The price of meat is through the roof. An industry has a golden opportunity: artificial meat

It is becoming more and more expensive to buy meat in the supermarket. In the midst of widespread inflation, the meat section has stood out and its products are among those that have increased the most.

Among beef producers, the trend has been rising for years. According to Eurostat datathe price of live calves rises or falls between 2013 and 2019. But starting this year the rise is continuous. In Spain, for example, 100 kilos of live animal go from costing 226.25 euros in 2019 to having a price of 369 euros in 2023.

Another reference: the average price in the EU The price at which producers sold male beef in January 2025 was 570 euros per 100 kilos. A year later, last January, the cost had jumped to 717.11 euros per 100 kilos, an increase of 25.5%.

This rise in prices, especially of beef, coincides with a few years in which the artificial meat has progressed. The techniques to obtain a similar texture and achieve flavors and aromas have improved. Production methods have been polished and some companies have gained economies of scale. As a result, your product would have become cheaper.

It is the case of Novameat. Giuseppe Sconti, its founder and CEO, says that his company is now capable of producing artificial meat at a much lower price than a few years before. Born in Barcelona in 2018, the startup uses yellow pea protein for its product and has launched its own factory. “We buy a primary ingredient and transform it to have a block of textured protein, which large producers can then mix with minced meat or hamburgers,” he explains.

It is no longer about sausages or a hamburger made with plant-based meat. It is an approach that does not aim to create a final product for sale to the public. That’s easier gain scale in production, as long as there are clients to sell it to later, of course. Sconti adds another factor to the decrease in costs. “When we buy our base ingredient in large quantities we can get it at a lower price. In addition, we have diversified the places from which we can get the protein. Now we can get it from Europe, but also from America.”

Cheaper raw materials also help. Justo Pedroche Jiménez, senior scientist at the Fat Institute, belonging to the CSIC, has been working with vegetable protein for two decades in research aimed at the food sector. He claims that the diversity of plant protein has increased. “Nowadays we work with a lot of plant raw materials.”

He says that before, soy was mainly used as an alternative to animal protein, but now his team is researching lentils, chickpeaslupins, broad beans, even chia and quinoa, among others. “And the more companies there are that work on this, the more competition there is and the more different products on the market, all of this, in the end, leads to lower prices,” he adds.

At the exit of the bubble

But artificial meat has its own ghosts. It experienced a peak, it became almost a fashion, associated with veganism and healthy habits, and then some of the best-known brands in the sector fell sharply. In response to an email sent by Xataka, Jaime Martín, partner and CEO of the consulting firm Lantern, specialized in the food sector, is skeptical about the phenomenon of meat based on vegetable protein.

For him it was a bubble and it is a sector that is devastated. Although he points out that the prices of this type of product are going down in some countries. “It becomes cheaper in countries where there is already a relevant size of consumers, such as Holland or Germany, and a determined commitment by the private label to promote the category.”

The two big names in artificial meat, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, chain several years of decline. The losses accumulate, so much so that the first collapsed on the stock market in a spectacular way, while the second saw its valuation shrink in an equally bloody way. There have been bankruptcies, such as that of the British Meatless Farm, which went into bankruptcy more than two years ago. Perhaps the most symbolic thing was that in 2024 McDonald’s, which had promoted a hamburger made with this type of alternative meat, discontinued its sale. There was no place in his letter for McPlant.

For Pedroche, positive conclusions can be drawn from everything that has happened. “These companies made a risky bet on a product, perhaps a little sophisticated, for a very specific population niche, but I think that knowledge of vegetables has been created. Now it has stabilized. It is not decreasing but rather there are more and more people who risk, let’s say, trying this type of products that are closely linked to health,” reflects the CSIC researcher.

“There has been a bubble that has burst. The question is whether the protein diversification that had already begun will continue. The alternative protein, as it had been defined, in finished products, had created a lot of hype,” says Sconti, referring to the well-known brands that sold packaged products, such as hamburgers and sausages.

