My intial assumption was that fewer people eating meat means lower prices because of a larger supply for lower demand. But of course it might mean fewers ranchers and companies investing in livestock in the first place because fewer expect to make a profit on it. What’s the market analysis say to anyone familiar with it?
Compared to the massive increase of meat consumption in the population-dense developing world & other major influences on price such as improvements in the efficiency of meat production, the impact of the veg-movement is nigh negligible.
The price impact is rather on the side of restaurants & grocery chains in their logistics, now requiring a more diverse offering to be able to serve both the traditional clientele and veg-customers. Spreading the same demand over a larger range of products leads to a lower per-item throughput. Hence slightly lower efficiency, more waste & more overhead, which leads to marginally increased food prices overall in western countries.
Meat production currently increases by about 2-6% per year globally, while plant-based meat alternatives are growing 9-12% per year, though still much smaller in absolute terms for now. If meat alternatives keep dropping in price as production scales and supply chains mature, it might soon have an advantage, especially in emerging markets.
Store brand meat alternatives have already reached the price of their “real” meat counterparts here in Germany in 2025. Some are even a bit cheaper. It will be interesting to see the medium to long term impact of this on the meat market.