The researchers drew on two of the most extensive food databases available in Europe: Euromonitor’s Passport, which tracks commercial market data, and EuroFIR’s FoodEXplorer, which aggregates compositional food data from national food composition tables across the continent. By combining these sources, the team was able to chart market volumes from 2009 to 2024 and, in parallel, analyse the macronutrient profiles of the products on sale. Nutritional quality was scored using two complementary front-of-pack labelling schemes, the Nutri-Score and the Multiple Traffic Light system, and the researchers additionally assessed which products would be legally eligible to carry nutrition claims under EU Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. Differences between plant-based analogues and their animal-derived counterparts were tested statistically using the Mann–Whitney U test, a non-parametric method suited to the skewed distributions typical of food composition data.

The headline market finding is unambiguous: plant-based analogues are no longer a niche. Between 2009 and 2024, the market volume of dairy analogues more than tripled, while the market for meat and seafood analogues grew approximately sevenfold. That trajectory reflects a convergence of forces, including rising consumer interest in flexitarian diets, environmental concerns about livestock production, and sustained investment by food manufacturers in improving the taste and texture of products designed to mimic burgers, sausages, milk, and yoghurt. Yet the study’s authors caution that rapid growth has not been accompanied by consistent product quality, and that the term plant-based covers an enormously heterogeneous set of foods.

That heterogeneity is most striking in the macronutrient analysis. Protein content varied widely within every category examined, but the variability was particularly pronounced among analogues to curded dairy products, the plant-based equivalents of cheese. Many of these products provided little to no protein at all, a finding that undercuts a common consumer assumption that a plant-based cheese alternative is nutritionally comparable to the dairy product it replaces. Dairy cheese is a significant protein source in European diets, and the analysis suggests that consumers relying on analogues to fill that role may, depending on the product chosen, receive almost nothing in return. The researchers attribute this variability to formulation: some products are built on protein-rich bases such as pea, soy, or almond concentrates, while others rely heavily on starches, oils, and flavourings.

The Nutri-Score results, which grade foods from A, the healthiest, to E, the least healthy, based on levels of energy, sugars, saturated fat, sodium, protein, fibre, and fruit or vegetable content, revealed consistent but category-dependent patterns. Approximately half of the meat and seafood analogues analysed achieved an A or B rating, placing them among the better-scoring packaged foods. Dairy drink analogues, by contrast, displayed much greater variability, with scores spread across the scale depending on added sugars and fat content. The most troubling result concerned analogues to curded dairy products: every single one scored D or E, the two worst grades. The researchers traced these poor scores to three drivers: high total fat, high saturated fat, and elevated salt levels, a combination that mirrors some of the less healthy characteristics of the cheeses these products imitate.

The Multiple Traffic Light system, which colour-codes fat, saturated fat, sugars, and salt per portion, reinforced the same picture. It also highlighted salt as a recurring concern across several analogue categories. While plant-based products are often perceived as inherently healthier, the processing required to make legumes, grains, and vegetable oils resemble animal products can involve substantial amounts of added sodium, thickeners, and flavour enhancers. The study’s findings suggest that the health halo surrounding plant-based labelling is not always earned by the nutritional composition of the food inside the package.

There were genuine positives, however. More than 60 percent of the meat and seafood analogues qualified for legally defined claims of high protein and low saturated fat, indicating that a majority of products in this fast-growing category do deliver on at least two of the nutritional attributes consumers most often seek. Across the board, the comparison with animal products showed a consistent pattern: plant-based analogues contained more dietary fibre and less total and saturated fat than the animal foods they replace. Fibre is essentially absent from meat, dairy, and seafood, so any product built from plants carries an automatic advantage on that front, and the lower saturated fat content aligns with long-standing dietary guidance linking saturated fat intake to cardiovascular disease risk.

The less favourable side of the ledger concerned protein and the more variable nutrients. Overall, the analogues contained less protein than their animal counterparts, and their sugar and salt levels were inconsistent, sometimes higher and sometimes lower depending on the product and category. This matters because protein, salt, and added sugars are precisely the nutrients around which public health advice in Europe is most actively framed. A consumer who replaces a portion of meat with a low-protein, high-salt analogue may be making a trade that is beneficial for fibre and saturated fat but detrimental elsewhere in their diet. The authors emphasise that the nutritional contribution of any analogue depends heavily on product formulation and on the dietary context in which it is consumed, rather than on the plant-based label itself.

