Birds Eye Discontinues Its Plant Based Range in Australia
The Australian vegan and plant-based community has been hit with another quiet but significant change not long after the news of Woolworths reducing their plant-based section in-store. Birds Eye has confirmed it will discontinue its entire Plant Based range in supermarkets from March 2026, or earlier once existing stock sells through.
This confirmation came via correspondence released by Simplot Australia, the company that owns and operates the Birds Eye brand across Australia and New Zealand.
If you’ve relied on Birds Eye’s vegan frozen products over the years, or even just grabbed them occasionally for convenience, this marks the end of a fairly sizeable chapter in Australia’s mainstream mock meat supermarket offerings.
A Look Back: Birds Eye Plant Based Range (2021–2026)
Birds Eye is a well-known brand known for pioneering the frozen food space, especially vegetables, and entered the plant-based space in 2021, launching frozen mock meat products at a time when vegan foods were rapidly expanding across Australian supermarkets.
What started as a small range, gradually grew into 11 Birds Eye plant-based frozen products - making it one of the largest vegan frozen lines available nationally.
The Birds Eye Plant Based range included:
Birds Eye Plant Based Mince
Birds Eye Plant Based Meatballs
Birds Eye Plant Based Moroccan Style Sweet Potato & Lentil Patties
Birds Eye Plant Based Mediterranean Style Sweet Potato & Lentil Patties
Birds Eye Plant Based Burgers
Birds Eye Plant Based Chicken Strips
Birds Eye Plant Based Chicken Tenders
Birds Eye Plant Based Sweet Chilli Tenders
Birds Eye Plant Based Greek Lamb Style Strips
Birds Eye Plant Based Chicken Style Fingers
Birds Eye Plant Based Chicken Style Nuggets
For many families, especially those newer to veganism, these products offered convenience, familiarity, and accessibility in the frozen aisle at major supermarkets.
The range hit the market at a well-priced $6.50, which was one of the more affordable options in comparison to other mock meat products available. Over the years, the prices steadily climbed to where they are now at $7.60.
Why Is Birds Eye Discontinuing Its Plant Based Range?
While Simplot hasn’t publicly detailed every factor, the decision aligns with the current trends in the Australian plant-based market.
While veganism in Australia has grown, that growth hasn’t necessarily translated into strong supermarket sales for vegan products.
Several key factors are likely at play:
1. Cost of Living Pressures
There’s no doubt about it, but Australia is currently in the middle of a cost of living crisis that is impacting a lot of Australian families.
With many essentials such as electricity, fuel, everyday groceries and much more increasing in 2025, families are cutting back on premium convenience foods, especially when prices approach $8 per pack that have 2 serves. For families especially, this can get costly!
2. Tough Supermarket Sales Expectations
At the end of the day, supermarkets are a money-making business and they can be pretty cut-throat with demands. Major supermarkets expect fast-moving stock and strong margins. Slow sellers don’t last long, regardless of category.
Unfortunately, vegan products are often assessed against non-vegan equivalents using the same sales benchmarks. For example, Birds Eye Plant Based Nuggets may have been directly compared to traditional chicken nuggets when supermarkets reviewed sales performance and shelf space.
3. DIY Shift
As prices increase on mock meat options, shoppers tend to look at DIY options.
Many vegans are increasingly:
Making mince from TVP
Cooking from scratch
Choosing less processed protein sources, such as tofu and legumes
4. Quality
Let’s be honest for a moment.
The quality of a lot of mock meat items released over the years has been quite ordinary. While the Birds Eye Plant Based range has some high achievers, the rest of the range wasn’t without its problems.
This is something I’ve openly shared in my YouTube taste test videos and, while this is entirely opinion, the Birds Eye plant based range was average at best overall.
Some products were decent freezer staples, but others struggled with:
Texture issues
Over-processed flavours
Inconsistent cooking results
The biggest disappointment for many long-time buyers was the recipe changes to the Birds Eye Plant Based chicken-style products.
Some of the items underwent formulation changes over time, and in multiple taste tests, the texture and flavour noticeably declined. What once felt passable, became harder to recommend - especially when compared to other options on the market.
What Can Replace Birds Eye Plant Based Products?
If you’ve been relying on Birds Eye Plant Based items over the years, it’s not all doom-and-gloom. There are cheaper, more flexible alternatives worth considering.
Alternatives to Birds Eye Plant Based Mince
TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) – budget-friendly, shelf-stable, high-protein. Once rehydrated, TVP replicates mince meat perfectly!
Alternatives to Chicken-Style Products
Tofu (crumbed, baked, or air-fried)
Homemade seitan (if you’re keen)
Alternatives to Burgers & Patties
Homemade lentil patties
Chickpea and bean burgers
The Birds Eye Plant Based discontinuation isn’t an isolated event. It reflects a maturing vegan market, where:
Not every plant-based product survives long-term
Value, quality, and versatility matter more than novelty
Brands can no longer rely on “plant-based” alone as a selling point
For long-term vegans, this isn’t surprising. Over the almost 9 years of being vegan myself, I’ve seen so many vegan staples come and go, but for newer vegan families, it does remove another easy option from the freezer aisle.
Birds Eye Plant Based products filled a gap for many households, particularly during the early 2020s when vegan options were aplenty and a lot of major brands were trying to capitalise on the vegan buzz.
However, average quality, rising prices, recipe changes, and shifting consumer habits ultimately made the range unsustainable for Birds Eye and supermarkets to range for the long-term.
I will always miss the Birds Eye Plant Based Greek Lamb pieces, but the others? Not so much.