The vegan food boom has prompted one of Britain’s biggest names in meat-free food to make a multimillion-pound investment in R&D.

Quorn is spending £7m on a research and development facility at its North Yorkshire headquarters as the meat-alternative brand attempts to capitalise on the increased popularity of veganism.

Revealing a 12% rise in sales to £112m in the first six months of the year, Quorn’s chief executive, Kevin Brennan, said the company was determined to step up innovation to ensure it kept up with a battalion of new rivals by developing its own bleeding vegan burger. While all Quorn’s products are vegetarian, most contain some egg. After a surge in demand for its vegan products it is rapidly developing more.

“Nobody can yet produce the array of products available at such high quality and we want to keep that advantage,” Brennan said.

The company, which makes its meat substitute from a “mycoprotein” fermented in vats from a fungus found in soil, is investing to benefit from what Brennan called generational growth in meat alternatives and plant-based eating. He said the global meat-free category is growing by between 10% and 20% a year, with the more developed UK market rising by about 15%.

Brennan said: “All over the world we have seen a real step-change in the way people are eating. Young consumers are really starting to have concerns around meat from a health and sustainability point of view. It’s not that younger consumers are all turning vegan or vegetarian but they are eating substantially less meat.”

Brennan said services such as Netflix were boosting the trend with a stream of documentaries flagging the environmental and health effects of eating meat such as Cowspiracy and Live and Let Live, while retailers, from Waitrose to Iceland, were giving over more space to vegetarian and vegan foods.

Quorn expects to take on about 100 new staff during the year ahead, including boosting its 35-strong research and development team based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire. The company, which currently produces 50,000 tonnes of its mycoprotein a year, will also open a manufacturing plant beside its fermentation facility in Billingham, Teesside in September, enabling it to double production of meat-free pieces and mince substitutes, its biggest sellers.

Quorn is aiming to reach $1bn (£760m) of annual sales by 2027 and Brennan said the group was on target despite a slight lift in the value of the pound against the dollar in recent months, which had slowed the pace of growth from about 15% last year.

Quorn’s sales in the UK, by far its biggest market, rose by 12% in the first half of the year, as Brennan said snacks such as vegan scotch eggs and cocktail sausages were selling particularly well.

“We are already seeing amazing growth internationally: Australian sales are up 50% and US sales are up 23%. In the US supermarket giant Kroger, we now have the fastest selling product in the [meat alternative] category. With continued investment we believe we can continue this level of performance,” Brennan said.