If you only looked at sales of plant-based burgers and sausages, you might assume Britain was losing interest in eating plants, and indeed that is what sensationalist headlines have tried to convince us. New NielsenIQ retail data analysed by Madre Brava shows something much more interesting happening. Britons are buying fewer products designed to imitate meat, but more beans, lentils, tofu and tempeh.
During the first half of 2026, compared with the same period in 2025, combined unit sales of beans, pulses, tofu and tempeh increased by 7.3%. Dried beans, peas and lentils jumped 16.7%. Tofu rose 7.2%. Tempeh exploded by 71.5%. Meanwhile, plant-based products specifically designed to imitate meat fell 4.3% by units sold.
For years, headlines about the supposed decline of plant-based food have often focused on companies selling expensive burgers, sausages and nuggets. But falling sales of one type of plant-based product do not mean people are suddenly abandoning plants. They may simply be buying different ones. And the shift goes beyond bags of lentils. Meat-free products based on vegetables and pulses increased 24.6%, while mycoprotein products such as Quorn increased 2.4%. The figures are evidence that the plant-based market is rebalancing rather than collapsing. Perhaps we should not be surprised. People do not need a £4 imitation steak to stop eating cows. They need food.
Beans are food. Lentils are food. Tofu is food. And tofu is hardly some nutritionally inferior substitute. As we reported recently, researchers comparing 20 protein sources across nutrition, affordability and environmental impact placed tofu first overall. Beef was near the bottom. None of this proves that Britain has suddenly stopped exploiting animals. These sales figures do not tell us whether purchases of animal products have fallen alongside them. But they do expose a basic mistake. Plant-based eating is not a product category invented by Beyond Meat. Humans have been eating beans, lentils and tofu for centuries.
If people are buying fewer imitation burgers but more actual plants, plant-based eating is not disappearing.
It might simply be growing up.