Flexita-what? Flexitarian! Consumer trend of the moment, flexitarism, according to Xavier Terlet, president of XTC World Innovation - a global database of food innovations - is "a new eating behavior that favors vegetables and consumes meat in smaller quantities but of better quality ".

The term "flexitarian" is a marketing invention to describe these part-time, non-militant vegetarians , who advocate the search for a better diet. But the motivations are varied: eat healthier, more ecological, more local, more economical too.

The flexitarian, a wary consumer

For Xavier Terlet, the emergence of this trend is correlated with the appearance of a consumer in search of more transparency and food security; a consumer incited for many years to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Without being bad for the health when they are consumed with normal dose, today, "the meat products do not have a good health image" underlines the expert. Involved, many studies and scandals agribusiness around meat and animal breeding conditions

Suspicious, consumers seek to adopt a more reasoned diet. Hence the return, for example, of these vegetables that we rediscover: old and forgotten vegetables, legumes ...
The addition of these two trends, one going towards a decrease in meat consumption, and the other going towards the increase of fruits and vegetables results in the birth of a new food mode: flexitarianism.

Flexitarianism: for a healthy and responsible dining pleasure

The major players in the sector have understood it well. After Alain Passard who, since the 2000s, has almost abandoned the meat in his restaurant L'Arpege in favor of highly gastronomic creations based on vegetables, the industrialists start to exploit this vein. "We see appearing alternative foods, made from legumes, greedy, colorful, crisp ... to satisfy our French food model," says Xavier Terlet.

He also emphasizes the benefits of legumes, rich in protein and satiety, as well as they are greedy and they give pleasure. And this is typically what flexitarians want: a greedy, healthy and responsible pleasure.

Already all (a little) flexitarians?

More or less, according to Xavier Terlet, as we move towards a more qualitative consumption. "Now that we have gone beyond the trauma of the post-war period, where we had to eat meat at every meal to prove that we were getting out of it, we can eat less and less, while choosing higher quality products. "

He also reassured about the state of the meat market, which does not suffer from this trend, since it is moving towards a move upmarket. We now find meat of noble breed, matured meat, which stick perfectly to flexitarianism, which develops a culture of taste and good products.

Thus, the Flexitarian is not a vegetarian who allows himself a few differences, it is above all a responsible consumer, who chooses quality products, even if they pay a little more, and favors the vegetable in a culinary approach that wants as greedy as the traditional French gastronomy.

Let it be said, vegetables are no longer just green beans fagot to accompany meat, it is now the meat that accompanies a good vegetable dish!