Amid trade wars and a potential recession, the solution to a strong US economy could simply be on your plate.
Can more plants equal more jobs? That’s the central argument from a new report suggesting that the US could create tens of thousands of roles and witness an economic boost by simply making plant-based food more common.
While only around 5% of Americans identify as vegan or vegetarian, strengthening the economy is the policy priority for 73% of them. Nearly half (49%) say improving the job situation should be top of mind of the president and Congress.
Analysis from BW Research Partnership and Faunalytics suggests that over the next 15 years, making plant-based milk, meat and eggs a more regular occurrence in shopping carts can bolster employment and economy alike.
The researchers compared two scenarios – one with a moderate shift towards vegan products and another with a more significant transition – with the rate at which these foods are consumed today.
With moderate growth, the US could see thousands of new jobs, with the affected industries contributing 0.3% more to the GDP, 0.2% more to total tax revenues, and 0.4% more to the overall labour income. But under the larger growth model, the country would open up tens of thousands of jobs, with the industry’s GDP share up by 4%, tax revenue by 2%, and labour income by 4%.
“Despite the prevalence of animal products in US diets, the continued dominance of animal agriculture is not integral to the health of the country’s economy,” lead author Zach Wulderk wrote. “Indeed, this analysis predicts that the economy may perform better if the US moved away from animal agriculture.”
Moderate growth of plant-based foods only brings minimal change
According to SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute, plant-based milk takes up a 14.5% share in the overall milk industry. Meat alternatives, meanwhile, comprise 0.9% of the market, and vegan eggs are responsible for a 0.4% share of their respective category.
Under this new report’s moderate growth scenario, the market shares of plant-based milk, meat and egg would be 20.8%, 1.8%, and 0.8%, respectively. It would mean that Americans spend $4.4B on non-dairy milk, $2.5B on meat analogues, and $90M on chicken-free eggs.
However, this would only have a minimal impact on the US economy, despite sales of plant-based milk growing by 40% and meat and egg alternatives selling twice as fast. The affected industries would require over 7,000 more jobs than in the baseline scenario, making the change in employment negligible, according to the authors.
The most affected industry is plant-based agriculture, which would see 13,000 new jobs as key inputs like soybeans would need to be scaled up. Meanwhile, the construction sector would add nearly 2,200 jobs in line with this capacity expansion. On the other hand, livestock farming and non-plant-based manufacturing would lose about 5,600 and 3,100 jobs, respectively.
As things stand, industries affected by plant-based food would contribute $216B to the national GDP, and this would only rise to $217B with moderate growth. This minimal change is also seen in total labour income, which would increase by just $440M under this scenario.
“Despite being small percentages, each of these changes represents tens of millions of dollars or more,” the report noted. “They show that the ripple effects of a small increase in the popularity of plant-based foods can have noteworthy benefits to the US economy and government revenue.
Significant expansion of plant proteins key to economic benefits
The true potential of a plant-based transition can be seen under the more optimistic growth model. Here, plant-based products would account for half of the milk market, surpassing $10B in annual sales, and the share of vegan eggs would rise to 6.4% with $680M in sales.
Meat analogues, meanwhile, would rack up over $20B in sales with a 14.5% share (which means they would be as popular 15 years from now as plant-based milk is today).
All this would point to a remarkably different average American diet, which would result in nearly 70,000 new jobs (a 3.45% increase from the baseline). Plant-based agriculture would add 137,000 roles, though this would come at the expense of animal agriculture and its related manufacturing sector, which would lose a combined 100,500 jobs.
In addition, this scenario will help boost these industries’ GDP contribution to $224B. While this is just a tiny fraction of the total GDP (which was $29T in 2024), each scenario still accounts for well over $200B, making plant-based food’s contributions “still quite sizeable”.
Significant growth in plant-based consumption would also help increase labour income by $4.95B, reaching a total of $126.2B. “A larger shift toward plant-based eating would result in comparably larger positive changes in economic indicators,” the study read. “The more plants the US eats, the more its economy will grow.”
Some fallout is unavoidable, though policy support can ease the transition
The researchers pointed out that plant-based jobs may not be interchangeable with those in the animal agriculture industry. For example, most of America’s milk comes from California, Wisconsin, Idaho, Texas and New York – but plant-based producer Oatly only has facilities in Utah, Texas and New Jersey.
“Workers who lose their jobs in California or Wisconsin can’t simply relocate to Utah to take a job at an Oatly facility there,” they said. “On the agricultural side, someone who has spent their life working on chicken farms in Arkansas can’t simply pivot to oat farming in Minnesota – the skills required in the non-plant-based milk industry may be quite different from those needed in the plant-based milk industry.”
So even if the total number of jobs increases with the protein transition, some workers will be negatively impacted, which the report called an “unavoidable result of reshaping the economy”. That said, building plant protein factories and providing training in areas already home to animal production could allow for an easier transition.
Support from stakeholders at the federal, state and local levels is therefore crucial. The report said industry advocates should lobby policymakers and business leaders to invest more in plant-based R&D to make these products tastier, cheaper, and more accessible, as well as craft policy proposals and encourage public opinion in favour of animal-free diets.
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