Non-Dairy Cheese Market Research Report - Global Forecast till 2027

Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Non-Dairy Cheese Market

The advent of the global pandemic, COVID-19, has resulted in creating a global crisis across the world. The rising number of COVID-19 cases have impacted the global economy in various ways. Most of all, it has influenced the consumer’s eating habits, spending habits, and purchase decisions. Due to the outbreak in China, people have begun focusing more on what they eat, how their food is sourced, and, finally, delivered to them. Owing to the rising health concerns among the consumers, the dairy industry has witnessed a massive decline in sales as a growing trend has been noticed for plant-based food items among the consumers in 2020. Thus, as more and more consumers are consuming plant-based and vegan food, the non-dairy cheese market is witnessing a huge demand in this pandemic and is estimated to continue with its surge in demand post-COVID-19. According to the Plant Based Foods Association, retail sales of plant-based cheese grew at 95% compared to 2019, and the growth continued at 54% during the four weeks post-panic buying till April 2020.

Growth of Plant-Based Cheese Retail Sales

Though there is a huge demand for non-dairy cheese among the consumers, and various factors are affecting the global market. The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a panicked situation among the consumers with temporary closures of retail stores in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. This led to panic purchasing among the consumers and the stockpiling of essential items such as food and beverages. Stockpiling activity among the consumers has also resulted in creating immense pressure across supermarkets & hypermarkets and convenience stores as they are running out of stock, and the grocery shelves for popular items sit empty. However, this erodes the consumer brand preference, which is putting forward the products of small regional players in market consumption.

Moreover, in response to the pandemic, consumers have been put under lockdown with several countries announcing stay-at-home orders. This is rapidly accelerating the transition to e-commerce. Online shopping is experiencing substantial growth over the past few years across the globe, with grocery being the least contributing category. However, in this current situation, the grocery category accounts for the largest share in the e-commerce orders. There is a surge in the average daily downloads for popular digital grocery apps in a month. Households that are relying on home delivery through online grocery shopping during the pandemic are likely to continue with the service post-COVID-19. Thus, non-store-based distribution channels are expected to witness the highest growth for the consumption of non-dairy cheese in the coming years.

Although the demand for non-dairy cheese is anticipated to increase, issues such as supply chain disruptions, logistics issues, limited availability of raw materials, and unavailability of labor are anticipated to restrict the growth of the non-dairy cheese market up to a certain extent. With barriers in the cross-border transportation of commodities in this pandemic situation, the non-dairy cheese manufacturers are dependent on local raw material suppliers, which increases the bargaining power of the suppliers. The limited availability of raw materials and low production capacities of the manufacturers is anticipated to create a demand and supply gap, resulting in increased retail prices of the product.

Source: Plant-Based Foods Association