Vegan sausage company Heck has revealed that they will be cutting 80% of their product range after poor sales as consumers failed to jump on the plant based meat alternative train.

In spite of a heavy push to convince consumers to plant based meat alternatives from governments, media and corporations alike, shoppers have shunned alternatives in the face of increasing pressures and price hikes to go green.

In the past 10 years, the choice of plant based meat alternatives has more than doubled — but even though consumers are spoilt for choice, real meat still seems to be on the menu for most households.

The British Yorkshire-based plant based company Heck, famous for their sausages and chicken alternatives, has announced they will be scrapping 80% of their products.

Co-Founder Jamie Keeble suggests that shoppers are “not there yet” when it comes to changing their tastes for the meat free options.

Now the company has decided to keep only two out of the previous ten plant based meat products, continuing to sell their burgers and chipolatas — which the company produces 90,000 units per day.

According to The BBC: “UK consumers still wanted to replace meat with “something that reminds them of meat”, Mr Keeble said.

“I think [demand] will come back around,” he added. “We had pulses and grains in the products. It was really nutritional but the public wasn’t really there yet.”

The decision to downsize their product range comes at a time where all plant based meat alternatives suffer.

Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods saw catastrophic sales figures in the past couple of years, with their products met with considerable public pushback.

Nestle also announced that it would pull its Garden Gourmet vegan plant based meat brand after two years on British shelves.

Analysts estimated that sales for plant based meats fell by almost $50M in the UK in 2022.

“Where there has been a drop in sales, it is not due to a decline in interest in veganism but rather a change in people’s spending habits,” the The Vegan Society said.

“Many people may be replacing both meat and meat-substitutes with more budget-friendly vegan options in a bid to make savings on their weekly shops,” they added.

Fitness coaches and other nutrition experts have spoken out about plant based meat alternatives, claiming that they were simply another version of unhealthy ultra-processed foods that contained up to ten times more salt and six times more sugar than other similar foodstuffs.

Aside from the ultra-processed food health concerns, mycotoxins present in plant based foods may also worry some consumers.

Some pressure groups even suggested to rid the consumer of choice to increase plant based meat alternative consumption.