Marketing director Tammy Fry Kelly said its year-on-year Australian sales had increased 40 per cent so far this financial year.

She said her company’s sales had increased an average of 20 to 25 per cent each year over the past five years, reflecting the trend identified in the research.

Ms Fry Kelly said she believed the growth was down to greater demand from shoppers and stores, and an industry-wide focus on taste and innovation.

“We’ve just produced a fishless fillet, in line with some of the recent statistics that’ve come out about the sustainability of the ocean’s fish supplies being under threat," she said.

“It is so close to fish, you feel like you don’t miss fish. You get the omegas, you get the taste, but you feel like you’ve made a conscious, sustainable choice. We’re realising that people won’t become full vegans overnight. It’s about reduction, and slowly changing.”

Cale Drouin has been a plant-based food distributor and restaurateur in Australia for 10 years, and said the rise of flexitarians has created a cyclical process where manufacturers are required to focus more on taste to win over "occasional" vegans, thereby driving up sales.

“Fifteen or 20 years ago, availability was most important for vegans – they wanted plant-based foods in more places, regardless of taste,” he said.

“There’s no longer an ‘all or nothing’ attitude to vegan foods. As I went into distribution, it was clear the future was in the mainstream. Now we have achieved the convenience of supermarkets and stores stocking vegan foods, taste and price will come to the fore for manufacturers.”

Such has been the alarm in the dairy and meat sectors, European Union legislators last week moved to ban the use of terms such as “burger” and steak” for plant-based foods, instead insisting on labels such as “veggie discs”.