Danish Crown ready to launch plant-based product series

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When Danish consumers go shopping, they will be able to buy a new plant-based product range under the Danish Crown brand Den Grønne Slagter (the Green Butcher).

“When we diversify, it is important to us that we are able to offer products that taste good and are easy for consumers to prepare. We now have those products, and as one of  Denmark’s largest food suppliers, we wish to contribute to developing the supply of plant-based products. We foresee growing demand for alternative proteins in the years ahead, so the products we are now launching represent our first small step into that market,” says Jais Valeur, Group CEO of Danish Crown.

The product range consists of ready meals and meal components. Common to all eight products is that they are easy for consumers to prepare, as they have focused on the taste experience, and the products are made without soy and with either Nordic or organic vegetables as the main ingredient.

“We have worked intensively with these products to develop the right taste, texture and preparation, and this work showed that preparation is key to obtaining a good experience from the products. Briefly said, several of the plant-based products must be fried at lower temperatures than meat, and this is one of the things we will now emphasise to consumers buying one of our products,” says Mette Schacht Færch, head of marketing and innovation at Danish Crown Nordics. She continues:

“No matter whether the consumers choose our ready meals or one of our meal components, such as nuggets or burgers, the products are very easy to prepare, which we know is important to many of the consumers who wish to eat more plant-based products.”

In consumer surveys, more than one in three Danes reply that they have reduced their meat consumption within the past 12 months, and two out of three intend to eat more plant-based products. In the short and medium term, Danish Crown sees a market for up to 500,000 meat-free meals per week in Denmark. Against that background, the company aims for revenue in the plant-based segment in the high double-digits of millions of Danish kroner already in 2022.

“We have still not defined a full and final strategy for our initiatives in plant-based food, but we certainly intend to have products on the supermarket shelves catering to any taste – no matter whether the consumer prefers Danish quality pork, an expensive steak, the quick ready meal, organic meat or plantbased food. As for our meat, we want our plant-based food to be manufactured from Danish raw materials, and ideally from our owners; the Danish farmers. Whether that will be practically feasible is one of the issues we need to clarify in our strategy work,” says Jais Valeur:

The product range consists of eight products. Veggie fars, Veggie Bites, BBQ burger, Nuggets, Schnitzel and Veggie Deller along with Indian-inspired dishes Tandoori and Byriani.