The meat-free market has racked up growth of 14.3%, which has added £44.1m to the category, taking it to £352.1m.

This growth has been mainly driven by a 6.5% rise in shoppers. Shoppers now make 9.4 trips a year to buy meat-free products.

The category is also seeing more full-price sales with over 60% of sales made not on promotion - resulting in a 5.1% rise in average prices. 

A sizeable 36.7% of sales were made on promotion. Temporary price reductions remain the most frequently used promotional tactic, up 2.9%. However, x for y is becoming more important, representing 44% of promoted sales. 

Brands have nearly 55% share, but private label has also contributed to overall growth. Private label's growth is mainly driven by ready meals and meal centres (non-carbohydrate products that make up the core of meals), which have seen growth of 30.8% and 43.3% respectively.

Frozen products are still the biggest area in meat-free, with just over 56% share. However, chilled is growing at 20.9% - faster than frozen's 9% growth. 

Dilip Dhanjala & Cristina Noriega, Kantar Worldpanel

Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Tesco had the most choice in this analysis of online offerings, which looked at products that sat in the virtual vegan aisles or were described as vegan. These included vegan burgers, mince, sausages, ready meals and dairy alternatives.

In terms of user experience, Iceland, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Ocado all have dedicated vegan pages. However, there is generally an inconsistent use of key terms across retailers and the term ‘plant-based’ has not been incorporated.

Retailers including Tesco, Morrisons, Ocado and Asda have introduced format-style language around frozen meat alternatives to allow shoppers to make occasion-based choices (segmenting the category into sausages, burgers, mince and ready meals). However, others range them all together, meaning shoppers have to look through the whole range. This could mean shoppers turn to the search function to look for a specific products. 

Searching specifically for vegan products can return irrelevant search results rather than only returning specific results. For example, 35% of results for the term ‘vegan mince’ were meat-based or contained egg.

Keeping the category clear is vital, as it can be difficult for novice vegan shoppers to identify vegan products if they aren’t clearly marked on pack as vegan, or if the product name does not include the term ‘vegan’. 

Helen Thomas, E Fundamentals