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Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

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Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#51

Post by avhception »

Moldoteck wrote: post #29

Maybe unpopular opinion, but for me, best plant based patties are those that do not try to replicate meat taste. I much prefer patties made from actual plants&vegetables/mushrooms/chickpeas/beans like potato, carrot, some spices and so on. They have like actual 'natural' flavor, almost like something homemade. Those that add a ton of additives often taste awful, even beyond/moving mountains...

I'm a meat-eater, but those "classic" plant-based patties often taste perfectly fine. Not like meat at all, but they don't have to, that's okay. It's not like I only eat meat. But the new breed of patties that claim to be meat taste really awful, definitely. They sometimes smell really weird, too.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#52

Post by gernb »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #3

I've been vegan for 35 years and the thought of eating a burger that tastes like meat turns my stomache. If you're a meat eater that wants to reduce consumption of animals then do that in the other (healthier) meals and have a decent animal burger once a week/fortnight. If you're eating burgers much more regularly then you're probably better off getting more variation into your diet and than eating highly processed v…

There are millions of vegatarians that like meat like products. See the 100s of products made from things like wheat gluten that Buddhist monks have been eating for 1000s of years

I don't know a source on the history of all of it but I've been to several restaurants in Asia that specialize in dishes that taste like they're made with meat but aren't

this came up resently tho

https://youtu.be/lrrmysxnTdA

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#53

Post by bloppe »

joesb wrote: post #14

What is this article's obsession with things being "processed" food? Is "processed" the new "chemical"? It's like the article trying to keep repeating the words "processed", "ultra-processed", "hyper-processed" as if it's some scary boogey man.

It's mostly laziness. People don't care enough to find more specific words. Also it does evoke a reaction which is silly but can be effective.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#54

Post by raghavkukreti »

abliefern wrote: post #40
Moldoteck wrote: post #29

Maybe unpopular opinion, but for me, best plant based patties are those that do not try to replicate meat taste. I much prefer patties made from actual plants&vegetables/mushrooms/chickpeas/beans like potato, carrot, some spices and so on. They have like actual 'natural' flavor, almost like something homemade. Those that add a ton of additives often taste awful, even beyond/moving mountains...

That's a misunderstanding. Fake meat products don't contain "a ton of additives".

Water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavors, 2% or less of potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, food starch modified, soy leghemoglobin, salt, mixed tocopherols (antioxidant), soy protein isolate, zinc gluconate, thiamine hydrochloride (vitamin B1), niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), and vitamin B12. This is the list of ingredients in an impossible burger. Just so it can somewhat (barely) mimic the taste and texture of actual meat, for what? Shoving myself full of GMO produce and preservatives? It's much more fulfilling and better for your own health to buy fresh produce, make your own umami rich, organic blends and eat them and not strive to mimic something it cannot be.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#55

Post by joshjob42 »

sokoloff wrote: post #22
monero-xmr wrote: post #9

It doesn’t taste that good, it smells weird when cooked, it isn’t actually healthier, it’s typically more expensive than real meat as it’s “premium”, the nutritional value is suspect… the list goes on and on

I think Impossible is fine as a casual ground beef substitute. It tastes okay (not amazing) in burgers and would be fine in any sauce. The problem is its price is eponymous: Impossible for consumers to, pun intended, stomach it. Sell it for 75% of 80/20 ground beef’s price and it will fly off the shelves. At 250-400%, nope.

True, but they say in the article that "Pricing, which has already come down, could match beef as early as the end of the year, [Impossible's CEO] says, as his costs continue to improve with increased efficiency.“

That suggests to me that certainly by sometime in '24 we ought to see Impossible Beef down to cost parity with 80/20 (so ~$5/lb or so) which I think would really start to drive a transition. I'd certainly not buy animal beef anymore I don't think, unless it was some crazy good stuff for a special occasion.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#56

Post by johnywalks »

monero-xmr wrote: post #9

It doesn’t taste that good, it smells weird when cooked, it isn’t actually healthier, it’s typically more expensive than real meat as it’s “premium”, the nutritional value is suspect… the list goes on and on

Tough choice.

