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They say, ‘adversity doesn’t build character; it reveals it’ – and that was certainly the case for the plant-based foods industry last year.

In the face of stagnant sales growth, rising costs and diminished investment appetite, this past year revealed a strong sense of community, an epicentre for collaboration, and an unrelenting message of urgency and purpose.

Whilst there is clearly competition amongst the increasing number of plant-based food businesses and service providers, we are all ultimately driven by a mission beyond just turning a profit.

Whether that mission is health, animal welfare or the environment, last year revealed that our industry truly has a unique and powerful foundation for success… we all genuinely want to work together to see the category grow!

As we move into a new year, below are my four trend predictions for the plant-based foods category this year.

Store brand / private label push

With rising cost-of-living pressures, and plant-based foods continuing to be a growth engine for retailers, there’s never been greater interest by global store brands for more competitive and strategic partners.

Recent US retail sales Spins data confirms this with US plant-based food retail sales hitting $7.4 billion, significantly outpacing total food retail sales growth threefold.

Moreover, during the first 11 months of last year, store brand dollar sales increased by 10.6 per cent, nearly twice the growth of national brands, according to IRI Worldwide data.

Based on this data, the Private Label Manufacturers Association projects full-year sales of store brands to reach $221 billion, which would be a $21 billion increase over 2021 and a new annual record.

With the plant-based food industry still very nascent relative to the overall food and beverage market, this year is sure to see greater private label penetration and proliferation of plant-based foods across grocery aisles as consumers seek more competitive pricing and greater convenience for their household shopping.

C’mon Aussie c’mon

While Australia may be comparatively small on a global scale, the forecast for Australia’s plant-based foods industry shows tremendous growth as per CSIRO’s 2022 “Protein” report which estimates the ‘plant-based products’ market to be worth between $3 billion to $9 billion by 2030. 

For context, the plant-based products market is currently worth $140 million.

Although Australia is still a little behind with respect to alternative proteins as we’ve only recently seen investment and dynamic market activity over the last few years, this is fast changing with the emergence of leading plant-based food businesses across the supply chain, VCs and accelerators creating a strong ecosystem that is essential to harness support for our burgeoning industry.

As for opportunities beyond our shores, generally, there is a very strong global demand for Australian produce and foods. For instance, Australia is the largest sheep meat exporter and second-largest beef exporter behind Brazil so it’s only a matter of time before this global sentiment trickles across to Australian plant-based meats.

With the Australian plant-based foods industry set for explosive growth, and around two-thirds of our agricultural products exported, this year will almost certainly see Australia take its rightful place on the global plant-based foods stage.

Less meat equals less heat – ESG action

As the automotive industry continues to work towards improving the sustainability of its manufacturing processes, investing in more Earth-friendlier materials and leather alternatives has played a very key role in realising their environmental targets towards a low-carbon automotive future.

One only has to look at BMW Group’s investment in Natural Fiber Welding, and General Motors’ partnership with MycoWorks to confirm this.

As corporations (and their respective ESG departments) continue to seek opportunities to meet their environmental goals, and investments in renewable sources of energy fail to yield the desired results, meat reduction will undoubtedly play a key role in realising the environmental ambitions of many businesses and institutions.

With the link between industrial animal agriculture and GHG emissions/deforestation gaining more mainstream attention, the ESG risks generated by industrial animal agriculture, and the environmental opportunities in embracing more meat alternatives, will be a core component for those responsible for managing and meeting ESG objectives with data whilst maintaining the bottom line.

Given this increased awareness, this year will be the one when industries transform the ‘less meat equals less heat’ narrative into action via greater investment in mindshare and activations (such as meatless initiatives and campaigns), thereby unlocking wider mainstream acceptance of plant-based foods. 

A wave of fishless fish

According to the WWF, seafood is the world’s largest traded food commodity with approximately 3 billion people relying on it as a core source of protein in their diets.

At the same time, the fishing industry is fraught with public health issues – from heavy metal and mercury contamination to the overuse of antibiotics in factory fishing.

