Amazon-owned Whole Foods and Costco have been criticised for their inadequate response to an investor push for food companies to decrease their reliance on meat and animal products.

A report entitled ‘Plant-based profits’, backed by a coalition of 57 large investors that manage $2.4 trillion (£1.7 trillion), has urged global food companies and retailers to diversify their offerings to include plant-based proteins, a market expected to be worth $5.2bn within two years.

The coalition was coordinated by the Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR) initiative, which was founded by private equity veteran Jeremy Coller, who is a vegetarian and animal welfare advocate.

FAIRR’s analysis of 16 multinational companies found that Costco and Whole Foods were failing to give investors enough information on the topic. Despite having made strides in providing meat replacement products, Whole Foods was the only multinational company contacted by investors that did not respond at all, while Costco, which has a large footprint from its meat sales, was singled out by investors for “failing to recognize protein diversification as a material issue”.