Vegan marketing: the scenario

The marketing of vegan products: data, benefits, limits and environmental impact

I have tofu in the fridge, chickpea flour in the pantry, and almost every week a plant-based drink in my trolley instead of milk. Yet I still haven’t taken the final leap. I consider myself a middle ground: open-minded, informed, but not quite ready to remove meat, eggs and cheese from my table completely. Anyone who knows me is aware that I closely follow Anna Panna Food, a former colleague turned friend, today a reference point for anyone who wants to understand what eating sustainably really means. It’s her serious expertise, never preachy, that convinced me to look at the plant-based world not as a renunciation but as both a stance and a matter of taste.

Marketing is exactly the thread running through this piece: how plant-based food is sold today, what numbers it moves in Italy and worldwide, what advantages it brings, and what limits it hides.

The scenario in Italy

Eurispes 2026 data describe a country moving slowly but surely. Vegans make up 3.2% of the population, a slight increase from 2.9% the previous year. Vegetarians, on the other hand, dropped to 5.3%, a sharp decline compared to the earlier 9.5%. Meat eaters remain the overwhelming majority, above 86%, but the most interesting phenomenon involves flexitarians: people who don’t give up meat entirely but cut back on it out of conviction or curiosity.

The “Vegan Economy 2025-2026” report from the VEGANOK Observatory confirms this trend with concrete figures: the plant-based product market in Italy is worth 639 million euros, growing by 16.4%. About 17.7 million Italian households, nearly seven out of ten, already include at least one plant-based product in their regular shopping, and 21 million people say they intend to cut meat consumption in the coming months. A curious detail: online, the word “vegan” gets 14 times more search results than “plant-based”, a sign that Italian audiences still prefer direct language over the English term.

The scenario worldwide

Looking beyond national borders, the picture is similar but on a much larger scale. Several market research firms, including Grand View Research, forecast steady growth for the global vegan food sector throughout this decade, driven by North America, Europe and emerging Asian economies. Three main drivers stand out: personal health, environmental concern and animal welfare, usually in that order of priority for the average consumer.

Internationally too, the dominant figure is no longer the strict vegan but the flexitarian: someone who consciously reduces animal protein intake without adopting an all-or-nothing philosophy. This explains why major food companies, even those historically tied to meat or dairy, have launched plant-based lines in recent years. Their target is no longer an ideological niche but a broad, cross-cutting slice of the population.

The benefits, when the choice is well planned

A plant-based diet, if carefully planned, brings documented advantages: lower intake of saturated fat and cholesterol, higher consumption of fiber and antioxidants, reduced risk of being overweight, and more favorable metabolic profiles. Some studies link this way of eating to a lower incidence of certain diet-related colorectal cancers, along with positive effects on gut microbiota.

It’s no coincidence that many brands build their communication around exactly these elements: lightness, energy, easy digestion. These are arguments that speak to the stomach, quite literally, before they speak to the mind.

The downsides of the choice

On a practical level, the limits remain real. According to an investigation by Il Post, plant-based meat substitutes retail at a noticeably higher price than actual meat, both in supermarkets and restaurants: a cost gap that already slowed the sector’s growth in the United States and the United Kingdom back in 2022. Choice also remains narrower: a handful of brands, from Beyond Meat to Garden Gourmet, dominate the shelves, while outside major cities, finding a wide range of plant-based alternatives takes more time and more specialized shops.

There’s another critical front too, less about nutrition and more about commerce: many meat and cheese substitutes are ultra-processed products, high in salt and additives, sold with an aura of healthiness that doesn’t always match their actual composition. The risk of greenwashing, or “healthwashing” as it’s sometimes called, is real: green packaging and the word plant-based on a label don’t automatically guarantee a balanced product.

The positive impact on the environment

If the nutritional side calls for balance, the environmental data is far more consistent. A recent study cited by Greenreport shows that a vegan diet cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 46%, land use by 33% and water consumption by 7% compared to a typical omnivorous diet. Our World in Data, an international reference on these topics, confirms that nearly all beef and lamb producers maintain a high carbon footprint, higher than any plant-based alternative even in the most virtuous farming cases.

This explains why sustainability has become the main lever in the communication of plant-based brands: not just an ethical talking point, but a measurable, citable figure, far sturdier than a simple slogan.

The most common vegan products in Italy and how they’re marketed

In the kitchen, three products dominate the Italian vegan scene: tofu, plant-based drinks and chickpea flour, the very same ones I use regularly.

Tofu, championed by long-standing brands like Valsoia, is presented as a versatile protein food, able to soak up seasonings and adapt to traditional Italian dishes, from parmigiana to ragù.

Plant-based drinks are perhaps the segment with the boldest communication. Alpro, for instance, ran a campaign with the provocative claim “Shhh, this isn’t milk”, betting on taste and texture rather than ethics, and openly stating it wanted to reach not strict vegans but “seven billion imperfect flexitarians”. The environmental message still comes through: producing a kilogram of plant protein reportedly requires, according to the company, one-eleventh of the energy needed for its animal equivalent.

Chickpea flour, finally, plays a different card: that of Mediterranean tradition. It’s presented not as an innovation but as a return to roots, evoking regional recipes like farinata or panelle, a positioning that reassures people like me who aren’t quite ready for the full “plant-based” label yet.

Even the food delivery world has adapted to this growing demand, with dedicated packaging and menus designed for people looking for meat-free options away from home, a topic I’ve also explored in food delivery, a blessing and a curse.

My halfway journey

So back to where I started: me. Tofu, plant-based drinks, chickpea flour are concrete but partial steps. I still haven’t given up eggs, fish or cheese, and I don’t know if I ever will completely. What I’ve learned, by following Anna Panna Food on Instagram and reading the data on this sector, is that perfection isn’t required to matter: even flexitarians, the ones who cut back without eliminating, are shifting an entire market, much like the new wine marketing shows, reinventing itself for a more conscious audience without abandoning its own tradition.

Maybe the final leap will come one day. For now, I’m content with a slightly greener trolley and a curiosity that hasn’t run out yet.