Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#161

Post by mikepurvis » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

barkingcat wrote: post #13

RealityVoid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing that I heard recently. McDonalds is the greats buyer of chicken in the US. Quite surprising, considering they don't even have that much chicken in their menu.

Nothing about the scale of McDonalds should suprise you. It is one of the top agrifood supply chain businesses on the planet.

This is one of the big points of the Food Inc documentary. It doesn't matter if you eat at McDonalds or not— if you eat anything they serve (beef, chicken, potatoes, whatever), you're eating food made to their specifications, as they're the single biggest buyer of all of that stuff.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#162

Post by _bxg1 » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #131

roywiggins wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply chain on meat is pretty extensive. Modern animal farming is basically an industrial process that happens to use flesh-and-blood as host organisms for meat.

No doubt. But until we quantify it throwing out baseless assumptions is ridiculous either way. It can't just be said "Beyond Meat" is better for the environment without any numbers or data to back that up.

Livestock contributes around 15% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Produce fundamentally has a smaller impact, in part due to its relative simplicity. I don't know how much processing is required for these products after-the-fact, but I know that at least one of the recent pivotal innovations was in genetic engineering, not processing.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#163

Post by behringer » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

Plant based meats is what the chains have been wanting to do all along. Plant is cheap, doesn't matter how disgusting it is at the processing plant, because they make it look like meat anyway. And now the public has decided that plant based meats are healthy(?!?) and not loaded with salt and void of real nutrition.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#164

Post by luckydata » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #133

Why do American (and presumably westerners) vegetarians want to replace meat? I hated vegan and vegetarian food for song long until I ate meat free Indian food. It was always the meat replacements like veggie patties and tofurkey type products that turned me away. Indian food doesn’t have some weird mystery replacement I find on almost every vegan or veggie dish. I had a conversation with and Indian colleague who liv…

Because American have a very poor culinary tradition (it's improving) so they can't think of plates prepared with different "principles". Most cuisines around the world use a lot less meat if they use it at all, and manage to do that while being delicious.

Italian food is a perfect example, it's so easy to be vegetarian eating Italian (the original version, not the one covered in meat and cheese you find in the US).

Same goes for almost every other culinary tradition in the world, meat used to be expensive.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#165

Post by astura » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

hervature wrote: post #41

thomasfromcdnjs wrote: post #10

I think it is a rather toxic movement that we are continuing to label things that which they are not. "fried plant-based ‘chicken’" it makes no sense at all A lot of it is egged on by the vegan/vegetarians and is the definition of false advertising. I saw "vegan" mince in the meat section the other day. I feel sorry for the elderly or learning impaired who might be accidentally buying soy substitutes when their bodie…

Don't know why you are being down voted. As a vegan, one of my biggest gripes with the recent movement is the marketing of new products and the obsession of replacing meat with vegetables. To further illustrate your point, imagine trying to replicate carrots using only veal and calling it something like "calf-rots", it absolutely makes no sense. Your issue is primarily with the false representation, my issue is that…

Vegans (especially long-time/lifetime vegans) aren't so much the target market of these new products, the target market is more flexitarians and omnivores who are open to the idea of reducing their meat intake yet don't want to give up familiar textures and flavors.

Veal carrots are not a thing only because there's no market for veal eaters who enjoy eating carrots yet have ethical and environmental concerns about it.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#166

Post by adrianN » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

markonen wrote: post #88

maximente wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a matter of volume. i don't expect beef to go away but the volume sold will massively decrease. there will always be the "real deal" crowd who will pay higher prices for it.

Always? What if the other stuff is just better? It’s not like cow is some platonic ideal for a burger patty, and other ingredients can only approach but never surpass it. Of course, some people will want to taste dead cows similarly to how exotic meats have an audience today. But McDonald’s would not be the venue for something like that.