For the researchers, the policy implications are clear. The plant-based analogue market is expanding and is likely to continue doing so as Europe pursues more sustainable food systems, but the sector’s contribution to healthy diets is not guaranteed by growth alone. The study concludes that reformulation could substantially enhance the role these products play, particularly by raising protein content in underperforming categories such as cheese analogues and by reducing salt, saturated fat, and total fat where front-of-pack scores are poor. Because the analysis shows that quality is formulation-dependent rather than intrinsic to the category, targeted reformulation is technically feasible, and the eligibility of many products for nutrition claims suggests manufacturers already have the tools to differentiate better products on shelf.

The study also fills an important evidence gap. Although plant-based analogues have attracted considerable attention in national surveys and single-market studies, EU-wide data on their market evolution and nutritional quality had remained limited. By systematically combining commercial market intelligence with compositional data and validated front-of-pack scoring systems, the Joint Research Centre team has produced the kind of baseline that regulators, public health authorities, and manufacturers can use to monitor the sector as it matures. As the authors note, plant-based analogues are rising in market share, but whether they become a reliable pillar of healthy and sustainable diets will depend on the choices made now about what goes into them.

Subject of Research: Market trends and nutritional quality of plant-based packaged food analogues to animal products in the European Union

Article Title: Plant-based packaged foods as analogues to animal products: market trends and nutritional quality analysis

Article References: Kokkorou, M., Hoffzimmer, A., Dias, J., Grammatikaki, E., Wollgast, J., & Maragkoudakis, P. (2026). Plant-based packaged foods as analogues to animal products: market trends and nutritional quality analysis. BMC Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-026-05207-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12916-026-05207-x

Keywords: plant-based analogues, packaged foods, nutritional quality, Nutri-Score, EU market, market trends, dairy analogues, meat analogues, protein content, sustainable diets, food reformulation, BMC Medicine

The review begins with a sober assessment of sustainability claims. Insects such as Tenebrio molitor, Acheta domesticus, Locusta migratoria, Alphitobius diaperinus, Bombyx mori and Hermetia illucens offer high feed conversion efficiency, short growth cycles and lower land requirements than conventional livestock, and many species contain all essential amino acids in nutritionally significant amounts. Yet the authors stress that environmental advantages only materialise when the entire production chain is optimised, including rearing substrate, energy use for temperature control, killing method and drying. Insect proteins should therefore be treated as conditional alternatives whose benefits depend on well-controlled systems rather than assumed by default.

Even measuring how much protein an insect contains turns out to be surprisingly tricky. The conventional nitrogen-to-protein conversion factor of 6.25 can overestimate protein content because insect biomass contains nitrogen from chitin and other non-protein compounds. Janssen and colleagues proposed a lower factor of approximately 4.76 for mealworm, lesser mealworm and black soldier fly larvae. Reported values also depend on whether composition is expressed on a fresh-weight or dry-matter basis, and on the developmental stage, rearing diet and processing history of the material. Digestibility adds another layer: in vitro studies show mealworm and cricket proteins can achieve digestibility figures of 79 to 99 percent and favourable DIAAS scores, but these outcomes shift with heat treatment, defatting and chitin reduction, making digestibility a processing-dependent property rather than a fixed species trait.

Processing is where the review’s central framework comes into play. Pretreatments such as killing, blanching, drying, grinding and defatting establish the initial state of the biomass, and each involves trade-offs. Blanching improves microbial and enzyme control but can unfold proteins and promote aggregation that reduces extraction efficiency. Freeze-drying limits thermal damage but is costly, while microwave and hot-air drying scale better yet risk Maillard reactions, lipid oxidation and protein denaturation. Defatting enriches protein and limits oxidation, since residual lipids rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids generate rancid aldehydes such as hexanal and nonanal, but solvent contact and duration can alter protein conformation and downstream recovery. Quantitatively, defatting raised Tenebrio molitor flour from 57.8 to 64.6 percent protein while cutting fat to 2.8 percent, and lifted Hermetia illucens flour from 34.7 to 44.9 percent protein.

Protein recovery routes then diverge sharply. Dry fractionation by milling and sieving is simple and low in water and chemical use, but yields fractions still loaded with lipids, chitin, ash and pigments, making them better suited to bakery and snack applications than to refined functional roles. Alkaline solubilisation followed by isoelectric precipitation boosts purity and yield, but extreme pH can trigger denaturation, browning and unwanted structural changes. Assisted technologies offer further options: ultrasound cavitation disrupts tissues and aggregates, improving extraction yields by 35 to 94 percent in sonicated silkworm pupae, while high-pressure processing increased protein solubility in Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis up to an optimum of 200 megapascals before the benefit declined. No single technology wins outright; the authors insist processing should be designed backwards from the target food.

