The market for plant-based food is estimated to grow by 17 per cent to $4.2B (about €3.58B) in 2021. This is due to the increasing awareness of the health and environmental benefits of cutting down on meat. This is where Meatless Farm is making the difference. The UK-based meat alternatives brand is encouraging everyone to reduce their meat consumption and increase their plant-based eating to help save the environment.
Meatless Farm and Real Madrid team up on sustainable eating
In a recent development, the company has announced its partnership with football giants Real Madrid and together aim to raise awareness about the importance of reducing meat consumption and take action on more sustainable eating around the world.
The company mentions in a statement, “Together, we’ll be setting out a joint pledge and plan to work on raising awareness of the importance of reducing meat consumption to reduce the environmental impact of food, as well as inspiring change when it comes to health and wellbeing.”
Real Madrid’s nutritionists will be working with Meatless Farm to show how plant-based food can work within a performance-based diet and the club’s players will be sharing their experience of reducing meat and increasing plant-based foods for both environmental and personal performance gains.
Real Madrid sign up UN Global Compact
The development follows after Real Madrid became the first football club in the world to sign up as a participant of the UN Global Compact – a corporate sustainability initiative, committed to implementing universal sustainability principles in the world.
Emilio Butragueño, Institutional Relations Director at Real Madrid CF, says, “Meatless Farm brings together both sustainability and nutrition, two elements that are central to Real Madrid’s club and business strategy. As a global brand, we have an important role to play in engaging communities to make real changes that help create a more sustainable world and improve personal health and performance.”
Also, the club is in the middle of a four-year refurbishment of their famous Bernabéu stadium to make it more efficient and sustainable.
About Meatless Farm
Founded in 2016 by Morten Toft Bech, Meatless Farm has spent over two years blending, researching, experimenting, and trialling different recipes and ingredients to create its range of products before launching in 2018.
The products are on sale in all four major UK supermarket chains, such as Whole Foods in the US, and in many other countries. The company’s sales in October were growing at nearly 180 per cent per annum on a like-for-like basis in the UK and has become a serious contender in the global plant-based market, alongside US groups Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
Morten Toft Bech says that the plant-based sector has grown massively in the last couple of years, however things need to move at a faster pace if we are to address the urgency of the climate crisis and the role food plays in that.
Time to address the climate crisis
Meatless Farm claims that it is very ambitious to reduce the world’s dependency on intensively farmed meat and create a more sustainable food ecosystem that reinstates biodiversity.
In a statement, the company says, “We know there is still a huge gap in consumer understanding the positive impact of reducing meat consumption can have on the environment, so we have to reach far beyond vegetarians and vegans and significantly increase the ‘meat-lessers’ – encouraging everyone to reduce their meat consumption and increase their plant-based eating.”
Meatless Farm expects this year to be a tipping point for the alternative meat category with 54 per cent of consumers saying they want to reduce their meat consumption, climate change action is back on the global agenda, and a steep rise in “ecotarian” eating – eating for the good of the environment.
For example, in the UK alone, if everyone starts to have just one less meat meal per week, the country could reduce around 8 per cent of the total emissions produced.
Toft Bech believes that Real Madrid is the perfect partner for the company in this mission – “football is the biggest sport in the world and they are one of the biggest clubs. The relationship between a football club and its fans is unlike any other – it’s a close and lifelong commitment and Real Madrid fans around the globe are amongst the most dedicated, so the influence and reach that the club has is unparalleled.”
“We are all familiar with Real Madrid’s success on the pitch and that comes from dedication and excellence behind the scenes – they excel in nutrition expertise and performance analysis. On top of that, they are one of the leading clubs for their sustainability commitments and research shows that their fans have a keen interest in health and environmental concerns, so the club shares our values but importantly so do their fans,” he further explains.