South Africans are turning away from meat — slowly

Plant-based meat substitutes are making surprising inroads in SA despite our deep love of meat and hostility from the industry regulator.

That could be heartening for climate scientists, who say shifting diets from emissions-heavy meat and dairy towards more plant-based foods is vital in the fight against climate change.

Plant-based meat substitutes are growing by 6.5% a year and sales are expected to reach R10.30bn by 2023, according to Dublin-based Research and Markets, or more than half Africa’s share of a global market forecast to reach $162bn (about R2.97-trillion) by 2030.

That’s still pretty niche — South Africans spent $15bn on meat products in 2018 and the country is now the world’s ninth-biggest per capita consumer of beef.

But the popularity of veggie alternatives would have been unthinkable even a decade ago and the market is outstripping forecast growth for meat. The shift has so unnerved SA’s processed meat industry that in June it lobbed for — and secured — a government ban on plant-based products using words such as “nugget”, “sausage” or “burger” on packaging.

The agriculture department at the time said the move was aimed at preventing consumer confusion. A spokesperson didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

Food producers remain undeterred. At meat processor Feinschmecker, staff pour powdered soy and pea protein into vats and rehydrate them to make its plant-based “deli slice” — called so in anticipation of a ban on labelling it “ham”.

“A lot of it’s driven by flexitarianism. People who want to make a bit of an effort to eat less meat,” Feinschmecker MD Alistair Hayward said.

In March, Tiger Brands has bought a stake in meat-substitute start-up Herbivoire, while Woolworths has introduced its own range of meat alternatives.

Clearly, ethical food choices are a luxury of the relatively well-to-do — a quarter of the population struggles to put any food on the table. Still, evidence is accumulating that curbing consumption of meat and dairy — which account for about a fifth of all carbon emissions, according to the latest estimates — is vital to meeting UN climate goals.

Food emissions

A paper in Science magazine published February said ending animal agriculture could stabilise greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68% of CO² emissions this century; another in 2018 showed switching the world to a purely plant-based diet could slash food-related emissions — which account for about 30% of the total — by almost half.

But forgoing cheeseburgers isn’t something governments, many of which dole out billions of dollars to livestock farmers each year, are likely to propose at the COP27 climate summit that starts in Egypt on Sunday.

Lowering animal consumption, then, may boil down to consumers like Angie Raphalalani. She gave up meat because of climate concerns and her diabetes.

“My immediate family ... were shocked,” she said, after lunching at Lexi’s Healthy Eatery, vegan restaurant in Johannesburg. “But probably they’ll follow me. I’m quite influential in their lives.”

Reuters