The plant-based meat industry is facing an existential crisis, but not for the reasons you might think. Sales have plummeted £30m in the past year, with major brands such as Quorn and Linda McCartney haemorrhaging market share.
Yet the culprit isn’t taste, price, or even consumer fatigue: it’s a classification system that has become a blunt instrument wielding disproportionate influence over public perception and policy.
The ultra-processed food (UPF) label, rooted in the Nova classification system, has become the scarlet letter of modern nutrition. Under its broad umbrella, plant-based meat alternatives sit uncomfortably alongside sugary cereals, fizzy drinks, and processed meats – a categorisation that reveals more about the limitations of our food classification systems than the actual health implications of these products.
Understanding ‘ultra-processed food’
The Nova system emerged from Brazilian researcher Carlos Augusto Monteiro’s work to understand shifting dietary patterns at a population level. It was never designed to evaluate individual foods’ nutritional merit, yet that is precisely how it’s being wielded today.
The system’s crude four-category framework treats a Beyond Burger the same as a packet of crisps, simply because both undergo industrial processing and contain ingredients unfamiliar to home cooks.
This oversimplification ignores a fundamental truth: processing is not inherently evil. Pasteurisation, fermentation, and protein isolation have enhanced food safety, nutrition, and accessibility for generations. Plain yoghurt undergoes fermentation and contains lactic acid – technically qualifying it for UPF status under strict interpretation, yet few would argue it belongs in the same category as processed meats.
Here’s what the UPF panic obscures: plant-based meat alternatives consistently outperform their animal counterparts on key health metrics.
The demonisation of plant-based foods
The cruel irony is that while plant-based meats are vilified, conventional processed meats face no such scrutiny under the UPF framework, despite overwhelming evidence linking them to cancer. The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as a group one carcinogen, yet media narratives focus on the supposed dangers of plant-based alternatives.
The UPF classification punishes innovation and improvement, as companies developing cleaner formulations find themselves trapped in the same categorical purgatory as products with extensive additive lists. Meanwhile, naturally occurring but nutritionally questionable foods like coconut oil escape scrutiny entirely.
Consider tempeh and tofu: traditional fermented soy products now experiencing growth as consumers seek ‘natural’ alternatives. Both require significant transformation from their source material, yet cultural familiarity grants them a health halo denied to newer plant proteins.
This classification chaos has serious implications. Survey data shows 54% of Europeans avoid UPFs, including plant-based proteins, based purely on processing concerns. This actively undermines both public health objectives and climate targets.
The environmental mathematics are stark: livestock production contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and water usage, while plant-based alternatives typically have far lower environmental footprints. Yet our fixation on processing risks derailing one of our most promising strategies for sustainable food system transformation.
Better classification systems
The solution isn’t to abandon concerns about food processing, but to develop more sophisticated evaluation tools. We need classification systems that assess nutritional density and health outcomes alongside environmental impact.
There are signs of progress. Companies such as Better Nature, which is deliberately distancing itself from vegan branding to focus on health credentials, demonstrate a maturation of the category that classification systems should reward, not penalise.
While the ultra-processed food framework serves an important purpose, its application to plant-based meat alternatives has potentially serious consequences. The £30m decline of the meat-free industry is a case study in how messaging can undermine complex solutions to multifaceted problems.
The alternative, allowing fear of processing to drive consumers back toward products with worse health and environmental profiles, would be a triumph of perception over clear evidence.
Mike Coppen-Gardner, founder & CEO of SPQR
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