He talks about them as a commercial proposal, perhaps the most striking in the entire artificial meat sector, but not the only one. “I am optimistic. I think that protein diversification is not going to end. It is going to be like the Internet, when the dotcom bubble burst and then there was consolidation. And now the Internet is much bigger than in the year 2000.”

An example of this consolidation would be the movements of the Brazilian JBS, the world’s largest producer of traditional meat. In 2021 acquired the Dutch company specialized in alternative meat Vivera, and last year bought The Vegetarian Butcherthe alternative protein division of Unilever. He has merged both to boost its presence in the European market.

The outlook for the sector is encouraging. according to the analyst firm Future Market Insightswhich estimates that the plant-based meat market will grow 12% annually over the next ten years. With their calculations, it would go from being a market of 15.9 billion dollars in 2026 to reaching a total volume of 49.5 billion dollars in 2036.

Vegetable meat versus beef

In this context, beef production decreased in the European Union by 4.2% last year compared to 2024. In one of the periodic reports from the European Commission, it is noted that the supply is scarce and has difficulty meeting demand. This circumstance does not contribute to the moderation of prices.

In Spain, in one year, the increase in the average price of beef consumed in homes rose from €12.60/kg in July 2024 to €14.47/kg in July 2025 (an increase 14.78%), according to Provacuno dataassociation of majority representation in the sector.

“In the EU, and in Spain, the long-term trend is for the price of beef to rise, although we must see the effect of the Mercosur treaty. Other types of meat will also have pressure,” commented Martín, alluding to the association agreement between the EU and Mercosur, which foresees the entry of 99,000 tons of beef with a reduced tariff. The consultant foresees that vegetable meat will also increase in price but less than traditional meat.

For Pedroche, prices will tend to be equal: “From a few years ago until now, products based on vegetable proteins have decreased in price. And we must take into account that animal meat does not stop increasing. Let’s say that vegetable protein, which was previously a more luxury product, will come to a point in which it will meet with animal protein.”

The future does not have to be a direct competition between traditional and artificial meat. There are already examples of retail sales where both have been mixed. In the Netherlands, the Lidl supermarket chain has launched a minced meat containing 60% beef and 40% meat based on pea protein. Its price is 33% lower than conventional minced meat.

This hybrid model is what drives Novameat. “Beef producers have asked us to include an ingredient based on vegetable protein, so that they can replace their current hamburger, their current minced meat, with a hybrid product,” highlights the CEO of the startup. And he adds that today these packaged meats are not 100% beef but already have a small percentage of other ingredients, such as preservatives or natural aromas.

In the conversations that the company has with meat companies, there is talk of introducing more than 10% of its vegetable protein in minced meat. “Meat producers are interested because they buy our textured protein blocks at a lower price. Right now, for large scales, we are talking about 5 euros per kilo,” says Sconti. This would be a lower cost than that of the European beef average.

“The technology is very versatile. We can adapt it and we do not have to depend on the traditional extruder machines that are used to make texturing, such as soy. We even adapt the protein block depending on whether it is for beef or pork,” says Sconti. Each product requires adaptation. The one that will be mixed with minced meat must have a suitable size for the mincer, the burger needs a texture that is not sandy and matches well with the meat mass. The Novameat factory in Barcelona can produce up to 40 tons per month of textured vegetable meat.

Although the formula of this company is to produce its protein blocks at a local level, in its clients’ own industrial plant. “We can install our technology in the producer’s factory and mix our protein with their meat there,” details Sconti. “We carry a small part of the production line, which can be installed and removed. And we also bring our engineers to do the installation. We adapt the process according to the temperature of the factory, the mixer and the machines they have.” It is a way to save transportation.

This hybrid product model is proposed as a way out for the sector. “The aim is for this animal meat to give it part of that texture and flavor that vegetable protein lacks,” says Pedroche. “And it seems that this is the other line of research and the other line of product development that there will be in the coming years.” This means that this type of plant-based meat is no longer aimed at a specific segment of the population, such as vegetarians, vegans and flexitarians, but at a large mass of consumers.

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