With overfishing threatening the future of marine biodiversity, and consumers increasingly open to inventive alternatives, this year will see the debut of the greatest yet number of alternative seafood products debuting in grocery aisles and on restaurant menus, setting in motion a mammoth opportunity for the plant-based seafood category for years to come.

From prawns and calamari to crabs and sashimi, just like diners now expect plant-based burger options at fast-food restaurants, it’s only a matter of time before the same expectations are placed upon every fish and chip shop globally,

A crucial tipping point

As we enter the new year, it is only natural to pause and reflect on the one that just passed.

Last year was one of collaboration and transition as many in the plant-based foods sector had to look beyond traditional capital forces to catapult into their next big adventures.

From exploring private-label or ESG interests to meet market conditions, to leveraging high-growth market opportunities in product verticals (seafood) or geography (Apac), the plant-based foods industry is now at a crucial tipping point.

About the author: Allen Zelden is an Apac expert on plant-based foods and co-founder of Futurevvorld and PlantForm Partners. This story was originally published on The Vegconomist.

GrainCorp says rail and road bottlenecks are holding back exports as China and other international customers look to secure food supply and with Australian farmers grinding out one of the country’s longest, biggest and most valuable harvests.

The east coast grain-handling giant expects continued strong prices and high demand for Australian wheat, barley and canola amid global food security concerns stemming from Russia’s war on Ukraine.

GrainCorp ticked over the 10 million tonne-milestone for grain delivered into its vast receival network across Queensland, NSW and Victoria on Wednesday.

And there is plenty more to come with farmers in southern NSW and Victoria harvesting into the New Year after delays caused by flooding and waterlogging.

CBH, GrainCorp’s equivalent on the west coast, is expected to break its 21.3 million tonne record for grain received on Thursday.

And Glencore-owned Viterra, the biggest player in South Australian grain storage and handling, said farmers had pumped 6.9 million tonnes into its system with harvest starting to wind down after record-breaking deliveries in December.

Grain industry sources estimate the cereal and oilseeds component of the harvest will be worth up to $12 billion to farmers in Queensland, NSW and Victoria alone, up from $9 billion last year.

GrainCorp chief operating officer Klaus Pamminger said grain prices were higher than this time last year chiefly because of the war in Ukraine.

Mr Pamminger said the third consecutive big harvest on the east coast had been slower than usual and weather-disrupted but GrainCorp was pleased with the yields and the quality produced by farmers.

“This crop and harvest have been more challenging than the last two but we are pleasantly surprised at how well the yields have held up and by the quality,” he said.

GrainCorp, which has employed more than 3000 casual workers to help with the latest bumper harvest, hit the 10 million mark well before Christmas last year and would normally be winding down the receival task.

Mr Pamminger said GrainCorp’s seven east coast port terminals were shipping big volumes of wheat but the supply chain was restricted by problems with rail and truck transport.

He said a shortage of train and truck drivers combined with rail and road access and maintenance issues was making it hard for bulk handlers to get grain to port.

Ukraine effect

CBH, a co-operative controlled by thousands of farmers, has faced similar problems in WA but managed to ship a record 2.18 million tonnes of grain to overseas customers in December.

Viterra loaded more than 905,000 tonnes on to vessels for export from its South Australian port terminals in December, the company’s second largest month on record for shipping.

The price of APW (Australian premium white) wheat is hovering around $370 a tonne on the east coast amid strong demand from China, which has emerged as Australia’s biggest customer in the past 12 months, South-East Asia and other nations.

Mr Pamminger, who is responsible for marketing and trading as well as operations at GrainCorp, said large international customers could no longer rely on shipments out of the Black Sea region whether from Russia or Ukraine.

“The world is looking for someone to fill that shortfall and Australia is in a fantastic position to fill that gap,” he said.

Mr Pamminger said he expected China to continue as a big buyer of Australian wheat.

“Obviously China is a very well regulated economy. They themselves need to make sure they have the appropriate food supplies,” he said.

“China used to buy grain out of the Black Sea but maybe not any more because they want security of supply.

“Large international customers want security of supply over extended periods. A lot of our customers buy three to five months ahead.”

