Birds Eye is revamping its Green Cuisine Meat-Free Sausages to create a new Meat-Free Cumberland-Style Sausage. The new Meat-Free Cumberland Style Sausage will dial up the sausage’s taste credentials and savoury notes, it will also have a new casing, creating a firmer bite and locking in the juiciness of the sausage. The new look sausage will be accompanied by updated recyclable packaging and will be available across all channels later this month.

Shoppers are continuing to look for plant-based alternatives of their favourite foods, with the alternative protein market forecast to become 11% of the overall protein market by 2035[1]. Birds Eye’s Green Cuisine range has helped to fuel category growth, providing meat-free versions of some of the nation’s most popular dinner time staples. With 9.6% of the total UK population having bought Birds Eye Green Cuisine products this year (penetration)^[2], the Birds Eye Green Cuisine range has seen strong growth of +31.3% YA, which equates to tremendous growth of over 300% compared to 2019 sales[3].

Victoria Westwood, Senior Brand Manager Birds Eye Green Cuisine, commented: “At Birds Eye, we are always looking for ways to enhance our offering to ensure we are delivering products that shoppers keep coming back to. That’s why we’ve invested in improving the quality and taste of one of our original Green Cuisine SKUs. The new and improved Cumberland-style sausages are the tastiest we’ve created to date – this isn’t just our opinion either; consumers agree, with testing[4] revealing that the new recipe has much higher preference scores with consumers than the original version of the sausage.

“The renovation of our meat-free sausages will ensure Birds Eye’s Green Cuisine range continues to play a leading role in the plant-based revolution. Shoppers increasingly expect plant-based versions of their favourite dinner time staples to deliver on taste, quality and overall experience. With the changes made as part of this new recipe, alongside continued marketing support, we’re confident our Green Cuisine range will stay front of mind for consumers, as they seek out the best meat-free options.”

The new Green Cuisine Cumberland-Style Sausages will be rolling out to Sainsbury’s from the 27^th March, before rolling out to wider grocery, convenience, wholesale and foodservice channels. The product has an RRP of £2.50*.

[1] US department of Agriculture, Euromonitor, UBS, ING, Good food institute, expert interviews, Blue Horizon and BCO analysis

[2] Kantar Worldpanel 52w/e data to 23^rd Jan 2022

[3] Nielsen ScanTrack: Total Coverage, Total Defined Frozen, Value sales, L52 wks w/e 01.01.22