122 Plant-Based Meats Blind-Tested: 11 Beat the Meat Benchmark

A blind tasting of 122 plant-based meats by 2,684 omnivores produced 11 U.S.-facing winners — products that at least half of tasters liked as much as, or more than, their animal-based benchmark. That is the bar Nectar set for its 2025 Taste of the Industry TASTY Awards, and each product cleared it with ratings from at least 100 consumers, in restaurant settings, with branding stripped away.

Impossible Foods alone landed five of the 11 awards. The haul spans burgers, chicken nuggets, breakfast sausage patties, hot dogs and meatballs — a breadth no other manufacturer matched in the published results.

Who won, and against what?

The full winner list, by category:

• Burgers (5 winners): Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, MorningStar Farms, Heura, Redefine Meat
• Chicken nuggets (2 winners): Impossible Foods, MorningStar Farms
• Breakfast sausage patties (2 winners): Gardein, Impossible Foods
• Hot dogs (1 winner): Impossible Foods, the sole brand to clear the threshold
• Meatballs (1 winner): Impossible Foods, again the only published winner
• Turkey deli slices (2 winners): Tofurky, Prime Roots

The study measured overall liking — the full eating experience — rather than whether a product could fool anyone into thinking it was meat. A winner can taste genuinely satisfying without being indistinguishable from the conventional version.

What does the method actually prove?

Every product was evaluated against an animal-based comparison, not merely against other plant-based competitors. That framing matters. It answers the question operators and shoppers actually ask: how close does the substitute come to the familiar food it's designed to replace?

The burger result illustrates the discipline. Impossible and Beyond each drew overall-liking scores from at least half their blind tasters that matched or beat the conventional benchmark. But Nectar's public award pages name winners without ranking them. Five qualifying burgers cleared the same bar; none is declared first. The same caveat applies to Tofurky and Prime Roots in turkey deli slices — two winners, no head-to-head order, no invented runner-up.

Nuggets carry the category's strongest history. In Nectar's 2024 research, the plant-based nugget average outperformed the conventional chicken-nugget benchmark outright — the whole category, not just individual products. Impossible's repeat win in 2025 confirms the brand cleared the individual-product threshold again.

Why blind beats branded

Hidden packaging cuts both ways. Familiarity with Tofurky couldn't lift its scores, and a name like Impossible earned nothing extra. What's left is the product on the plate — closer to the judgment a first-time customer makes on an unbranded menu item than to any front-of-package claim.

The scale also does work a small editorial panel can't. With at least 100 ratings per product and 2,684 total participants, a single enthusiastic or hostile taster can't swing an outcome the way it might in a staffer's recommendation round.

The fine print operators should keep in mind

The awards carry real limits. They certify the formula served during the study, not every past or future version — recipes change, and retailers can carry different formulations than what was tested. A threshold award means at least half of tasters preferred or matched the benchmark; it does not mean unanimous preference, and it doesn't claim every participant mistook a patty for pork.

Hot dogs and meatballs illustrate the narrowest reading. Impossible was the sole published winner in each, meaning it was the only tested brand in those categories to clear the public threshold — not that it led every sensory measure or beat a deep field.

The durable takeaway from Nectar's method is procedural: transparent criteria — who tasted the food, what it was compared against, and how a winner was defined — tell the market more than any package claim. As plant-based menus compete on execution rather than novelty, expect blind-validated products like these five-category winners to anchor the shortlists that survive.