Pragmatism in grocery stores

The Silent Power of Consumers

13 Feb 2026

With the beginning of the new year, there is lots of change with consumers: While US-media had foreseen a move away from veganism, millions of people worldwide partook in “Veganuary”, to try out going meatless. What is this trend about?

Reading time: 8 minutes

Consumers from several countries were celebrating “Veganuary” and thereby refute the short-lived media hype and claims that veganism is dead. 25 million people all around the globe decided to embark on being vegan for the entire month of January.¹ Within Germany alone more than a 1000 companies and brands cooperated.² It is initiatives like “Veganuary”, which show the power that consumers hold. Their buying decisions do not follow a unified nutritional dogmatism, but rather stem from individual needs.

Without question, within Germany the interest in plant-based nutrition goes beyond New Year’s resolutions, if only as part of a balanced diet within the growing group of flexitarians, who are well underway of making up 50 per cent of total consumers. Plant-based alternatives have been a mainstay of the German food industry for a while now. In 2024 they gathered 1,7 billion Euro in retail alone – not including gastronomy, take-away-orders or communal catering. Between 2022 and 2024 the market for alternative proteins grew with a steady increase of 3,3 per cent per annum, with a slowdown in the following years.³

Warning and all-clear and what consumers make from that

Hand pours dressing over two bowls with vegan ingredients, Photo: AleksandarGeorgiev — Photo: AleksandarGeorgiev

“Why vegans lost” (Financial Times), scoffed the influential international newspaper towards the end of 2025. With similar headlines following on its tails: “The problem with plant-bad nutrition” (The Guardian) or “Meat is back, on the plates and in politics” (New York Times). International media had declared meatless diets dead towards the end of the year, but consumers need not panic. Headlines do not always represent the actual purchasing behaviour.

When the New York restaurant “Eleven Madison Park”, arguably the most famous vegan kitchen in the world, reintroduced meat back onto the menu, this was taken to be a sign of a trend reversal. This was supported by the European Union starting to debate whether to prohibit the name “meat” for replacement products. “Only products containing meat should be called ‘Wurst’”, a German politician chimed in. At the same time concerned voices were growing louder about meat alternatives being put at a disadvantage.

But just in the same vain as the educated German consumer unwaveringly goes for the “oat milk”, even though it is now called “oat drink” or has long since learned that there is no cheese ("Käse") in "Leberkäse", there is backlash on European markets. “While angloamerican markets experienced the boom slightly earlier, and signs of saturation are already visible, many countries in Europe paint a different picture, we are growing again – in the eco market segments as well as alternative proteins”, explains the international market research company NielsenIQ, “in which the convenience of ready-to-eat products also plays a role. The offer became more attractive price-wise, when big chains introduced cheap house brands.”⁴

Pragmatism while shopping – why hybrid products work

Hand holding a vegetarian burger patty over a bun with a spatula, Photo: GMVozd — Photo: GMVozd

Especially in Germany food companies like Südzucker, Pfeifer & Langen as well as Tönnies and retailers like REWE und Lidl are increasing their activities within the sector of plant based alternatives⁵ – thereby promoting innovative products. It seems to be the same pattern across all societal developments: The old gives birth to the new. Companies are expanding their vegan offerings, forging cooperations with startups and increasingly invest in innovative food-tech-projects. Hybrid products – mixtures of meat and plant based protein – are moving into view as a key category, as they ease the consumer’s transition into a flexitarian diet.

The new hybrid patty by Aldi Nord, for example, is made up out of 70 per cent meat and 30 per cent plant based ingredients, thereby introducing sustainable options to a wider audience. For ingredient manufacturers, hybrid formats also open up new opportunities to use plant- and mushroom-based protein solutions on a larger scale. “Long-term consumer trends, especially among younger generations, combined with stricter regulations and ambitious ESG targets in the retail sector, are driving the shift towards plant-based solutions,” says Anselm Elles, Managing Director of AFC Consulting Group in Bonn. Consumers are spending more and more on substitute products. Prices for alternatives are falling, which is also due to the growing range of products on offer. “The products have arrived in the mainstream,” says Elles. The market is thus following simple consumer logic rather than deeply held convictions.

