Daily Briefing (Insiders Only): How NECTAR Taste Tested Plant-based Successes And Opportunities
How do the taste and texture of plant-based meat stack up against animal protein counterparts? Food System Innovations’ nonprofit initiative NECTAR is attempting to shed light on how meat alternatives can compete better on the plate.
Following an analysis of 14 categories and 122 products (taste-tested by 2,684 omnivore and flexitarian consumers) NECTAR released its Taste of Industry 2025 report, illustrating the successes and shortcomings of the plant-based meat category with insights whittled down to specific formats and product types.
Notable Alternatives: Unbreaded chicken fillets, burgers, breaded chicken fillets, chicken nuggets and breakfast sausages proved to hold their own against traditional meat versions.
But: Popular proteins like bacon, whole-cut steak, unbreaded chicken strips and chunks and bratwurst were “[disliked] more frequently than being rated ‘like very much’ or ‘like,’” the report stated.
“Texture is the biggest opportunity for improvement,” NECTAR director Caroline Cotto told Nosh. “With something like bacon, you’re really trying to make this perfect mix of fatty, crispy and chewy. It’s a lot more challenging.”
Impossible Foods scored highest among the 20 products named as TASTY Award winners. The plant-based brand took the lead in six categories (unbreaded chicken fillet, hot dog, meatball, breakfast sausage, chicken nugget and burger). The win was determined by products “being the same or better than the animal benchmark on overall liking by at least 50% of participants.”
The Taste of the Industry report includes a public dashboard of the datapoints for each category to help guide brands and stakeholders through the sensory analysis of specific meat analogs and direct focus for gaps in innovation.
Big Takeaway: Taste is king, per both survey data and sentiments echoed across the plant-based category. Unsurprisingly, flavor moves the needle most and brands that have focused on innovating better-tasting products are seeing the most repeat purchases.
NECTAR is now working with a number of academic labs to apply its data and findings to train artificial intelligence models to support food science research and build better products.