Weird goo that was grown in a lab by people that have no idea what they're doing OR natural food we've been eating since the dawn of time.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#57

Post by sokoloff »

joshjob42 wrote: post #55
sokoloff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Impossible is fine as a casual ground beef substitute. It tastes okay (not amazing) in burgers and would be fine in any sauce. The problem is its price is eponymous: Impossible for consumers to, pun intended, stomach it. Sell it for 75% of 80/20 ground beef’s price and it will fly off the shelves. At 250-400%, nope.

True, but they say in the article that "Pricing, which has already come down, could match beef as early as the end of the year, [Impossible's CEO] says, as his costs continue to improve with increased efficiency.“ That suggests to me that certainly by sometime in '24 we ought to see Impossible Beef down to cost parity with 80/20 (so ~$5/lb or so) which I think would really start to drive a transition. I'd certainly n…

I can regularly buy 80/20 ground beef at $3/lb at the retail level (family pack, on sale) and I’m sure commercial food service is buying it cheaper than I’m buying it at retail.

The transition acceleration happens closer to $2.50/lb than $5/lb, IMO. Even matching beef price would be significantly welcome progress though, as one of my kids eats vegetarian.

It doesn’t taste “better” to most people, so the transition has to be driven by a non-taste metric. That leaves price or ethics, and I know which way I’m betting on the US consumer, especially in a high-inflation, likely recession environment.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#58

Post by jillesvangurp »

legitster wrote: post #19

It's the cost. We are meat-eaters and have been trying lots of plant-based products. I was never sold as them being health products, but I liked the (presumed) environmental benefits. Plus, I could make a single meal for me and my Vegan friends. Plant-based meats were supposed to be cheaper. But it never happened. So now we've mostly moved back to normal meat products. (It doesn't help that my vegan friends never sto…

Exactly. Most burger chains don't use high quality meat for their burgers. You go to McDonald's, Burger King, or whatever and you are getting a greasy grey slab of ground "meat" (let's not think to long about where that comes from) that is 1) very thin 2) a bit rubbery 3) not that tasty 4) has some filler content in addition to meat and fat. To cover that up, most burger chains use lots of sauce, salt, and spices. It's called fast food for a reason. You eat it and you walk away mildly disappointed with the whole experience. Not that hard to compete with with a vegan option of any kind. It will taste different, and probably better by any objective standard. But when the baseline is kind of bland and boring to begin with, the benchmark for good enough isn't that high.

The beyond burger is actually fine for that segment. I've had a few. They are alright. But I don't crave a beyond burger any more than I do a big mac. It's just bland fast food to me. I'll munch it away if I'm hungry and there's nothing else but it's not particularly good or excellent.

It's miles apart from a good quality premium burger that is made of ground meat from a good cut of meat. You grill it medium, medium rare. Grease dripping all over the place when you eat it, etc. Much harder to compete with that. Now that's something I enjoy eating once in a while.

The problem is that things like the beyond burger are somewhat better than a cheap fast food burger but not really in the same league as a really premium burger. But they are priced like one. So that narrows down the audience to people that actually like meat but feel guilty about it and want to pay more to eat less of it. These people exist of course but it's a relatively small group of people. I just try to eat other things than meat to cut down on meat consumption. Works fine for me.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#60

Post by jslql »

j-pb wrote: post #41
Nowado wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US livestock subsidies are in dozens of billions. Whole sector seems to have revenue in lower hundreds of billions (harder to get exact data, please correct me). Even without premiums target audience is willing to accept, subsidies of 10-20% of sector revenue are pretty hard to beat.

Same in the E.U. we have billions of subsidies for milk and meat. Many countries like germany also have a tiered VAT system, where basic foods are taxed lower, there is a base line tax and some luxury items are taxed higher. Thanks to lobbying meat and cow-milk are taxed as basic foods, while vegan alternatives are taxed as luxury items.

Meat and milk are basic foods.
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