Butcher shops are becoming scarcer but there's a new breed sharpening their knives to slice a different kind of meat - made from plants. ''Vegetarian butchers" are popping up across the globe, selling products that mimic meat but contain no animal flesh . Their counters are brimming with chicken, ham, meatballs, minced beef, steak - even seafood - that looks, feels and tastes like the real deal, but are made from plant protein.Niko Koffeman is the marketing director of Holland-based Vegetarian Butcher, the world's first plant butcher. His ideal is for meat enthusiasts not to miss out on anything if they leave meat out of their diet for one or more days and his ambition is to become the biggest butcher in the world.His range of meatless meat and fish is claimed to be "indistinguishable from the real thing" in appearance, texture and taste, and is sold to restaurants and plant butchers in 13 countries .In the UK, the island's biggest independent sausage maker, Heck, has taken some meat out of their offerings."We were apprehensive launching this range as a meat business. But when we look to the future, it's clear that people are reducing the amount of meat in their diets," said company founder Andrew Keeble.Mock meat is nothing new. Patties made from soy-based protein and wheat gluten have been around since the 1960s, the spongy texture a vague approximation of meat.But a new generation of hi-tech "meat analogues" is being engineered not only from soy and gluten but also peas, chickpeas, lupins, rice, maize, canola, fungi and even bacteria, to mimic the fibrous, juicy texture and taste of real flesh. And they're being sold as if they were meat, from traditional-style butcher counters.This year The Herbivorous Butcher opened in Minneapolis, the latest of a slew of plant butchers in the US and Canada. Founded by siblings Aubrey and Kale Walch, their plant-based Korean ribs, porterhouse steaks, pastrami, turkey and ham made international headlines.Meat-mad Spain now boasts the plant-butcher chain La Carnicera Vegatariana, and sausage-loving Germany will have its own Vegetarian Butcher outlet by the end of June.And there's not just mock meat - fake fish is making waves too. Last year one of the world's first vegan fish and chip shops opened in Sydney offering ocean-flavoured plant protein "seafood".Fans of ersatz steaks and imitation chicken skewers hail the advent of tasty meat substitutes as a culinary lifeline, especially vegetarians and vegans who struggle to eat enough protein.Advocates also argue that, in the West, where consumers eat three to four times the amount of animal protein they actually need, meat substitutes benefit the planet and human health.But critics claim this new generation of meat surrogates is just another form of processed food. - Additional reporting by Rebecca Burn-Callander, © The Daily Telegraph..