Innovation & Technology

Lidl Launches Industry-First, Partially Plant-Based Ground Meat

The new product, 60% minced beef mixed with 40% pea protein, aims to reduce environmental impact while providing customers with a familiar taste at a lower cost: It has a 37.5% lower carbon footprint — and is 33% cheaper — than traditional ground beef.

Published 3 months ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Kamran Aydinov

European retail giant Lidl has launched a new product for the Dutch market that combines 60 percent minced beef with 40 percent pea protein — claiming to be the first supermarket in the country to offer a partly plant-based minced meat option.

The new product, now available in all Lidl stores across the Netherlands, aims to reduce environmental impact — the hybrid minced-meat mix has a 37.5 percent lower carbon footprint than beef mince — while providing customers with the familiar taste of beef at a lower cost: Lidl is selling 300-gram packages of the meat blend for €2.29 — 33 percent cheaper than traditional ground beef.

Lidl says it opted for an innovation in minced meat because of its popularity: Half of the Dutch eat minced meat every week, according to the Future of Food Institute. It is also a popular product among families with children.

Image credit: Lidl Netherlands

“I am proud of the product we have developed: a classic meat product in a new guise,” says Lidl buyer Geert de Vries. “With this minced-meat mix, you can make the most delicious pasta Bolognese — but also a classic meatball. The taste is the same, but the environmental impact and price are lower. The development took quite a while. We wanted to develop a minced-meat mix that contains less meat but retains the taste. I dare say that even for the real meat lover, this minced-meat mix is indistinguishable from regular minced meat.”

Price reduction in plant-based basic groceries

Lidl has set a target of having plant-based proteins represent 60 percent of its protein sales by 2030. In addition to this initial hybrid meat offering, the retailer has also instituted a permanent price reduction on plant-based basic groceries — including meat substitutes and dairy substitutes such as plant-based quark, yogurt, cheese and oat fraîche — which now cost equal to or less expensive than their animal-based counterparts, so that price is never an obstacle for shoppers to make the more sustainable choice.

"Lidl is taking two important steps.,” says Martine van Haperen, Health and Nutrition expert at Proveg Netherlands. “Price is the main obstacle for people to choose plant-based more often. The step to make plant-based products the same price or cheaper than meat and dairy removes that obstacle.

“Also, not everyone wants to eat meat substitutes or legumes. By introducing a hybrid product, just in the meat section, they really appeal to the meat eater — they don't even have to change their consumption pattern. This is a valuable addition that really gives Lidl the opportunity to influence the protein ratio.”

Changing customer habits

A shift toward more plant-based diets is happening around the world — with significant growth in plant-based food sales seen in Latin America, Asia and the US. Between 2020 and 2022, plant-based food sales also increased by 20 percent across Europe; roughly a quarter of European shoppers will choose at least one dairy alternative and one meat alternative during their regular grocery shop. With Dutch consumers, in particular, research found an increased willingness to try new food products, such as cultured meat; and sales of meat alternatives in food service in the Netherlands more than doubled between 2021 and 2023.

“We are delighted that Lidl is choosing to actively promote plant-based foods by both reducing the prices of the products and by creating a blended minced meat that cuts the CO2 of fully minced meat,” says Jasmijn de Boo, global chief executive at ProVeg International — a food-awareness organization with the mission to replace 50 percent of animal products globally with plant-based and cultivated foods by 2040, which previously collaborated with Lidl on social media campaigns to promote plant-based alternatives.

“Shifting to more plant-based diets is vital if we are to successfully stabilize CO2 emissions and halt habitat and biodiversity loss around the world. Supermarkets play a huge role here and Lidl has shown what can be done to encourage this shift. We urge other supermarket chains to compete with Lidl with their promotion of plant-based foods.”

With this plant-based push, Lidl joins other European retailers taking creative measures to encourage healthier and climate-impact-reducing shopping choices: In 2022, Danish retailer Coop began an ambitious effort to reduce 50 percent of its Scope 3 emissions linked to the manufacturing of food via customer behavior change. One pilot involved labeling 2,200 of the most climate-friendly products in stores to show customers the “most impactful” climate choices across a number of popular product categories. Through the “climate journey” through the store — which included nudges for shoppers to purchase, for example, “more green and less red meat” and other climate-friendlier choices — Coop reported a remarkable 14 percent reduction in the overall climate impact of shopping choices across all categories in six months, as well as a 67 percent reduction in food waste.