This study of consumers’ shopping aspirations and actual purchase drivers for plant-based sandwich meats highlights the most important unfulfilled gaps. Surprisingly, sustainability is a much bigger gap for people buying plant-based sandwich meat alternatives than we anticipated. 45% of plant-based meat alternative users are seeking sustainably sourced sandwich meats, yet only 6% are actually able to buy that way. This gap stems from several sources, including lack of products positioned as sustainable (even though they could be positioned in that manner), lack of innovative products delivering on all aspects of sustainability, and higher prices keeping sustainable products out of consideration. Data from our aspirational compass survey of 2,900 shoppers in the USA, shows how the gaps in aspirations identify hidden pent-up potential in the market, which reveals behavioral whitespace and opportunities to improve messaging to broaden brand penetration and build products which deliver rewards to drive higher repeat purchase using three strategies: The steps to be taken are to (1) refocus on-pack and marketing messaging, addressing gaps to create better brand and product alignment which increases consideration and choice. (2) target a more focused / larger audience to increase reach and relevancy, and (3) innovate and renovate products by better delivering against gaps and behaviors to grow and diversify brand. Speaker: Greg Stucky, MS, CFS