Shark fin soup is actually not that tasty (or so I've heard), yet people eat it and pay a lot for it.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#167

Post by ArtDev » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #40

_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

> Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it might help them cut down on calories and improve their health image. Which is “less gross” is highly objective. > I wonder what impact it'll have on climate change when McDonalds stops buying real beef. Would be a nice longbet, “ McDonald’s will stop selling beef burgers by 20XY ”. I’d be on the “no” side of that bet.

Fast-food beef is retired dairy cows and flavorings made in a lab. Gross. Many people don't know or don't care. There are enough people that do care to significantly impact their bottom line though. For better or worse.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#168

Post by Pfhreak » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #147

koolba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it might help them cut down on calories and improve their health image. Which is “less gross” is highly objective. > I wonder what impact it'll have on climate change when McDonalds stops buying real beef. Would be a nice longbet, “ McDonald’s will stop selling beef burgers by 20XY ”. I’d be on the “no” side of that bet.

"Gross" being defined as amount of chemicals, likelihood to be spoiled and/or make you sick, etc. Beef won't go away completely in 20XY; maybe not ever, which is fine. But at the scale and quality standards of fast-food, and with the recent progress in the meatless space, I would bet McDonald's will stop selling it in my lifetime.

"Gross" should also include treatment of the animals. Animals raised in CAFOs, for example, are treated in a way that's pretty gross.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#169

Post by gdulli » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

hervature wrote: post #41

thomasfromcdnjs wrote: post #10

I think it is a rather toxic movement that we are continuing to label things that which they are not. "fried plant-based ‘chicken’" it makes no sense at all A lot of it is egged on by the vegan/vegetarians and is the definition of false advertising. I saw "vegan" mince in the meat section the other day. I feel sorry for the elderly or learning impaired who might be accidentally buying soy substitutes when their bodie…

Don't know why you are being down voted. As a vegan, one of my biggest gripes with the recent movement is the marketing of new products and the obsession of replacing meat with vegetables. To further illustrate your point, imagine trying to replicate carrots using only veal and calling it something like "calf-rots", it absolutely makes no sense. Your issue is primarily with the false representation, my issue is that…

> my issue is that we're intentionally making it harder to sell vegan/vegetarian alternatives by trying to replicate something unachievable

I'm a meat eater who's never opted for a meat substitute in my life until these options. They absolutely have started to achieve being a replacement. I don't need it to reliably pass as beef in a blind taste test, I just need it to be good while being essentially a burger. (Or whatever.)

I was never going to try a chunk of tofu no matter how many people insist that it can be great. I tried this because people say it tastes like a burger. Some people want a new experience and some people want a familiar one.

Maybe this will be a gateway item that will demystify plant-based food for me and others and make me more likely to try future products that don't mimic meat.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#170

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

icxa wrote: post #158

dmix wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why people think it's bad meat compared to the supermarket? Is it just the general attitude society has developed towards fast-food and big business? I don't mind KFC but Taco Bell meat always seemed a bit...off and low quality.

Because the meat you buy in the grocery store goes bad after a few days, and (here is where I think parent is being slightly intellectually dishonest) while it is true that the fast food companies certainly source their meats from authentic, standard-holding institutions, that's only the beginning. That isn't to say the rounds of processing and preservation that occurs afterwards. You can't just buy a McDonalds chick…

I appreciate you have some first hand experience here, but this is a very HN-style axiomatic argument --- "restaurants must have issues with meat going bad that ordinary people don't, ergo their meat must somehow be mummified with preservatives". Isn't it in fact the case that fast food restaurants have, relative to supermarket consumers as an entire cohort, extremely high and predictable turnover?

A neighborhood sushi place has an even bigger problem with spoilage than a friend chicken shack, but, for pretty intuitive reasons (I think?), I'd trust any well established sushi place with ahi and salmon than I would my own fridge.

Further: while fast food input costs are the highest single line item in their cost breakdowns, they don't come close to dominating, and labor plus rent dwarfs inputs even before you factor in franchise fees, marketing, and other expenses.