Who: The Meatless Farm Co., with Isaac Group and Thirty Dash for PR.

What: A new out-of-home and digital campaign emphasizing the environmental benefits of eating more plant-based meals.

When & Where: Running for four weeks around Toronto, with an OOH focus near key grocery retailers, and a digital push on Facebook and Instagram.

Why: Because plant-based is still a big deal, and awareness is relatively high. But Meatless—which launched in the U.K. in 2018, and arrived in Canada in November—is coming into market with an emphasis on the environmental benefit of making even one meal a week with its plant-based burgers or meatless ground. “Our expectation is not for all Canadians to switch to an entirely meat-free diet, but instead to swap one or two meat meals per week for plant-based,” said Kasper Vesth, general manager, North America, The Meatless Farm.

How: Creative produced by Isaac (which was acquired by Deloitte last year), leans on the headline “Making the difference, without tasting the difference” to remind people there’s no reason not to try plant-based. Doubts about taste remains a sticking point for some consumers, as evidenced by this new PC campaign.

The numbers: Meatless is supporting the PR push with research showing that a lot of Canadians (77%) understand that eating red meat can be bad for the environment, yet only 38% have reduced meat consumption because of it.

• 33% expect to buy more plant-based products in 2020.
• 52% of consumers 18 to 24 say they’ll eat more plant-based this year.
• 56% have reservations about trying plant-based—58% because of high level of processing, 43% because they fear it won’t taste good, and 39% because of concerns about price.

The Meatless calculator: Meatless is making it easy for people to see the benefit of eating less meat by providing data on exactly how much reducing meat consumption can help the planet. For example: If the entire country replaced a single meat meal a week with a plant-based option, it would equate to taking six million cars off the road.

The Meatless site also features a “meatless consumption calculator,” which equates a family going meatless once a week for a year to metrics water saved in terms of showers reduced, or land saved in terms of tennis courts.

And we quote:  “[T]here is misinformation about the ingredient makeup and health impact of plant-based foods that is clouding consumers’ perceptions of the products…. We recognized this disconnect and saw an opportunity to provide education on the environmental benefits of shifting to a more flexitarian lifestyle, by comparing red meat to plant-based across everything from production and energy use to transportation and packaging.” —Kasper Vesth, general manager, North America, The Meatless Farm.