Ultra-processed foods backlash winners and losers summary
- Half of global consumers avoid ultra-processed foods due health concerns
- Conventional meat and dairy gain as plant-based meat sales fall
- Traditional plant foods like tofu benefit from clean-label demand
- Ready meals and ready-to-eat foods face avoidance and declining sales
- Health-positioned brands face scrutiny despite natural foods emerging as winners
The backlash against ultra-processed foods is very real. Consumers are increasingly wary of their association with negative health outcomes.
According to research by Lumina Intelligence and commissioned by FoodNavigator, around half of consumers globally avoid UPFs (or at least foods they perceive as UPFs – many consumers still do not understand the term). Perceptions of their links to negative health outcomes are widespread.
Who wins and who loses from this strong backlash against UPFs? How is it altering the food landscape?
Winners: Conventional meat and dairy
Plant-based meat is often associated with ultra-processed foods.
Consumers are increasingly returning to conventional meat and dairy, and it is likely growing scepticism around ultra-processed meat and dairy alternatives that have driven them there, suggests Alon Chen, CEO of AI analytics platform Tastewise.
According to the UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), sales of whole milk in particular have grown in recent years, while semi-skimmed and skimmed have declined.
Major plant-based meat companies have also seen falling sales, speculated by some to be due to the perception of them as ultra-processed.
In the investors call for Beyond Meat’s 2025 full-year earnings, Ethan Brown, the company’s CEO, blamed falling sales on “misinformation” around the healthiness of its products.
Losers: (Some) brands positioned as healthy
Seemingly paradoxically, brands that are overtly positioned as healthy may be losers, not winners, of the anti-UPF backlash.
According to Kiti Soininen, category director for UK food and drink at consumer analytics company Mintel, brands positioned as healthy are likely to see more scrutiny than others. Eighty-six percent of “dedicated healthy eaters” avoid them, compared with 13% of those who rarely or never eat healthily.
Particular categories have come under fire. Fitness influencer Joe Wicks recently criticised protein bars, for instance.
His documentary ‘Licenced to Kill’ presented protein bars as ultra-processed and deeply unhealthy – and he developed an additive-packed ‘killer’ bar, including 96 legal ingredients, to make his point.
Debate rages over whether the documentary has actually affected demand for the bars.
Winners: Traditional plant-based foods
While many consumers are returning to conventional meat and dairy, others are flocking to traditional plant-based foods.
Foods such as tofu and tempeh have seen success. Demand for unprocessed tofu, for example, has been driven by enthusiasm for clean-label products, according to market research platform Grand View Research.
While key plant-based meat players like Beyond Meat see continual sales losses, tofu maker The Tofoo Co and tempeh brand Better Nature have seen significant volume growth.
Many plant-based brands, such as Moving Mountains and This, are responding to current consumer trends by leaning into clean-label food.
The brand This has developed a ‘Super Superfood’ product, which unlike the company’s other products is not explicitly mimicking meat and is aimed at consumers of clean-label foods. Furthermore, Moving Mountains has released a falafel.
According to recent data from analytics platform Circana, meat and seafood substitutes now represent just 4% of the plant-based food category in Europe, compared with nuts and seeds which make up 45%.
Losers: Ready meals and ready-to-eat foods
Ready meals and ready-to-eat foods do not, of course, constitute the entirety of UPFs. But they are frequently associated with the category, according to Lumina’s research.
Around 55% of consumers associate ready meals with UPF, according to the research. Furthermore, 58% of consumers associate ready-to-eat foods (such as cup noodles and microwavable burgers) with UPF. Meanwhile, 27% avoid ready-to-eat foods and 26% avoid ready meals.
According to the UK’s AHDB, sales of ready meals have declined, which it suggests could be down to consumers searching for less processed offerings.
Winner: ‘Natural’ foods
As the UPF backlash persists, one of the clearest winners is, of course, natural foods.
For example, according to analytics firm Innova Market Insights, around 30% of consumers globally have been reducing intake of ultra-processed foods.
In turn, consumers are increasingly drawn towards foods that they perceive as more natural. Nearly one in two consumers globally have purchased more fresh and unprocessed foods over the past year.
For example, many are choosing plain yoghurt over flavoured yoghurt, according to Mintel’s Soininen. Around half of UK consumers of tea suggest that part of its appeal is its non-UPF status.
Losers: Foods with additive-heavy ingredients lists
There are a number of definitions of UPF, but the most common is the Nova classification, created by Brazilian academic Carlos Monteiro in 2009. The Nova classification splits foods into four categories, one of which is UPFs. It defines them as foods made with ingredients extracted from whole foods, combined with additives.
Consumers are increasingly conscious of food composition, which manifests itself through interest in ingredients lists. According to Lumina’s research, more than 60% of consumers read ingredients lists.
According to a report by the organisation EIT Food, consumers also distrust long ingredients lists that are difficult to decipher. The primary motivation for wanting more accessible ingredients lists is to avoid ultra-processed foods.
In essence, they want clarity from food. Ingredients associated with UPFs are often less easy for the average consumer to understand.
Businesses will need to adapt to consumer demand for transparency, suggests Kate Cawley, founder of the organisation Future Food Movement.
“The winners will be the businesses that take this signal seriously and use it to evolve portfolios, improve nutritional quality and communicate more clearly what is in their products and why.
“The risk for others is not necessarily immediate sales decline, but longer-term erosion of trust as health, transparency and scrutiny move further into mainstream consumer and policy conversations. The future winners will be those able to make healthier, trusted convenience commercially viable at scale.”
What this all means for manufacturers
Despite the backlash against UPFs, many consumers continue to eat them.
A lot of people still do not understand the term. When asked to define it for Lumina’s research, consumers came up with a wide range of answers. The Nova classification is also not widely known outside the food industry, and common understanding of UPFs is more varied and ambiguous.
In particular, large manufacturers of UPFs are not really losing out from the backlash, suggests Future Food Movement’s Cawley.
“Many of the brands and categories most often associated with convenience-led, highly processed foods continue to perform strongly because they are built around the realities of modern life: affordability, ease, habit and availability.”
In short, it isn’t accurate to say that the backlash has created “clear commercial losers in market terms”, according to Cawley.
So while some categories have been affected by the backlash, it’s hardly transformative and far from existential for those who make UPFs.
