Sales and Trends

Sales Data

• From 1996 to 2010, soyfoods sales have increased from $1 billion to $4.9 billion over 14 years. This increase can be attributed to new soyfoods categories being introduced, soyfoods being repositioned in the market place, and new customers selecting soy for health and philosophical reasons.
• Dramatic growth followed the FDA approval of a health claim linking soy with heart disease reduction. Click here for a complete breakdown of Soyfoods Sales 1996 – 2010 (PDF).
• Sales of some categories of soyfoods have slowed down in growth in the retail market, but other categories have experienced more significant growth. The growing opportunities in food service should also boost sales of meat alternatives, soymilk, tofu, and other soyfoods. New soyfood categories (i.e. soy-based drinks, drinkable cultured soy, soy dairy free frozen desserts, and energy bars) are emerging with strong and steady growth.
• U.S. soy-based foods market recovered from a sluggish 2009 and, in line with overall retail foods sales, grew 1.9% in 2010, reaching $4.968 billion in sales.
• In 2010, category leader, Soymilk Beverages, continued to experience a decline in sales. Other categories, including Energy Bars, Meat Alternatives, Meal Replacements and Supplemental Powders and Condiments more than made up the difference.
• Sales of soymilk beverages sales ($994.3 million) declined by 3.5% in 2010. While the market for soymilk beverages continued to be overwhelmingly dominated by non-dairy refrigerated soymilk products in 2010, this subcategory appears to have lost market share to the emerging functional subcategory of specialty beverages, which gained more than 3 points to retain 17.2% of the total soymilk market. Combined, refrigerated products accounted for 86.9% of the category, while shelf-stable products (virtually all aseptic) continued to decline to 13.1% of the soymilk market.
• The broad category of Soymilk Beverages has been the leading growth category in soyfoods for many years and continues to be so despite a second straight year of sales declines in 2010(declining from 22.7% of total soyfood sales in 2009 to 20% in 2010). This category includes refrigerated soymilks, shelf-stable soymilk products in aseptic packaging, and the new generation of “specialty” functional soymilk- or soy protein-based drinks, both refrigerated and shelf-stable.  Many of these new products are blended with fruit juice, micro-nutrients such as Omega-3 or other wellness-oriented ingredients.  While refrigerated and shelf-stable soymilks experienced a drop in sales again in 2010, refrigerated specialty beverages experienced growth of over 29%.
• Source: Soyfoods: The U.S. Market 2011, published by Soyatech, Inc. and powered by SPINS, Inc. data. For more information, contact Soyatech at 800.424.SOYA, or by email at customerservice@soyatech.com.
• Soy products have historically been associated almost exclusively with natural foods stores. However, many supermarkets now carry both national soyfoods brands and their own store brands of soy products.

Consumer Attitudes

• Thirty-seven percent of Americans consume soyfoods or soy beverages once a month or more, approximately five percentage points higher than during the period between 2006 and 2008. Conversely, 35 percent indicate that they never consume soy, which has decreased steadily since 2006 (then at 43 percent).
• Approximately 31 percent of U.S. consumers seek out products containing soy and approximately 35 percent of consumers are aware of specific health benefits of soy in their diet.
• In 2010, over 84 percent of consumers perceived soy products as healthy on an aided basis. On par with last year, this number also reflects a dramatic increase of
  17 percentage points in the perceived healthiness of soy products over the last 13 years.
• On an unaided basis, consumers most frequently mention the following specific health benefits of soy: heart-healthy (25 percent, up significantly from 18 percent in 2009), low in fat (17 percent), source of protein (16 percent), good for you (14 percent) and cholesterol-lowering (10 percent).
• Dinner is the most popular meal time for consuming soy products (39 percent); followed by breakfast (30 percent), lunch (22 percent), mid-afternoon snacking (19 percent), late evening snacking (13 percent), mid-morning snacking (9 percent) and desserts (5 percent).
• Consumers rank soybean oil among the top four healthy oils, with 69 percent recognizing soy oil as a healthy oil. Consumers depend on soybean oil, commonly sold as vegetable oil, as one of their two most frequent cooking oils (at 72 percent most frequently used).
• Thirty-one percent of consumers say they are aware of the FDA claim that consuming 25 grams of soy protein per day reduces the risk of coronary heart disease.  Forty-five percent agree with the health claim.
• For more information: United Soybean Board 2010 Consumer Attitudes Report (pdf)

Now available: United Soybean Board 2011 Consumer Attitudes Report (pdf)