Several Swiss food companies are moving away from selling meat alternatives directly to shoppers and towards supplying plant-based ingredients to other businesses. The shift follows a drop in Swiss sales of meat substitutes in 2025, as recorded in Coop’s Plant-Based Food Report. For producers that built their brands on vegan burgers and similar products, the figures have forced a rethink of where future growth will come from.
The cooling marks a turn for a category that expanded strongly from 2019 before growth began to slow in 2024. The pressure has already claimed at least one casualty: Outlawz, a Bern-based start-up known for its vegan bacon bits, filed for insolvency this summer. Other young firms are responding by changing their business model rather than their mission, selling what goes into the product instead of the finished item on the supermarket shelf.
Fabas, founded in 2021, is one of them. The company started with hummus and veggie burgers but now concentrates on liquid protein extracts made from legumes. One customer, Sigrist, uses them to make vegan ice cream. In Appenzell, Upgrain takes spent grain left over from brewing and turns it into protein, fibre and flakes, working with the Locher brewery and Coop as partners. Co-founder William Pyndt Beiskjær wants the material to become a staple of food manufacturing. “We want to establish spent grain protein as a mainstream ingredient,” he said.
Planted, one of the better-known names in Swiss plant-based food, plans to supply structured cuts made from pea protein to meat processors and to makers of convenience food. That would put its product inside other companies’ ranges rather than relying only on its own branded packs. The approach follows the same logic as at Fabas and Upgrain: the protein reaches consumers through products they already buy, even if the start-up’s name does not appear on the front of the pack.
Egg replacement is another opening. Eggfield, based in Illnau, works with aquafaba, the liquid left after cooking pulses, as a substitute for eggs, and counts the Zurich vegetarian restaurant group Hiltl among its customers. Recent outbreaks of bird flu have shown how vulnerable the egg supply chain can be, and that experience is encouraging manufacturers to spread their ingredient sources. For the start-ups, business-to-business sales offer a way to keep growing while consumer demand for meat alternatives stalls.
