The promise of plant based foods - new directions?

The consumption of a plant based diet has important implications for health and the environment, yet little is known about the attitudes of the food industry and media personnel towards plant foods and the barriers they face to the production, retail and promotion of such foods. Therefore, 32 Australian food industry and media representatives participated in individual interviews on plant foods. Participants saw strong health benefits associated with the consumption of plant foods. Barriers to production or retail of plant foods that were identified included drought and lack of grower control over the distribution and marketing of their product. Participants believed that we are in the early stages of learning about consumer attitudes and preferences to plant foods. In addition to the greater financial resources necessary to be able to compete with less healthy foods, better cooperation within and between industry and non-industry groups was identified as a key factor that could help in their endeavours to promote plant foods.