U.S. plant-based meat retail sales

Between 2018 and 2024, two of the most improbable grocery categories in American history — imitation beef and bubbly alcoholic water — grew together at a correlation of 0.986. If you had described this pairing to a supermarket executive in 1995 they would have quietly suggested you lie down. And yet here we are, with the aisle signs to prove it.

Hard seltzer sales in the US exploded from about $500 million in 2018 to over $4 billion by 2021 before plateauing, while plant-based meat grew from roughly $800 million to $1.2 billion in the same window. Both owe their existence to the same cultural moment: millennial consumers seeking products that felt like improvements on legacy categories — lighter, cleaner, healthier, more narratively appealing on Instagram. White Claw and Beyond Burger are the same insight applied to different fridges, both financed by the same private equity appetite for anything described as 'better for you' in a grocery trade publication. They are siblings of branding, not of ingredient lists.

Two modern cravings grew up together because they were born to the same parents: marketing, demography, and the 2018 investor deck. When the wave recedes, both will explain themselves as groceries again. The label was always the product.