Mr Pamminger said he could see positive signs of a resumption in the barley sales to China now that Canberra and Beijing were back talking about trade disputes affecting agricultural commodities and other issues.

Floods take toll

Victorian farmer Brett Hosking said the drawn-out harvest was testing the patience, resolve and capability of grain growers across much of Australia and in particular those areas hit by floods and waterlogging late in 2022.

He said the bright side was the size of the crop and high pricing on the back of strong global demand for Australian wheat and other grains amid the concerns about food security.

Mr Hosking, who farms at Quambatook in Victoria’s Mallee region, is still waiting for more than 300 hectares on his farm to dry out so he can harvest wheat.

In the meantime, his family, including his eldest daughters Grace and Lily, worked through Christmas and New Year harvesting the rest of their wheat, barley, canola and lentil crop.

“This harvest has been a really hard slog for a lot of people. We have had all kinds of dramas thrown at us,” Mr Hoskin said.

“We’ve had our problems but there are some horror stories of people getting machinery bogged over and over and gear breaking down.”

Mr Hosking said most growers would be happy with the outcome of their hard work given the premiums on offer for Australian grain.

However, farmers in parts of NSW and Victoria have also had some quality and value stripped from what shaped as dream crops by unseasonably heavy rain followed by passing showers.

The Hosking family would in most years complete the harvest by Christmas but have at least another 10 days of work in front of them.

South Australian farmers delivered a whopping 5.2 million tonnes to Viterra sites last month and have continued harvesting into the New Year.

Viterra said the deliveries were a credit to farmers who worked hard to harvest their crop quickly once the weather permitted.

Derek Robjohns, Viterra’s general manager of supply chain, said the exports from South Australia showed the value and support from multiple buyers.

“Our team is focused on loading vessels quickly and moving growers’ grain to meet the strong export demand for grain,” he said.

Self-service micro market chain Morsl has secured $5 million in a series-A capital round, increasing the company’s valuation to $14.4 million as it looks to accelerate its expansion.

The company will use the funds to open 20 new sites, penetrate industries “beyond workplaces”, and hire key management positions to scale its business. 

Established in 2018, Morsl curates some 1000 fresh food, snacks, and drinks – including ready-to-eat meals, salads, and sandwiches – offered via a fully automated, self-checkout vending machine designed to look like a cafe.

“Our mission to provide easy access to healthier eating choices for Australian employees continues to gain important momentum as we reach this incredible milestone,” said Karla Borland, CEO at Morsl.

“When the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to change business focus from the corporate to the industrial sector, which remains our priority today.” 

Borland added that the new capital would allow the company to market its services and show how it can provide employers with a workable wellness solution for their employees.

“Our significant pipeline shows a high demand from organisations looking to improve their employee productivity, satisfaction, engagement and retention in a tight labour market,” said Borland.

Since its launch, the company has grown to 13 sites across NSW and Victoria, in some of the country’s largest warehouses and logistic companies, including Amazon, Officeworks, and a recently signed partnership with Charter Hall. 

In addition, its services have expanded beyond micro markets. The company now offer coffee, hot beverages, pantry services, vending, catering, and employee engagement events. 

Morsl recently signed a lease for an office and warehouse space in Marrickville, Sydney, to accommodate its planned business expansion. 

Participants in the capital raising include The Chapman Group – led by Chairman George Chapman AO and director Dr Ken Chapman – a Cairns-based family investment office with active businesses in tourism, real estate and agriculture and a diverse investment portfolio including listed and private equity and venture capital. The company invested $4.3 million.

Endeavour Group has struck a deal to buy Cape Mentelle from French luxury goods conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) for an undisclosed amount.

Established in 1970 and one of Margaret River’s founding five wineries, Cape Mentelle is considered a pioneer of many of the region’s renowned wine styles.

‍Steve Donohue, CEO and MD at Endeavour Group, described the acquisition of Cape Mentelle as an important next step in boosting its subsidiary, Paragon Wine Estate’s fine wine portfolio and providing the business with a premium presence in Western Australia.

