Photo: Andy Li via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

IKEA Looks to Remove or Replace Dairy as Plant-Based Food Sales Grow

Its FY22 Sustainability Report also restates the goal of 50% plant-based restaurant main meals by 2025

February 20, 2023

IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant, says it is looking at where it can "remove or replace dairy" in its food range, in its newly published IKEA Sustainability Report FY22.

That matters, because IKEA is a food business on a huge scale. Around 520 million guests ate or bought IKEA food in the year to August 2022. On page 13 of the report the company writes:

The climate footprint of plant-based food is often lower compared to animal-based options. A plant-based diet with high nutritional value can also be a healthier choice.
We continue to explore where and how we can remove or replace dairy in our range (without compromising on taste) to further reduce the climate impact of our food ingredients.
We continue to work toward the goal that 50% of main meals offered in our restaurants will be plant-based by 2025.

Customers are already voting with their forks. The plant ball and veggie ball grew their share of sales in IKEA restaurants from 14% to 17% of the meatball range, and from 24% to 26% in the Swedish Food Market. Sales of the veggie hot dog almost doubled compared with 2019, helped by a big price cut in Germany. New in the past year are a veggie ball ready meal and a chocolate plant-based soft ice.

Price is part of the plan. Since October 1, 2022 every market run by Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer, has priced its plant-based food the same as or lower than the meat version. Last autumn the plant ball was already selling 50/50 with the meatball in the Kobe store in Japan (a city famous for its beef).

The climate case is solid. A 2016 Oxford study in PNAS found that a shift to more plant-based diets could cut food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 29% to 70% by 2050. Plant Based News has more on the report.

IKEA joins a growing list of food giants going greener. Burger King UK has pledged a 50% meat-free menu by 2030, Tesco wants to grow plant-based meat sales 300% by 2025 and Starbucks has promised a more plant-based menu. Meanwhile dairy is in serious decline as plant milks surge.

Meatballs, meet your match.