New plant-based food brands may be missing out on a marketing opportunity
Free food pantries are an easy way to gain consumers, get charitable tax write-offs, reduce food waste
Every time there is a “top annoying people” listicle, omnivores are going to make sure vegans and vegetarians make it onto the list. Their reasons are not always factual, but they’re going to wag a fist at this animal-friendly crew regardless.
While there are 1.5 billion vegetarians worldwide and $7.4 billion of plant-based food was purchased in the United States, these numbers may feel small compared to the 8.08 billion people overall. For vegetarian brands and vegan brands, trying to find interested consumers may be a tough sale, even with paid social media ads and influencers. Although vegetarians and vegans are clearly out in the world, it’s not always clear where to find them.
But one avenue that vegan and vegetarian brands, on top of any newer food brand, may want to try more often is free food pantries. Here’s why.
On the average person’s grocery list, they’re picking up the usual suspects: meat, bread, potatoes, milk, fruit, eggs, the sorta things that retail stores would never be out of. But it’s those rare or unknown food brands sitting in the middle of a random aisle (and often in the “ethnic” section or buried behind popular brands) that grocery store consumers and everyday workers may overlook.
From personal experience, these are just a few examples of vegan and vegetarian food brands that I’ve found while walking my dog, and I’m going to guess they were from a Whole Foods Market or Trader Joe’s drop-off or an omnivore who was disgusted at the idea of even attempting to eat anything but meat and potatoes.
The best part of it all is I’d never heard of any of these brands. After trying a free (full-sized) version, I went straight to the nearest grocery store to buy more of these items. I even looked up YouTube videos to figure out what I could cook with these products.