical experiments required, which carry a material resource and emissions footprint.
“We also see open infrastructure as part of the solution: by sharing datasets and models, the field can avoid duplicative training and move toward more efficient, standardised approaches.”
Bezos Earth Fund grant ‘catalytic’ to AI lab
Courtesy: Nectar
That open-source model can serve as a catalyst for advancing the alternative protein category. In addition to the FSI grant, Bezos Earth Fund has backed projects by the Australian national research agency CSIRO, the UK’s University of Leeds to develop open-access AI platforms for sustainable proteins.
Later this year, Tufts University is set to launch a food innovation hub featuring an open-source cell bank for cultivated meat research.
“A core barrier in food is the lack of shared data infrastructure. Unlike fields like drug and materials discovery, food R&D is highly fragmented, with limited public datasets and benchmarks. That slows progress across the entire sector,” says Thomas.
“Open-sourcing models, datasets, and benchmarks is a deliberate choice to address that gap. It allows start-ups, researchers, and established companies to build on a common foundation, improving comparability, reducing duplicated effort, and accelerating collective learning.”
She calls the grant from Jeff Bezos’s fund “catalytic” to the FSI lab: “It enables us to stand up the lab, develop initial datasets and models, and demonstrate early proof points. But this is intended to be a long-term, collaborative effort. We expect continued partnerships across industry, philanthropy, and academia to expand and sustain the ecosystem over time.”
The Food Intelligence Lab is building an engine that recommends the next best experiment to try when developing sustainable protein products. Over time, it aims to establish a more open, collaborative foundation for sustainable food innovation, enabling the industry to develop better innovations.
“In year one, key goals include demonstrating measurable gains in formulation efficiency and sensory outcomes across multiple product categories, and improving model performance on benchmarks like TasteBench,” says Thomas, nodding to the early validation results from the yoghurt.
