Once seen as a climate fix, vegan burgers now languish at 1% of the US market amid rising meat culture
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lant-based burgers were supposed to help wean Americans off their environmentally ruinous appetite for meat. But sales have plummeted amid a surging pro-meat trend embraced by the Trump administration, raising a key question – will vegetarianism ever take hold in the US?
This year has been a punishing one for the plant-based meat sector, led by companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, with sales of refrigerated products slumping 17%. This follows a difficult 2024, during which sales fell 7%, furthering a multi-year spiral – last year Americans purchased 75m fewer units of plant-based meat than they did in 2022.
Despite hopes that burgers, sausages and chicken made from soy, peas and beans would curb Americans’ love of eating butchered animals – thereby reducing the rampant deforestation, water pollution and planet-heating emissions involved in raising livestock – these alternatives languish at just 1% of the total meat market in the US.