“Cape Mentelle founder David Hohnen once said, ‘wine is a journey’,” said Donohue.

“I’m delighted to welcome Cape Mentelle to the Endeavour Group and Paragon Wine Estates families and to see it continue to grow on a global scale while giving more people across Australia access to its fantastic range of wines.”

“Anyone who has tried a Cape Mentelle Cabernet or Chardonnay knows just how special this winery is,” added Donohue.

The company said it would be business as usual for Cape Mentelle, with key personnel to remain with the winery, including estate director Penny Dickeson, viticulturist Dave Moulton, and recently appointed senior winemaker Eloise Jarvis.

Cape Mentelle is also a member of Sustainable Winegrowing Australia and was the first winery in WA to obtain Entwine accreditation for its sustainability program.

Completion of the transaction will take place in due course, pending licensing approval.

Maggie Beer Holdings (MBH) has appointed Kinda Grange as its new CEO, effective March 1.

Grange was the former joint MD of the Australian manufacturing company Goodman Fielder, where she has spent 18 years in several senior leadership roles.

Reg Weine, MBH’s chairman, said “Kinda’s impressive track record of delivering strategic and operational business outcomes, combined with her entrepreneurial and innovative mindset will accelerate MBH’s vision & strategy.”

MBH director Maggie Beer AO described Grange as an “authentic leader” and said: “We have had such strong stable leadership to bring us to this point and we are now poised and ready for the next level of opportunity.”

The company says Grange’s appointment comes as it has completed its “transformation and strategic repositioning” as Australia’s leading purveyor of premium food, beverage and gifting.

Former CEO and MD Chantale Millard resigned on December 31 after eight years in the role.

When you first walk into an Astrid dispensary, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a high-end day spa. Its green, minimalist layout makes a strong first impression, and it’s only when you look closer that you’d realise the business operates as a cannabinoid product dispensary.

The use of medicinal cannabis in Australia is still in a fairly nascent stage, having been legalised only around two years ago. However, in that time, more than 300 dispensaries have launched across the country, some of which are taking a high-end approach to the often-misunderstood sector.

Used the right way, cannabis can deliver several benefits to the human body, including anti-inflammation, pain relief and anxiety relief, as well as a natural calming effect.

Boutique pharmacies such as Astrid, and telehealth clinics such as Polln, have started breaking down the barriers that exist in the space, and are helping more people get ahold of cannabidiol- (CBD-) and cannabis-based therapies. 

“When I first launched Astrid, I actually really struggled to find staff who understood the vision I wanted to create. I want to flip the traditional pharmacy model on its head,” Astrid founder Lisa Nguyen recently told Inside FMCG.

“When patients come in, instead of lining up to pick up their medication, there’s a lounge where they can sit and the pharmacist will come and sit with them to talk through their medication in a more casual way.

“We also got rid of the pharmacist’s white coat. It can have a really big psychological impact on the customer’s experience.”

Astrid has two stores – one in Melbourne, and another on the Gold Coast. A third will open in Brisbane in the next year or so. It’s also looking at a range extension, with vaporisers, terpenes, activewear and a private-label skincare range on the way.

As the space grows, first-movers like Astrid will continue to be in a prime position to further capture the market; however, while the sector is expanding, there are undoubtedly some growing pains.

Some of the key concerns for these distributors relate to better education about the role cannabis-related products can play in modern medicine, as well as legislative hurdles that remain in place, despite the legalisation of the drugs themselves. 

Clearing the air

When people think of the use of CBD, they tend to think of pot heads and hippies using the drug recreationally to escape their worries and get high. This outdated stereotype, unfortunately, belies the therapeutic properties CBD has been proven to offer.

“There is still a lot of stigma associated with CBD or medicinal cannabis products, and this often extends to GPs as well,” Polln co-founder Grace Tan told Inside FMCG.

“Some of the stigma stems from the comparison to illegal substances such as marijuana. Medicinal cannabis is not to be confused with recreational marijuana or black-market cannabis, which is obtained illegally, without a prescription.”

