Despite a significant investment in plant-based alternatives, including cheese, during the COVID-19 pandemic, food company Uhrenholt has now decided to pull the plug on the initiative.

• After COVID-19, interest disappeared. The hype was gone, and we couldn’t keep pouring money into developing products when the market simply wasn’t there, Uhrenholt’s CEO, Sune Uhrenholt, told FødevareWatch.

The company still offers plant-based blended products, such as butter alternatives, but for now, production of purely plant-based products has been discontinued.

• If demand picks up again, we can bring it back. It fit well into our portfolio, but the market just wasn’t there, says Sune Uhrenholt.

In 2023, Uhrenholt reached a turnover of 3 billion DKK, with 93 percent coming from dairy products, while the remainder consisted of frozen vegetables and fruit.

Kenneth Lindhart Madsen, Market Director at Landbrug & Fødevarer (Danish Agriculture & Food Council), supports Uhrenholt’s assessment, noting that the export market for plant-based dairy and meat alternatives is struggling. He expects animal-based proteins, such as dairy and meat, to remain the driving force behind Danish food exports in the future.

• When we look globally at the forecast for animal proteins, the trend is only going upward, he says.

Henning Otte Hansen, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen, shares the same view.

• I don’t think we’ll see any major changes. There are still plenty of markets for meat and dairy, he says.

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Photo: Arkivfoto Uhrenholt