Slowly Creeping Up
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Food marketers are finally catching on. The Lempert Report, a newsletter dedicated to helping food sellers stay up to date with market trends and influences, says:
Vegetarianism in the United States has been slowly creeping up in numbers over the past decade. A 2008 study, “Vegetarianism in America,” published by Vegetarian Times, noted that 3.2 percent of U.S. adults, or 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian-based diet. The Vegetarian Resource Group’s (VRG) 2009 poll, conducted by Harris Interactive, found that 3.4 percent of the U.S. adult population was vegetarian, up from 2.8 percent in 2003. VRG notes that manufacturers and retailers marketing vegetarian and vegan foods should also look at the much larger number of people interested in these items, as well as those actually vegetarian. With five percent of females aged 18-34 being vegetarian, and 12 percent of females aged 18-34 not eating meat, this makes a strong argument for developing products for this demographic.
Hooray! And, as the number of vegetarian options (e.g., vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants; veggie items in groceries; veggie choices in workplace cafeterias and schools, etc.) continues to increase, so will the number of vegetarians.