Innova Market Insights first looked at “plant-based” five years ago, back in 2018. That’s when the term started to go global after originating in the US and Europe. Interestingly, the “plant based” trend wasn’t involving basic fruits and vegetables. Rather, the term referred to alternative dairy products and then expanded to encompass meat alternatives, main dishes, spreads, and numerous other subcategories.
Although plant-based has become a popular term in the dairy- and meat-free categories, it does not accurately describe all developments in this fast-moving field. There are technologies that generate “animal-free,” bioidentical ingredients such as dairy whey and dairy casein. Even so, “plant-based” continues to grow in use, with indexed average annual growth of +42% between 2017 and 2022.