In Polln’s case, potential patients will be considered eligible for CBD use only if they do a detailed video consultation with an expert cannabis clinician, have a chronic condition that has lasted more than three months, and have tried some form of conventional treatment that hasn’t worked, or has had unwanted side effects.

One of the major roadblocks to more widespread use of CBD-based medication is the fact that patients are unable to drive after taking their dosage under current laws – even with a prescription from a licensed doctor. 

It’s illegal for people to drive with any trace – no matter how small – of a cannabinoid in their system. To Nguyen, this is one of the biggest barriers to the more widespread adoption of medicinal cannabis. 

“Regularly, my nurses and pharmacists will have to tell someone that they’ll be unable to drive after having taken their CBD-based medicine, and it can become really frustrating because we can see the pain that people are in,” Nguyen said.

“And when they just want to go pick up their kids from school or drive to their local supermarket or whatever, but they legally can’t, that makes things really hard.”

Green shoots

Despite these hurdles, the sector is enjoying a period of stark growth. Australian medicinal cannabis company Montu recently took the top spot in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 after enjoying 20,728 per cent growth between 2020 and 2022, for example. 

And while the opportunity is there to expand into other areas of pharmacy, as Astrid is doing with its coming launch of a private-label skincare range, most dispensaries are keen to stay on the path and simply improve their offers.

“Our goal is to continue to improve accessibility for patients in need,” Polln co-founder Chris Nasr told Inside FMCG. 

“As the demand for digital healthcare continues to increase, we are on a mission to find the cracks in conventional healthcare, identify the communities that are underfunded and underserved, and continue to build a solution to care for those patients.

“We build our own technology from scratch, which allows us to fully tailor the patient, doctor and pharmacy experience, while utilising the latest technology to ensure each experience is seamless and easy to access.”

Astrid is also focusing primarily on its customer journey, Nguyen said, with its extensions into other areas of retail simply acting as more ways to hook in its target customer and further itself as a premium option in the CBD space.

“We’re trying to differentiate ourselves from our competitors at the moment. Other companies are trying to compete on price, but Astrid is a premium brand – I don’t intend to compete on price,” Nguyen said. 

“We want to compete on value and service, and part of that is to develop a key customer. My key customer is the person who is really focused on their health and well-being. They have a gym membership, go to skincare clinics, and have smoothies three times a day – that kind of thing.”

The COVID pandemic has given us new words, record-low interest rates and the largest explosion in government debt outside of World War II - and is continuing to upend the way Australian households spend their money.

An update by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to the way it tracks inflation shows that almost three years after the start of the pandemic, consumers continue to spend more of their weekly budgets on everything from hairdressing to cavoodles while new shoes and books are left on the shelves.

Every year, the bureau reviews the nation’s collective spending patterns to help it accurately weight the various components of the basket of goods and services that are tracked to determine the rate at which consumer prices are changing.

Traditionally, changes in the spending patterns of Australian households occur gradually.

When the bureau first compiled its measure of what was described as the “interim retail price index” in the late 1940s, food accounted for 31.2 per cent of the total spending basket.

Meat made up 8.7 per cent of the basket while dairy products - milk and cheese - accounted for 8.2 per cent. Housing’s share of spending was 11.6 per cent, just a little more than the 11 per cent that households devoted to alcohol and cigarettes.

In its 2017 update, spending on food and non-alcoholic drinks accounted for just 16.1 per cent of the inflation basket. Meat and seafood had fallen to 2.2 per cent while dairy products were down to less than one per cent.

In its stead, expenditure on housing - which includes utilities such as electricity - had grown to 22.7 per cent.

Then along came COVID. By 2020, as the country began a nationwide housing frenzy due to record-low interest rates, housing accounted for 24 per cent of the entire inflation basket. Food spending, which lifted during the COVID lockdowns of the period, increased to its highest proportion since the turn of the century to 17.4 per cent.

In its most recent update, the bureau reports food has edged down from its 2020 pandemic hoarding highs but Australians are still putting more of their weekly grocery bills towards such things as beef, chicken, milk, coffee, soft drinks and vegetables.

Eating out, be it in a restaurant or via takeaways, is now at its highest share of our weekly spending since the bureau started officially measuring this sector in the mid-1970s.

