Maria Chiorando for Plant Based News:
US supermarket giant Kroger is trialing a plant-based protein section in the meat aisles of selected stores.
The trial, which will run for 20 weeks, will take place in 60 locations across Indiana, Illinois, and Denver this fall.
The timing for this is impeccable and I assume intentional: Impossible foods (aka the makers of the Impossible burger) will be available in stores this month.
The placement of these products in stores is interesting too. Ethan Brown, the CEO of Beyond Meat, has always wanted his products to be placed in the meat aisle. When the Beyond products were in the vegan and vegetarian section, he called that the “penalty box” in his Wired interview from 2013.
I wonder if Kroger will continue to keep a vegan/vegetarian freezer section if this goes well. I’d assume so, but it’d be interesting to see what more integration would do generally. Making vegan products more visible will naturally make these products more popular. Like end aisle caps and special displays, this could be a big moment for vegan foods as they move into flexitarians life.
Kroger is the USA’s largest supermarket chain, and is the third-largest retail company in the world behind Wal-Mart and Costco. This could drastically change the business of lots of plant-based companies.