Protein or meat alternatives are proving to be a viable market for Australian growers and manufacturers as more consumers turn to plant-based diets.

The alternatives, known as meat analogues, are full of protein and are often substitutes for people who do not eat meat.

Dean Epps, general manager of Life Health Foods, Australia's largest manufacturer of analogues, said the demand for protein alternatives that looked and tasted like meat was "coming from people who have aggressively reduced their meat".

"Nearly half of Australian adults have actively tried to reduce meat in their diet to improve their health or lose weight," he said.

Mr Epps tracks the trends of Australians' meat consumption through independent surveys and comparisons of national studies.

About 10 per cent of the Australian population classify themselves as vegetarian, while 17 per cent are "flexitarian", whose diet is mostly plant-based but sometimes includes meat, fish or poultry.

Sanitarium was the largest and longest-running Australian manufacturer of protein alternatives. Analogue food that looks like chicken but it is actually made of whole foods and proteins. ( Image supplied by Frys )

Late last year, sister company Life Health Foods acquired Sanitarium's meat analogue brand in response to the growing demand and competition in the protein alternative market and it opened a new plant in May.

"We just built a new facility, a 6,000-square-metre site, here on the central coast of NSW, to be able to expand the vegetarian options that we make for Australian consumers," Mr Epps said.

Mr Epps said the retail space for meat analogues had doubled over the last decade, with the majority of competition coming from overseas.

Fry's Family Foods, a meat analogue manufacturer in South Africa, has been trading in Australia for 18 years and moved to Brisbane this year to continue expanding. Listen Duration: 8 minutes 36 seconds 8 m Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Demand in Australia for meat analogues attracts South African family manufacturer ( Sofie Wainwright ) Download 15.8 MB

"We are a family business and we moved here because we are really passionate about Australia and we think that the right consumers are here," said managing director Tammy Fry.

"People are very open to the idea of meat alternatives."

Mr Epps said the meat analogue and wholefoods market would continue to benefit growers across the board, as manufacturers used more wholefoods.

"We're certainly purchasing more core vegetable like potatoes, corn, carrot, peas, lentils and chick peas."

However, most of the competition sourced their ingredients outside of Australia due to food miles and stringent health requirements.

"Everything we buy has to be vegan, kosher endorsed and non-GM," Ms Fry said.

Life Health Foods sources most of its ingredients from local producers, but most flours, textured vegetable protein and soy protein come from outside of Australia.

Mr Epps said Australia had the potential to turn raw materials into these products by increasing its investment in food technology.

"Sometimes we do need to go overseas [North and South America] to get the right texture if we're looking at a plant based protein," he said. Smoked analogue meat slices produced in the Life Health Foods plant in NSW. ( Image supplied )

"We'd much prefer to buy locally if we could."

Tofu is the most traditional and simple protein analogue.

It has been around for more the 2,000 years and derives from China, but Australians are demanding it now more than ever.

Soybean buyer and marketer from Coleambally, Tom Graham, said Australian tofu manufacturers had increased their production by as much as 10 per cent annually over the past 15 years.

"It's an economic benefit right across the agricultural and commercial business," Mr Graham said.

Tofu is the third most common use of Australia's local food grade soy after soy flour and soy milk. Listen Duration: 34 seconds 34 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Consumers turning to plant based diets are generating demand for meat analogues and soy based products. ( Sofie Wainwright ) Download 1.1 MB

Mr Graham said there were approximately 12 major companies and 50 smaller players on the eastern seaboard, mainly Melbourne and Sydney, manufacturing a range of soy curd products.

"I have been approached by numerous start up companies that are looking to tap into this very fast growing market," Mr Graham said.

This year, soybean production has increased by 20,000 tonnes nationally.

However, prices and production are variable due to low allocations and the high cost of water, with south-west NSW consequently seeing a big drop in production this year.

"The soy bean price has lifted, there's no question about that, and it's on the back of increasing output and demand for specific soy varieties that can be made into these meat alternatives," Mr Graham said.

Joe Kochman, soy field officer from Soy Australia, said interest in tofu was steadily increasing due to Asian migration.

Most of Australia's soybean is exported to Asia for tofu production, which is about 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes per year.

"We don't produce any genetically modified soybeans in Australia and we do get inquiries for it from overseas," he said.

"Non-GMO is an important factor to a lot of people."

He said the different varieties of soybean available in Australia were also attractive to buyers.

