American consumers have turned on the fake meat industry.
A once thriving market is now struggling to grow for a number of reasons, including oversaturation, high prices compared to real meat and a “perception” problem, a Mondy report from Bloomberg revealed.
Thanks to these many factors, the fake meat industry sales numbers are dropping precipitously.
As of Sept. 4, the sale of refrigerated fake meats had dropped 10.5 percent compared to the year prior, Bloomberg reported.
This is quite shocking considering that only a few years ago in 2020, industry sales skyrocketed by a whopping 27 percent, as is shown in a Plant Based Foods Association report.
Representatives from the consulting firm Deloitte told Bloomberg that one of the factors tanking the industry is its apparent ties to “wokeness.”
Even customers looking for alternatives to red meat are turned off by this “woke” association, Deloitte told Bloomberg.
According to the apolitical educational resource New Discourses, “wokeness” describes a set of ideas that define the world as a set of “unjust power dynamics” and corrupt systems that need to be dismantled.
Recent customer backlash to Cracker Barrel’s “Impossible Sausage” seemed to demonstrate the theory that “wokeness” is turning off consumers.
After Cracker Barrel announced the new menu item on Aug. 1, “the blowback was immediate and intense,” according to The Washington Post. The outlet also provided a number of comments as evidence of this backlash.
“All the more reason to stop eating at Cracker Barrel. This is not what Cracker Barrel was to be all about,” one person wrote according to the Post.
“I just lost respect for a once great Tennessee company,” another said.
“If I wanted a salad … I would in fact order a salad … stop with the plant-based ‘meat’ crap,” a third commenter added.
Yet again, it appears that “wokeness,” or an association with “wokeness,” is driving consumers away.
Back in May, State Farm faced harsh backlash for deciding to support a group known for creating children’s books about transgenderism called “GenderCool.”
Like a creepy neighbor, @StateFarm is there…https://t.co/q9N18curEZpic.twitter.com/mkbCBvE29L
— Consumers’ Research (@ConsumersFirst) May 23, 2022
State Farm ended the partnership shortly thereafter.
After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in response to Disney’s partisan messaging, successfully pushed through legislation removing Disney’s special governing privileges, a May 1 report from the Wall Street Journal found that many of the country’s top CEOs were rethinking whether or not to engage in political activism.
According to the report, many of them feared eventually becoming “the next Disney.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.