From black bean burgers to tofu-based alternatives, the plant-based protein market is steadily becoming a key growth driver for the food industry as a whole. As of 2024, plant-based proteins had a global market size of $18.7 billion — with signs of future growth on the horizon.
However, many plant-based products are new to the marketplace. Where meat products have a long history of rules and regulations based on scientific research, these new alternatives are still being studied. This lack of understanding can prove to be challenging for manufacturers entering this market who are committed to maintaining food safety compliance.
If you’re considering adding plant-based protein products to your product line, your team must exercise caution to prevent cross-contact and cross-contamination during production. Keep these risks and tips in mind to avoid food safety hazards.
The Rise of Plant-Based Proteins
Plant-based meat alternatives are becoming increasingly popular among consumers. In 2024, the Good Food Institute found that 71% of U.S. consumers aged 18-59 felt they were at least somewhat likely to try plant-based meat or dairy in the future. In the same year, 59% of U.S. households purchased plant-based foods.
While many businesses are looking to capitalize on this surge in interest, these plant-based products are still relatively new in the grand scheme of manufacturing. Avoiding common threats to food safety is imperative to success in this space, which requires a clear understanding of the risks these products pose to your operation.
Common Food Safety Issues With Plant-Based Proteins and How to Avoid Them
Many consumers assume plant-based products are safer than meat when it comes to foodborne illnesses. In reality, these foods face many of the same — and in some cases, unique — food safety challenges as their meat counterparts. That’s why plant-based foods require the same level of vigilance during production and proper handling once they reach store shelves.
Just like with any other food product, food safety should be a top priority when working with plant-based products. The best way to avoid food safety incidents is to first understand what may be a threat to your operation. Once your team has identified these issues, they can take strategic actions to mitigate their influence on your final product.
Keep an eye out for these common food safety hazards and follow these tips to avoid them.
Physical Contaminants
Since the ingredients used in plant-based foods often come from fields, there is an inherent risk of foreign materials, such as stones, metals, or even glass, present in the soil making their way into your product. Plant-based products are also highly processed, increasing the risk of physical contaminants from manufacturing machinery.
If contaminated products reach store shelves, they pose a safety threat to your consumers and can lead to recalls or lawsuits. It’s crucial that your team identify and remove these materials from products before they leave your facility.
Solution: Advanced tools like X-rays and metal detectors are useful for identifying potential physical contaminants. Your HACCP protocols should also include hazard-prevention steps, like visual inspection, to help identify contaminants at Critical Control Points (CCPs).
Allergens
Allergens are one of the top causes of recalls worldwide. Around 34% of all recalls in 2024 were allergen-related, and while plant-based protein products may be an effective alternative for those looking to avoid meat, their plant-based composition poses new risks for consumers with food allergies.
Many plant-based foods contain at least one major allergen — such as soy or wheat — that could increase the chance of allergen cross-contact within your facility if introduced to an allergen-free product by mistake.
Solution: Work with your PCQI to build a food safety plan that includes allergen cross-contact prevention methods, like production scheduling, product segregation, and comprehensive sanitation practices. Make sure your plant-based products also include the required allergen labels to comply with regulatory standards and warn customers of the presence of allergens.
Microbiological Contaminants
Just like meat, plant-based products are highly susceptible to common foodborne pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli, L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, B. cereus, and C. botulinum. These can be introduced to your products at the raw materials, production, or storage phases. Since foodborne illnesses are a leading cause of recalls, these contaminants pose a serious threat to your food safety compliance — not to mention public safety.
This microbiological threat means that your team should take the same care with plant-based proteins as they would with meat products. Avoiding cross-contamination and potentially hazardous conditions is essential to maintaining your product’s safety.
Solution: Take proper food safety precautions when analyzing, handling, and storing plant-based ingredients to minimize these risks, identify potential outbreaks before they occur, and prepare your team for possible crisis response. Use extra care with sanitation, separation of raw versus processed materials, and personal hygiene practices.
Chemical Contaminants
Plant-based products are also susceptible to contamination through pesticides and even heavy metals present in the soil, such as cadmium, lead, and mercury. These naturally occurring metals are absorbed by plants as they grow, making their way into your raw ingredients. The presence of these chemical contaminants will likely vary by supplier — depending on their use of pesticides and their growing conditions.
Carcinogens can also be introduced into plant-based protein products during thermal processing, similarly to meat products. While this process is important for killing microorganisms, it can lead to contamination of chemicals like acrylamide — which will require further mitigation strategies to eliminate from your plant-based products.
Solution: The impact of chemical contaminants can be mitigated at several stages of your product process:
- Incorporating prevention methods like mass spectrometry and chromatography in your testing protocols to identify potentially dangerous chemicals.
- Controlling your processing parameters and introducing chemical minimization techniques to reduce the chances of carcinogen production.
- Employing proper sanitation practices to prevent the introduction of common chemical contaminants in your facility.
- Validating the quality of your raw materials through supplier audits to avoid the hazards of contamination before you begin the manufacturing process.
Consumer and Partner Education
Even if you take all the proper in-house food safety precautions, how your consumers prepare your plant-based protein products can directly impact public perception of your food safety efforts. Many consumers are unaware that plant-based foods carry similar microbiological risks as raw meat — leading to improper consumption and preparation. Consumers should follow CDC-recommended preparation guidelines to avoid foodborne illnesses.
Similarly, some consumers may not realize that plant-based products can contain allergens not present in meat products. This underscores the importance of labeling and consumer education for maintaining consumer safety.
Another educational gap you may need to close is within your internal team and partners. Your team must understand the unique food safety risks posed by these plant-based products and follow proper protocols and production processes to mitigate them.
Your vendors must also understand these hazards, as their role is equally important in maintaining food safety post-production. Vendor storage, handling, and preparation methods will directly impact consumer food safety.
Solution: Educate your consumers through clear labeling practices, educational resources, and vendor communication. Invest in a high-quality food safety curriculum for your frontline workers to reduce the potential impact of employee mistakes on the integrity of your products.
Ensuring Food Safety in Plant-Based Manufacturing With AIB International
Plant-based protein products present a new opportunity to tap into a growing market, but safely navigating this space requires your food safety practices to be up to standard.
To minimize your facility’s exposure to potential threats as you navigate plant-based food production, lean on third-party help to refresh your team’s food safety training with AIB International’s Food Safety and Sanitation Online course. With this expert guidance, you can set your team up for success and begin your journey in the world of plant-based proteins with confidence.