In autumn 2025 an international study in Halle will provide the first figures and data showing how price-sensitive vegan products are – and how disproportionately they grow once price parity with conventional products is established – even in the US market, with its above-average meat consumption.⁶

Where consumers decide differently – eating out

In the restaurant business, however, “inexpensive” and “meat-free” do not go together so easily: In the summer of 2025 the fast food chain McDonald’s removed the “McPlant” from its range due to low demand, and in November, the restructuring of the parent company of the well-known vegan burger chain Swing Kitchen failed. The younger generation also needs to be motivated: Six months after its launch interest in the meat-free cooking apprenticeship programmes which is intended to inspire enthusiasm for the industry in Austria, is modest, with just twelve apprenticeship contracts signed.

Young, eager to experiment – and not dogmatic

Two women are cooking together in a kitchen and stirring a pan., Photo: SolStock — Photo: SolStock

Vegans continue to make up a comparatively small proportion of consumers – between 4 and 9 per cent, according to measurements in Germany. Studies show that meat-free cuisine is becoming increasingly popular, especially among younger people: According to an internal study by REWE, 29 per cent of under-25s do not eat meat, says Verena Wiederkehr, plant-based pioneer at Austrian REWE subsidiary BILLA. The BMELH nutrition report, which is based on a representative Forsa survey, shows similar results: According to this survey, 20 per cent of 14 to 29-year-olds already follow a vegan or vegetarian diet.⁷

There may also be demographic reasons why meat consumption is not suffering as much as one might assume at first glance through competition from “alternatives”: The German meat industry actually recorded growth in 2024. Total meat production rose by 1.4 per cent to 7.3 million tonnes, or from 52.7 kilograms per capita (2022) to 53.2 kilograms – the first growth since 2016, but mainly due to poultry.⁸

In Austria, the land of the Wiener Schnitzel, the decline in meat consumption has also “come to a halt” recently, according to Franz Sinabell, an expert at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO). For example, 58 kilograms of meat were consumed per capita in Austria in 2024. That was 400 grams more than in the previous year⁹, but also significantly less than in 2020. At that time, 60.5 kilograms of meat were consumed.¹⁰ In densely populated regions such as Asia (China) and Latin America, there is no sign of a decline anyway, with pork and poultry being the dominant types of meat. According to the United Nations FAO, global meat consumption continued to rise in 2025, by 1.4 per cent.

According to market researcher Sinabell, the success of animal protein is “linked to the protein-through-meat boom that has spread from the US to us.” In the US, the renaissance of meat has been observed for some time – meat as a tasty, efficient “alternative” to protein powders and dietary supplements, which, as a result of powerful social media trends such as the 30-30-30 method, are supposed to ensure a correspondingly slim or athletic body. The protein boom has such momentum that other nutritional trends are losing visibility, which is also reflected in the requiem for “veganism” in the US media. “The current political situation plays a major role,” explained trendsetting magazine Vanity Fair in 2025, seeing the protein boom as closely linked to prominent figures in the “Make America Great Again” movement.

Why meat substitutes are not a zeitgeist product

Woman with backpack opens the glass door of a refrigerated display case in a supermarket, Photo: kupicoo — Photo: kupicoo

But is there truth to that claim? “Nutrition does not follow a political agenda, but habits, preferences and fashions,” Gunther Hirschfelder, professor of comparative cultural studies at the University of Regensburg, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The buzzword of the moment is “pragmatism,” it said. The balanced behaviour of consumers, who insist on their individual decisions and are not easily influenced, already points in the direction of unexcited pragmatism. The rapidly growing group of “flexitarians” could also be described as undogmatic rational eaters, with their ideology-free diet plans, which do include high-quality meat.

In Germany especially, soy-based sausage products should not be suspected of being overly “woke”. This is because the “Sojawurst” (also known as the “Friedenswurst”) was invented around 1915 by the then deputy mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer. In addition to his political career, he was also an inventor and in order to combat food shortages he – very pragmatically – came up with the “Sojawurst”. When asked by Hamburg’s “Zeit” newspaper whether his famous grandfather would have taken part in the discussion about whether something meat-free could be called sausage, Adenauer’s grandson Konrad replied: “I don’t think he would have cared.”