Irish Examiner View: Good intentions not reflected in sales of plant-based food

It's unclear yet whether the trend for avoiding meat for enviromental reasons will translate into lasting consumer behaviour.

Five plant-based dinners. File Picture.

It may be taken as a cause for cheer for everyone apart from farmers that one in three Irish people have told pollsters that they have often, or occasionally, chosen not to eat meat for environmental reasons.

The sample size (4,000) taken on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency looks robust, but the trick will be to turn those good intentions into lasting consumer behaviour.

Sales of plant-based alternative foods have declined since the autumn. Like eschewing the motor car, virtuous ambition may be running ahead of realities just now.

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