Many plant-based brands are struggling with problems – they should follow the marketing examples of huge technologies

After several years of significant sales growth, demand for alternative meats seems to be falling. Celebrated brands Apart from meat AND Quorn are struggling, as are some smaller producers Closed.

Apparently vegetarianism, and even more so veganism gaining popularity. So have plant-based diets become another fad that will fade away like yo-yo and bell-bottom jeans? Probably not.

A better way to understand the alternative meat counter is to think of it not as food, but as novel technology. This is helpful because it is widely known that novel technologies do not spread easily to markets.

Most novel goods follow a conventional product life cycle in which sales initially boost slowly among early adopters and then boost more rapidly as later consumers choose the product. But then sales growth starts to sluggish down again.

What researchers found However, the problem with novel technology products is that instead of following normal product life cycles, sales growth stops for some time after early adopters rush to stores, and sometimes even declines. It then increases again as other consumers catch up and returns to normal, rapid growth.

This pause or slight decline in sales growth means that the product life cycle for novel technologies does not follow the elegant “S curve” as shown above, but has an inelegant hump called “saddle”.

Technology adoption life cycle theory provides an explanation for this saddle occurring in some markets but not others. This theory recognizes that consumer heterogeneity (that is, the degree to which consumers differ in a given market) is much greater in some markets.

The key differences in technology markets can be characterized as being between early adopters, who are enthusiastic and well-informed about the technology, and the rest of the market, who know little about it. This information gap between market segments causes a breakdown in the normal dissemination pattern.

Initially, sales accelerate as the novel product is introduced to the market and is well received by early adopters who understand what will happen if the novel product becomes available. But then sales stalled, while most consumers simply don’t get it and don’t understand the enthusiasm of admirers.

This classic description of novel technology also describes the forced spread of alternative meats – which for most people constitute an entirely novel food category.

The right theory leads to the right solution

There are some gaps in novel technologies where there is a gap in understanding between different consumer segments about novel, sophisticated products obvious solutions for companies. To attract consumers who are not well-informed market pioneers, they can offer them more information, pre-sales demonstrations, after-sales service, money-back guarantees or simpler standards.

However, when it comes to alternative meats, the gap between early adopters and the majority consumers in the market is not just a result of different levels of understanding. It’s also about different beliefs about what is appropriate to eat.

Vegetarians and omnivores have different opinions about food. Alternative meat producers who want to break out of the vegetarian-vegan niche and expand into novel markets need to understand the drivers and barriers of non-vegetarian culture.

There are several of them market research that ask consumers about their attitudes towards alternative meats. They tell us what regular consumers think would make them eat more of them.

Unfortunately, they cannot be taken too literally, because we know that market research for completely novel product categories is unreliable. As co-founder of Apple said Steve Jobs: “A lot of times people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

So where does this leave us? Alternative meats are perhaps best understood as behaving more like a novel technology than a novel food product, because in the eyes of most consumers they represent something very different than classic meats.

This makes it easier to understand that the current slowdown in sales growth is actually a consequence of gigantic differences between the consumer segments of this market. What worked for early adopters of plant-based products does not yet convince most consumers.

Fortunately for brands in the industry, there is a growing awareness that usual marketing methods need to be reconfigured. An inventive example is a company based in Great Britain Futures Plant Collectivewhich facilitates the development of an industry-wide marketing strategy aimed at building trust in this product category and filling the information gap for consumers. Part of the strategy is based on Monday without meat campaign started by Paul McCartney and his daughters, Mary and Stella.

Producers who want to break out of their vegetarian/vegan niche will have to start thinking more about what meat eaters want than what vegans are looking for. Does the current slowdown in sales mean the end of veganism? Of course not. However, this means that further sales growth will depend on whether vegan brands are able to think like omnivores.