A New Report Reveals Why Plant-Based Meat Still Struggles to Beat the Real Thing

In 2024, meat sales in the United States surged. According to data from Circana, meat sales increased by more than 5% in September 2024 compared to the same month in 2023. And, as noted in the 2025 Nectar Taste of the Industry report, the “plant-based meat sector has experienced a 20% year-over-year volume decline.” People, it seems, are falling back in love with meat. However, that may be simply because society is telling us to. 

The 2025 report by Nectar is an exhaustive survey of 2,684 adults in New York and San Francisco who self-identify as omnivores or flexitarians. The study asked participants to eat and rate both meat-based and plant-based products at restaurants in both cities to “achieve an authentic and natural eating experience,” the study stated.

All food products were prepared according to each manufacturer’s instructions, and the study and survey were blinded and randomized to ensure the most equitable outcomes. So here’s where things get interesting.

Overall, participants indicated a preference for the animal protein option over the plant-based variety. However, this is partly due to significant disparities among the plant-based options they enjoyed. This suggests that plant-based alternatives can truly be a great option for your taste buds, as long as the companies producing them enhance the flavors. People need these options to be not just acceptable or passable, but better than their meaty counterparts.

According to the findings, 20 plant-based products received “Tasty Awards” because they were rated as either the same or better than the animal benchmark (meaning “at least 50% of participants” liked them). Additionally, several plant-based categories were rated as either the same or better than the animal benchmark, including unbreaded chicken fillets, burgers, breaded chicken fillets, chicken nuggets, and breakfast sausage, with Impossible Foods’ unbreaded chicken fillet performing the best.

However, plant-based companies may also need to do something else: Change how the general public perceives their alternatives to meat. As Daniel Rosenfeld, a University of California, Los Angeles behavioral scientist who specializes in plant-based food perceptions, told Vox, “People don’t just taste food in an objective way … When social norms with a product get set in place, it’s pretty hard to change that default.” 

Rosenfeld even has his own study to support this claim. Vox pointed to a 2023 report, which found that those who perceive eating animal products as a “human right” expect vegan options to taste bad before they ever put them in their mouth. 

As Rosenfeld explained, changing long-held public opinion is difficult, as “People like to just do whatever is a popular option. We’re very conformist by nature.”

The Nectar report’s R&D roadmap was also quite blunt. The team noted that companies need to “increase product quality” to get more people to try their products, and that “burgers, meatballs, and nuggets have 5-15x greater market penetration than lower performing categories like bacon and hot dogs,” which “fail to perform comparably with the animal product have much lower sales.”

It also noted that companies need to reevaluate taste in a big way. One flavor to try? Umami. According to the survey, plant-based meats were described as “savory” 35% less often. That, along with a little extra juice, could do the trick, as plant-based meats were also described as “juicy” 62% less often. Companies should also examine their protein content, as those with 10 grams or more increased customers’ purchase intent.

There is a little good news in the report. As the authors noted, “Taste parity is within reach,” meaning it is entirely up to brands to make it happen.