As a proportion of the inflation basket, eating out accounts for 6.81 per cent of total spending. That is an increase of 16 per cent over its pre-pandemic level and a bigger share of our expenditure than petrol (3.6 per cent), domestic holidays (2.4 per cent) and electricity (2.2 per cent).

Our spending patterns changed in other ways. The surge in lockdown pets, and their associated veterinary bills, means the proportion of our spending devoted to furry friends and their health needs is 28 per cent above its pre-pandemic levels.

Expenditure on clothing is 11 per cent up (although the share devoted to shoes is down by 11 per cent), the share of our spending devoted hairdressing and personal care is up by 16 per cent while health spending is 16 per cent higher.

To make way for this extra spending, the proportion we devote to other goods and services has fallen. The biggest drop has been on transport fares, down 53 per cent on 2017 levels while the share devoted to the cleaning, repair or hire of clothes has dropped by 42 per cent.

International travel came to a standstill when the Morrison government closed the borders. Despite surging by 2213 percent from its 2020 level, the share of expenditure devoted to overseas trips is still down 41 per cent on its pre-COVID level.

AMP senior economist Diana Mousina said COVID and its restrictions on our way of life had changed our spending patterns which were now reflected in the inflation basket used by the ABS.

She said spending should return to pre-pandemic patterns, but it was taking longer than expected and could change even more as higher interest rates start to bite.

“We’ve seen the price of goods go up and that’s contributing to the inflation we’re seeing. I think services are going to return as spending on goods falls back as interest rates continue to rise,” she said.

“Retail spending remains at elevated levels, and you can see that in the inflation figures, but over time it is going to come back a bit and we’ll see that in a change in our spending patterns.”

While housing’s share of the inflation basket reached an all-time high in 2020, it has now fallen below its pre-pandemic level.

The bureau does not include house prices in its measure of inflation, but takes in rents, utilities and costs associated with purchase of newly built homes.It said that while spending on rents had grown over the past two years, total expenditure across all goods and services had grown by more. Electricity consumption has also dropped which, combined with rebates offered to households by some states to offset surging prices, had pushed down its share of the inflation basket.

Melbourne-based delivery service YourGrocer has closed down its business as of today. The company allowed customers to order from various retailers and fresh food producers, which boomed during the pandemic. 

Now that the cities have opened up and things are returning to normal, the situation seems bleak for the food-delivery space. 

The grocery delivery app Send shut down in May, followed by Voly in November. At the same time, UK-based Deliveroo exited the Australian market.

Morgan Ranieri, founder and CEO of YourGrocer, sent a farewell email to customers on Wednesday.

“It is with a heavy heart that we must announce that YourGrocer is closing down for good as a company this Friday, December 16,” wrote Rainieri.

“This will be our very last day of deliveries. As hard as we’ve tried, we cannot keep the company going any longer, so we have been forced to cease operating.”

Rainieri informed customers that all orders scheduled from Monday would be cancelled and encouraged them to contact merchants directly.

“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment,” he concluded.

Premium liquor brand Ugly Vodka is turning imperfect or “ugly” apples into a delicious alcoholic beverage – tackling food waste one bottle at a time.

The brand says its environmental impact is tracked by how many apples it saves from going to waste – the first batch of vodka claims to have saved an estimated 20 tonnes of apples from being dumped.

Danny Grant, co-founder of 80Proof Liquor, the parent company of Ugly Vodka, said that during a product discovery trip to find innovative ways to make alcohol, he saw the effects of fruit wastage first-hand, with up to 40 per cent of the fruit on orchards rendered unsaleable due to aesthetics. 

“There has been plenty of trial and error as no one has tried making traditional vodka from ugly apples before,” said Grant. 

He explained that starch extracted from apples is similar to potato starch in regular vodka, and drinkers won’t find any apple taste or flavour in the finished product.

“It’s still a premium, delicious-tasting product,” concluded Grant.

Ugly Vodka is available for an RRP$64.99 for a limited first-run online drop at uglyvodka.com.au.