Brabant-based meat processing giant Vion is seriously considering moving into the market for meat replacement products, chairman Ronald Lotgerink has told the Financieele Dagblad.

Vion already has a subsidiary in Germany which produces and sells dozens of vegetarian products which are available via wholesalers in the Netherlands.

The Salomon Foodworld range includes veggie burgers and mozzarella sticks and it would be relatively easy to expand into the Dutch retail market, Lotgerink said.

‘The demand for meat in western Europe is either not growing or shrinking,’ he told the paper.

Vion booked a 6.7% drop in sales last year, while net profit halved to €10m. This is largely due to a drop in the price of cow skin (due to the current fashion for sneakers) and the high price of pork, Lotgerink said.

Loterink was chief executive of the Zwanenberg Food Group, which includes Dutch meat and snack producer Kips when it began introducing vegetarian products in 2017.

In January, website Nu.nl said the Dutch are eating less meat, with two in five people saying they cut down on steak and burgers last year. Around one third of the 20,000 people polled said they ate meat every day, while one in 10 is vegetarian and 7% fully vegan.

In December, multinational Unilever said it is taking over the Dutch fake meat company The Vegetarian Butcher ‘in response to the growing trend among consumers to increasingly opt for vegetarian and vegan meals’.