The meat aisle is getting a makeover

According to the 2024 meat report by 2010 Analytics and Circana, the meat department’s pound sales grew by 2.3% last year. The trend has boosted brands in subcategories such as organic and grass-fed meat, bolstering opportunities for startups to get a more prominent place in the meat aisle. The renewed interest in traditional beef and poultry products has also prompted big meat producers to reinvent their portfolios and tweak their messaging to reflect better-for-you habits.

According to the Meat Institute, in 2024, the number of households that purchased meat was 98%, remaining steady from 2023. Meanwhile, the number that wanted to decrease meat consumption fell by 20% from 2020.  

Changing perceptions

Anne-Marie Roerink, the founder of 210 Analytics and author of the annual Power of Meat study, said that, in her 20 years of tracking meat trends, she’s found that “the perception of red meat changed vastly over time.” A decade ago, red meat was demonized for its relatively high cholesterol content and the negative impact of its production on the environment.

Roerink said that, since then, lab-grown and plant-based meat alternatives capitalized on some of the drawbacks of red meat and emerged as competitors claiming to be more planet-friendly. But even after a decade and billions of dollars in venture capital, Roerink said their penetration never took off. “Alternatives are down 6% and make up just 0.3% of the total meat department,” she said. Despite their eco-friendly claims, Roerink said alternatives couldn’t compete on taste, texture and a minimal ingredients panel.

Meat’s comeback, according to Roerink, is largely fueled by Americans’ revived interest in whole, minimally-processed foods. “We got really into superfoods, and eventually settled on high protein and pushed back on ultraprocessed foods,” she said. “With that, the perception of meat and poultry has changed.”

Where the meat department can shed its demonized reputation, Roerink said, is through better-for-you options targeting meat eaters who care about health, the planet or animal welfare. Roerink said the better-for-you meat aisle is growing via emerging brands like Verde Farms and Sunfed Ranch, but they remain largely targeted at higher-income shoppers who are health- and planet-conscious.

Now, these companies say they want to reinvent the meat aisle. Many are focusing on more clear messaging around nutritional content and modern branding highlighting attributes like grass-fed.

Opportunity for new players

Verde Farms was founded in 2005, and until about two years ago, it was primarily a private label meat company. “What we’ve been doing over the last couple of years is really turning Verde into more of a traditional CPG company,” said Brad Johnson, CEO of Verde Farms.

In order to become more of a traditional CPG brand, Verde Farms has embarked on a brand refresh and retail expansion, including its latest retail launch in all 1,400 Publix locations, which began in early 2025. In 2024, Verde Farms received additional funding from existing investor Manna Tree to help fuel this expansion.

“The most important thing for a consumer of better-for-you beef is the fact that it’s organic,” he said. Before the packaging refresh, much of Verde’s focus was on the “100% grass-fed” messaging. Now the USDA seal takes the biggest label real estate, followed by “grass-fed,” “regeneratively farmed” and “humanely treated.” 

“Displaying those claims clearly on the label, in the right hierarchy,” he said, is a simple example of tweaking the marketing of traditional products like beef. In the last year, the company also expanded in all Super Targets, and it’s now the exclusive organic grass-fed beef brand sold at Amazon Fresh. “That is what’s fueling our growth, and our [sales] volume is now about 60-70% branded,” Johnson said.

Kirstyn Lipson, Verde Farms’ senior director of marketing, came on board in 2022 to help lead the rebranding efforts. Besides new packaging, Lipson said the company is starting to leverage retail advertising to reach new customers, such as display banners, digital coupons and in-store circulars. “We also reach a lot of digital customers through Instacart to help continue that education,” Lipson said.

Lipson said there is opportunity for further growth among organic meat. According to 2024  Nielsen data, the better-for-you beef category is now valued at $4.4 billion, having grown by 14% year-over-year. Meanwhile organic beef grew by 22% over the previous year. 

Lipson also pointed to evolutions in adjacent categories that have served as inspiration for how Verde Farms wants to approach the beef category. Essentially, Verde Farms wants to do what Vital Farms has done in eggs, or Organic Valley has done in dairy.

In order to do so, Verde Farms is investing in organic content and retail marketing to explain to consumers exactly what makes it different. “One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced is consumer education,” Lipson said. “They know regenerative is a buzzword, but they don’t really know what that means.”

Rethinking breakfast options

A similar better-for-you shift has taken over breakfast meats, Roerink added. Shoppers increasingly have wide access to items like sugar-free bacon and skinless, nitrates-free sausage that attract a wide variety of carnivores, such as paleo and keto. 

Breakfast meat maker Applegate has been around for over 35 years but has experienced a major growth spurt in the last few years. According to Hormel Foods, which acquired Applegate in 2015 for $775 million, Applegate continues to fuel the meat category’s growth. 

“We experienced continued success in our breakfast sausage business, supported by the launch of two new Applegate frozen convenient breakfast platforms,” a first quarter earnings press release from Hormel read. These include breakfast sandwiches and pancake and sausage sticks. The earnings release also said that this portion of the Applegate business is “driving volume and dollar growth across categories.” All of Applegate’s meat products are made without artificial ingredients or preservatives, and are sourced from humanely-raised animals.

Joseph O’Connor, president of Applegate, told Modern Retail that “protein remains a cornerstone of the American diet.” And while alternatives like plant-based and lab-grown meats had their moment, O’Connor said the long list of ingredients eventually brought consumers back to traditional meat.

“This renewed appreciation for high-quality, responsibly sourced meat and whole food affirms what we’ve stood for since our inception,” O’Connor said. As people turn to better-for-you meat, O’Connor said Applegate’s organic, natural, “no antibiotics ever” lines mean the company is “positioned well to meet their needs.” 

“What continues to evolve is our portfolio and the options we create to meet the lifestyle needs of today,” especially through convenient and on-the-go formats, O’Connor said. The brand’s breakfast sandwiches, which are rolling out in stores this month, use all-natural chicken or turkey breakfast sausage, and offer 12-14 grams of protein per serving. “We also expanded our breakfast footprint with Applegate Naturals Fully Cooked Sunday Bacon and larger family size bags for our Breakfast Sausage Patties,” he said.

Applegate is also making changes within its existing product lines. “We recently announced that 100% of our beef hot dogs would be made from beef sourced from certified regenerative grasslands,” O’Connor said. 

He said that retail buyers are particularly excited about the frozen breakfast line-up, as retailers look to cater to customers in this category. “There is also growing momentum behind products that embrace regenerative agriculture, and our retail partners are excited about Applegate’s leadership in this space,” O’Connor said.

Big meat players have also been influenced by these trends, Roerink added. “You’re seeing companies like Perdue diversify their portfolios by absorbing those better-for-you brands,” she said. In 2020, Perdue Farms acquired and began scaling Pasturebird, a startup focused on pasture-raised chicken.

Moreover, traditional meat and poultry companies are taking a page out of CPGs’ packaging playbook, by displaying different attributes more prominently “You see them now actively advertising not only their protein content, but also benefits like zinc and iron,” she said. “Sometimes that message gets lost over the generations, so consumers have to be reminded of the benefits.” 

Put together, Roerink said retailers of all sizes are adjusting to the way millennials and Gen Z are shopping for meat. “Others will have to jump on that bandwagon very quickly,” she predicted.