ITC to enter the Indian 'plant-based meats' market

FMCG company ITC has announced its foray in the nascent Indian ‘plant-based meats’ market.

ITC is the manufacturer of Indian food brands such as Aashirvaad atta (wheat flour), and also sells packaged ready-to-eat versions of heritage dishes such as ‘daal makhani’ and ‘paneer tikka’.

Its food business will launch plant-based burger patties and nuggets providing the taste of chicken to consumers through retail, e-commerce, and food service establishments in the country’s top eight cities, advised by expert non-profit Good Food Institute India (GFI India) on product and positioning strategy.

Varun Deshpande, Managing Director at the GFI India, said, “Smart protein and plant-based meats are a generational opportunity to align planetary health stewardship, public health resilience, and economic growth. While entrepreneurs are blazing a trail in building the category, mega-corporations with their distribution heft, deep R&D capabilities, and intimate involvement in consumers’ lives can take a nascent phenomenon to the next level. ITC’s visionary foray into plant-based meats and focus on providing non-vegetarian eaters with the meat products they know and love will further accelerate the sector, bringing delicious, sustainable protein into the true mass market and onto plates across the country.”

Hemant Malik, Divisional Chief Executive - Foods, ITC, said, “There is no large pan-Indian brand in the plant-based protein segment in India. We have worked with some global partners to ensure there is no compromise either on the product texture, quality, and taste. We want to enjoy the early mover advantage in India. The meat market is huge with 72% of Indians being non-vegetarians and is estimated today at $ 45 billion. Given the growing concerns around wellness and sustainability, India has the potential to emerge as a large market for plant-based alternatives.”

Plant-based meats are at the forefront of the broader ‘smart protein’ or ‘alternative protein’ landscape, aimed at replicating the sensory and cultural resonance of meat dishes beloved around the world, but without the negative implications for planetary and public health.

Globally, companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, gone public on the stock market, and scaled across the globe, while using just a small fraction of the land, water, and energy that their conventional animal meat counterparts require - all with lower greenhouse gas emissions and without the risk of zoonotic disease or antimicrobial resistance.

The global smart protein sector attracted over $3.5 billion in venture capital in 2021 (following $3.1 billion in 2020), indicating that investors and consumers worldwide are warming up to the idea of conscious consumption.

Large food and conventional meat corporations like JBS, Tyson Foods, Nestle, and Unilever have also invested significantly in the space. Plant-based meat startups like Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh’s Imagine Meats and Sandeep Singh’s Blue Tribe Foods have captured the Indian imagination over the last year.

Research by GFI India indicates that 63% of non-vegetarians among urban, upwardly-mobile populations would be extremely likely to purchase plant-based meats regularly, driven by guilt around meat-eating as well as curiosity and aspiration surrounding next-generation plant-based meat products.

This ‘early adopter’ market makes fertile ground for initial experimentation, with a major multi-billion-dollar opportunity in the larger mass market up for grabs as consumer awareness builds and more players enter the market.

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