A plant-based foods company landed its imitation crab cake at Starbucks' Hong Kong outlets, the first big win for its plant-based seafood line.
Hong Kong-based OmniFoods, which counts McDonald's as a customer for a plant-based version of canned meat brand Spam, lists imitation pork products in Amazon-owned retail chain Whole Foods and other retailers, and has launched other plant-based products into Starbucks.
The latest is an alternative crab product, which the coffee giant will use in salads, according to Vegconomist.com.
In June, the company launched its plant-based seafood line, which includes fillets, ocean burgers, salmon and canned tuna.
Plant-based foods are taking off at US retail, with sales for these alternatives protein products increasing 27 percent in 2020, according to new data released April 6 by the Good Food Institute (GFI) and the Plant-Based Foods Association, compiled by market research firm SPINS.
The overall retail market for plant-based foods in the United States is now worth $7 billion (€5.9 billion), up from $5.5 billion (€4.6 billion) in 2019.
Last year, 57 percent of households bought plant-based foods, up from 53 percent in 2019, said the study.
In 2019, GFI reported plant-based seafood accounted for $9.5 million (€8 million) of total plant-based meat dollar sales, tiny in comparison to the more than $100 billion of seafood sold in the United States annually.
Plant-based foods are now a key driver of sales growth at grocery retailers nationwide, growing twice as fast as overall food sales, said the GFI.