Post-recovery modification tailors proteins to specific functions, and here the quantitative evidence is striking. Enzymatic hydrolysis of migratory locust protein raised solubility from as low as 10 percent to 55 percent and foamability to 326 percent at pH 3. Cricket hydrolysates reached emulsifying activity indices of up to 32 square metres per gram, compared with 6.23 for defatted cricket flour. But hydrolysis illustrates what the authors call the protein-functional modification dilemma: excessive cleavage weakens interfacial films, releases bitter hydrophobic peptides and, crucially, does not reliably eliminate allergenic epitopes unless proteolysis is extensive, on the order of 60 to 85 percent degree of hydrolysis needed to disrupt major allergens such as tropomyosin. Fermentation offers another route, with fungal fermentation of cricket powder increasing solubility by roughly 20 percent and water-holding capacity from 2.17 to about 2.62 grams per gram, though it demands careful microbiological control.

Application studies show that ingredient form must match product structure. Bread is highly sensitive because insect flour dilutes the gluten network that traps fermentation gases, producing compact crumbs and darker colour, so insects work best as supplementary ingredients. Biscuits, crackers, muffins and protein bars tolerate higher inclusion levels because their quality depends less on gas retention. Extruded snacks sit in between: cricket powder at 12.5 to 15 percent could qualify products as protein sources, but 7.5 percent was recommended to preserve expansion and texture. In meat analogues, insect proteins perform best as complementary fractions within hybrid systems. High-moisture extrusion of insect and soy protein concentrates showed that around 15 to 40 percent insect protein could match the cutting properties of a soy control, while substituting 10 percent of soy protein isolate with cricket powder actually enhanced fibrous anisotropy, although higher levels produced brittle, incoherent extrudates. Three-dimensional printing studies found that pellet fractions of cricket and mealworm at 15 percent gave the best shape fidelity and post-print texture, underlining that fractionation, not the insect species alone, is the controlling design variable.

Liquid foods impose the strictest demands. Beverages require high solubility at acidic pH to avoid sedimentation and cloudiness, making whole insect flours largely unsuitable and pushing formulators toward soluble concentrates and hydrolysates. Consumer testing of mealworm protein shakes identified a rejection threshold of 14.6 percent mealworm content only among blind-tasting participants; health- and sustainability-framed groups showed no comparable threshold, suggesting communication can shift tolerance, though it cannot rescue poor sensory quality. Bioactive peptides add another dimension: cricket hydrolysates produced by microwave-assisted enzymatic hydrolysis showed ACE-inhibitory IC50 values of 0.096 milligrams per millilitre and DPP-IV-inhibitory values of 0.27, better than conventional hydrolysis. The authors caution, however, that these results come from chemical and in vitro enzyme assays and cannot be equated with proven antihypertensive or glycaemic effects in humans.

Safety and regulation complete the picture. Insect biomass can carry Enterobacteriaceae, Salmonella, Listeria, Staphylococcus aureus and spore-forming bacteria, so hurdle-based strategies combining blanching, drying, water-activity control and hygienic handling are essential. Chemical hazards such as mycotoxins and heavy metals depend on rearing substrate, meaning circular production using food-industry side streams requires rigorous contaminant monitoring. Allergenicity remains a critical concern because insects share conserved pan-allergens, including tropomyosin and arginine kinase, with crustaceans, molluscs and house dust mites; one observational study found 73 percent of crustacean- and mite-sensitised patients showed IgE reactivity to recombinant black soldier fly tropomyosin. In the European Union, novel food authorisations are species- and process-specific, as illustrated by the approved partially defatted house cricket powder, which carries mandatory allergen labelling. The review’s conclusion is clear: no single insect ingredient will suit every product. Commercial success will depend on standardised, application-specific ingredients whose processing history, functional performance, safety profile and sensory character are validated together, from raw material to finished food.

Subject of Research: Processing-structure-function relationships in edible insect proteins for food applications

Article Title: Designing edible insect proteins for food applications: Processing-Structure-Function relationships, product performance and safety trade-offs

Article References: Nguyen, C. H., & Truong, D. H. (2026). Designing edible insect proteins for food applications: Processing-Structure-Function relationships, product performance and safety trade-offs. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, 31, Article 103340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2026.103340

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.jafr.2026.103340

Keywords: edible insects, insect protein, food processing, protein functionality, allergenicity, food safety, meat analogues, protein hydrolysates, novel foods, sustainable protein, techno-functional properties, consumer acceptance