The protein tracking opportunity: how retailers can lead the shift towards sustainable diets

Why retailers hold the key to change – and how they’re set to gain

Retailers are uniquely positioned to promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits, aligning consumer choices with global sustainability goals. By shaping food environments and influencing consumer choices, they can significantly change public health and environmental outcomes.

To align with global sustainability and public health goals, retailers must rebalance their sales of plant-based and animal-based foods. Setting and tracking clear protein targets and adopting strategies to achieve them, will be crucial to unlocking these benefits.

This article explores why protein tracking makes good business sense, shares real-retailer examples, and outlines actionable steps for implementing a robust tracking and rebalancing strategy.

Tracking volume sales by food source

Physical food environments greatly influence consumer food choices, which presents a significant opportunity for food companies to drive positive change. Given the climate, nature, and public health challenges related to our food system, retailers must create food environments that enable their customers to shift toward more plant-rich diets.

To understand and enhance their contribution to the uptake of healthy, sustainable diets, food companies need to assess their volume sales and the balance between plant and animal-sourced foods in their offerings. This will require setting protein split goals and tracking progress toward them.

Establishing a standardised method for measuring this ratio will be vital. Doing so will enable a comprehensive understanding of the shift toward healthier, more sustainable food systems. 

The 70:30 split

ProVeg and partners recommend that food companies track their ratio of plant and animal foods and set targets to rebalance food sales per the Planetary Health Diet.

The split between plant-based and animal-based foods in this diet is around 70% plant to 30% animal when all food groups are included,³ and 60% plant to 40% animal when focusing on the ‘protein source’ food group.

Why track the balance of plant-animal food sales?

There are several benefits related to tracking protein sales by food source: improved public health, reduced global greenhouse gases, and increased global food security. It’s also a strategic business move.

By monitoring and shifting the balance between plant and animal protein foods, retailers can uncover opportunities, develop and evaluate interventions, comply with regulatory expectations, generate value for their business, and enhance long-term viability. Let’s go into more detail:

1. Enhanced sustainability and resilience: Shifting toward plant-based proteins addresses climate and environmental challenges and strengthens business resilience. By reducing reliance on animal-based products, companies can significantly lower emissions, align with global sustainability targets, and future-proof their operations for long-term success.
2. Identify effective strategies: Monitoring protein sales (plant-based vs. animal-based) helps retailers identify effective strategies such as promotions or product placement, to shift consumer demand towards more sustainable choices. For example, Dutch retailer Jumbo analysed its 2023 protein split across all food groups and stopped promotional discounts on fresh meat in 2024 to meet its 2030 sustainability targets.
3. Meet demands for transparency: Adopting voluntary frameworks (like the SBTi) and complying with mandatory reporting (like the CSRD) is increasingly important. Tracking and reporting on protein split goals can serve as a key metric within these frameworks, offering concrete evidence of progress towards sustainability targets. This proactive approach to disclosure can position food companies as leaders in the industry, meeting the growing demand for accountability and transparency from consumers, investors, and policymakers.
4. Address scope 3 emissions: These emissions, largely from agriculture, make up over 90% of a food retailer’s total emissions, with meat and dairy being the largest contributors (51%). Reducing reliance on animal-based products aligns with science-based targets, reduces emissions, and enhances competitiveness.
5. Align with consumer trends: Plant-based diets are on the rise, with consumers increasingly demanding sustainability from food retailers. Tracking protein sales to meet more plant-forward protein goals aligns with the growing sustainability movement and helps to satisfy the increasing number of consumers choosing plant-based foods. 
6. Lead in a competitive market: Retailers embracing protein tracking and rebalancing comply with evolving regulations while also leveraging their sustainability and transparency efforts to gain a competitive edge and build stronger relationships with stakeholders. This makes protein tracking a unique selling point you can push to investors and in advertising campaigns.

Success stories from Europe

The Netherlands: Over 90% of the Dutch food retail market tracks its protein split using The Protein Tracker methodology, developed by the Green Protein Alliance and ProVeg Netherlands.

The UK: Food retailers have been tracking protein food sales and progress toward protein split goals for several years as part of the WWF Basket. For the 2024 reporting period, nine retailers, representing over 80% of the major UK supermarkets, adopted the same methodology to report on protein food sales, including Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Co-op, M&S, Lidl and Aldi. Currently, five UK retailers publicly report their protein food sales split.

Elsewhere in Europe: Major retailers in Belgium, Germany, and Austria have also adopted methodologies to track their protein split goals.

Actionable insights

ProVeg International makes the following recommendations for setting targets and protein tracking: 

• Time-bound: Set time-bound targets for rebalancing sales of animal and plant-based foods. 
• 70:30: Aim for a goal based on scientifically sound and widely recognised dietary recommendations for a sustainable future, like the Planetary Health Diet, which is based on a 70:30 ratio of plant-based to animal-based foods.
• Consistent framework: Report progress toward targets against a clear baseline and reference year, and use a methodology that ensures internal comparability to accurately track progress toward targets.
• Established targets: Report how and to what extent changes in animal and plant-based food sales contribute to established sustainability targets (e.g., climate, nutrition).
• Report and rebalance: Report protein source food sales at a minimum, and ideally, report and set a target to rebalance animal and plant-based food sales across the whole product portfolio, including composite and prepared products.
• Methodology alignment: Convene to agree and continuously improve on methodology and targets. Alignment on tracking and goal-setting will facilitate year-on-year progress and comparability between companies in their market. Collaboration maximises action towards shared goals and creates space for collective advocacy for stronger policies on healthy, sustainable diets. 
• Encourage collaboration: Collaboration between food companies, NGOs, and other institutions can facilitate the sharing of experiences, setting shared targets, and continuously improving methodologies and data collection to maximise collective contributions towards achieving goals. 

Driving change through protein tracking

Retailers are uniquely positioned to transform food systems by promoting plant-rich diets and aligning sales with global sustainability and health goals. Tracking and rebalancing the ratio of plant-based to animal-based proteins is not just an environmental or health imperative – it’s a strategic business opportunity.

By adopting clear targets, consistent tracking methods, and collaborative approaches, retailers can lead the way in reducing emissions, meeting consumer demands for transparency, and building a competitive edge. Examples from across Europe demonstrate that this is entirely achievable. 

Now is the time to take action. Join the movement to create healthier, more sustainable food environments and position your business at the forefront of change.

ProVeg International, WWF, and the Green Protein Alliance are working together to support food companies to track sales of animal and plant-based foods and measure progress toward protein split targets. Read our full policy brief here, and contact our experts today to start tracking your progress and leading the industry forward: [email protected].

1.  Willett, W. et al, (2019), Food in the Anthropocene:
   the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, 393(10170), 447-492.
   https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/
   abstract
2.  Wholegrains, tubers or starchy vegetables, vegetables, fruits, dairy foods, protein sources, added fats and added sugars.
3.  NB: This target remains the same when looking at protein content and food volume.