Emanuel Guimarães
Operations Director
Soguima
Chairperson Room 2
There is an exponential growth for plant based protein alternatives. This surge is apparently not driven by the increase on the number of vegetarian and vegan consumers but, by the ever-growing number of consumers “coined “Flexitarians” trying to decrease the consumption of animal proteins.
The product category that registered the highest growth is the seafood analogues. In a recent market study the growth in Germany over the past 3 years was of a staggering 638%.
Nevertheless it is also understood from the cited study that consumers want to have animal free protein alternatives but with the similar nutritional and organoleptic properties of its animal origin counterparts.
For seafood analogues this market need can be an added hurdle but research bodies and industry are investing a great amount of effort in bringing to market products with the beforehand mentioned characteristics.
On the course of my presentation, I would try to give further insights on the market trends and what our company and some of our partners are doing in order to tackle some of the seafood category specific issues, aiming at developing and successfully bringing to market plant based seafood analogues.