The preference for predominantly plant-based diets in Spain is decreasing. If between 2019 and 2021 the veggies – the sum of vegans, vegetarians and flexiterians – had added 1,300,000 more people, in the last two years they have lost 600,000 followers – mainly flexiterians -, which in electoral terms would be considered a blow to all rules
In 2023, 11.4% of the Spanish adult population will identify as veggie (13% in 2021), which means 4.5 million consumers over the age of 18, according to data from The green revolution report 2023 that the Lantern consultancy prepares every two years.
According to this study, the reasons for this decline must be found in the fact that “the pandemic and confinement increased the population’s awareness of health, the environment and animals. The end of these exceptional circumstances seems to have had a rebound effect on the population, eager for pleasure and enjoyment in every way, including diet.”
According to Jaime Martín, CEO of Lantern, “the slowdown is clear due to vindictive consumption after the pandemic, especially by men. On the other hand, what is vegetal is already part of the landscape, it has ceased to be a novelty, there have been no great revolutions and this also slows down growth”.
In any case, if the focus is opened, since 2017 the veggie movement has gone from including 7.8% of the Spanish population to 11.4% in 2023. But with these figures it is clear that omnivores continue being the majority, 88.5% and, therefore, the big bag from which the vegetarian phenomenon has to fish. And here things get interesting.
Although they do not define themselves as flexitarians, 44% of Spaniards who declare themselves omnivores say that they try to reduce their consumption of meat, especially red meat. Specifically, 27% try to reduce the consumption of this meat, compared to 17% who reduce the consumption of all kinds of meat. At the opposite end there is a group of consumers who declare that they love meat, the super carnivores, who consume it almost every day: they represent 12% of omnivores.
This means that there are 56% of people who are not reducing their consumption of meat products.
The main reason – says the report – is that this segment of the population likes these foods (62% of non-reductionists), but it is also that the message that eating meat is compatible with both health and (39%) as with respect for the environment and animals (32%).
In other words, for a wide sector of the population, the message that an omnivorous diet is incompatible with health, sustainability and animal rights is not sinking in.
According to Martín, “things can also be seen the other way around and that almost half of omnivores are willing to eat less meat is a lot of people”. But he adds a nuance: “This is what people declare, but the truth is that meat consumption in Spain is falling very slowly, much more than, for example, in Germany.”
With these figures, Spain is at the bottom of Europe, together with France and Italy, and far from countries such as Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, where veggies already represent a third of the adult population.
In this sense, “it is almost certain that the gastronomic culture of a country like Spain works against the adoption of vegetarian food guidelines. But it’s not just that. In Germany, things like the defense of the environment, animal welfare and everything related to organic food are much more internalized”, says Martín.
The veggie world is not homogeneous and can basically be divided into three large groups. On the one hand, there are the flexiterians, who are the most numerous in Spain. 9% of Spaniards consider themselves there, 1.8 points less than two years ago, when they reached 10.8%. Currently, 3.5 million people declare that they follow a flexitarian diet, because they believe that eating everything is good and that this diet helps them take care of their weight.
Then there are the vegetarians, of whom there are around 550,000 in Spain and it is the only group that has grown – by more than 20% – compared to 2021. Finally, vegans are only 0.7% of the population, around 276,000 people – more or less the same people who voted for PNB in ??the July elections – 0.1% less than in 2021.
The heterogeneity between these three groups is not only shown in the foods they include in the dietary pattern, but also in the reasons each has for adopting it. While for flexitarians the most important thing is health (62%), animal welfare is so for vegetarians and vegans (74%), and only 35% of those who consume meat or fish occasionally eat it for this reason, the second in order of priorities, and at the same level as concern for the environment (34%).
On the other hand, the staff flight from the veggie world has a clear gender component. For once it’s the men’s fault. In 2021, the proportion of women and men in the vegetarian conglomerate was almost the same: 13.2% of women and 12.9% of men. But this 2023 things are very different and the proportion of men has fallen to 9.7%. According to the authors of the study, the cause may be that “women adhere to these diets with more conviction than men because they prioritize health more”.
