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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

#521

Post by Moldoteck »

dachryn wrote: post #69
avhception wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Beyond burger or what was the one that was hyped 3 years ago was really good in my opinion. Especially on a burger with some sauce and other taste things. The only thing you really shouldn't do is mix real meat and fake meat. A natural thing to do is order two burgers, and compare them. Whatever you eat first will taste fine, whatever you eat second is extremely gross.

also found out that during this years, some 'local' businesses have changed the 'formula' of their burgers, so even if I liked what they made in the beginning, due to less chemicals maybe, they became awful to my taste

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

#522

Post by nicoburns »

COGlory wrote: post #506
kup0 wrote: post #481

This editorialized link title and the article's headline itself doesn't really match the article's content (as is increasingly common it seems). Sure, Beyond Meat has had lower sales- but soon after they mention that retail sales of Impossible meat products increased 50% in 2022- with an odd "but the CEO left so they're in trouble" assessment which seems a bit bonkers. Then the author seems to say that because fake m…

The fundamental problem is that everyone has a different reason for wanting plant-based meat/fake meat. So by any particular metric, they have failed. Some people want fake meat to be a 1:1 meat substitute because they love meat but can't eat it (allergies, cardiovascular, etc). Some people want cheaper meat because quality meat you can trust has grown too expensive. Some people want more vegan/vegetarian options bec…

Does any of that really matter if people are buying it anyway?

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

#523

Post by pclmulqdq »

bennettdams wrote: post #328
pclmulqdq wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing said here refutes the parent comment. It turns out that a lot of land is really shitty for growing stuff that isn't a weed (without adding a ton of chemicals to the environment), and humans don't eat weeds. Cows, sheep, pigs, and chicken do. I doubt that 86% of that 77% is truly unsuitable for farming human food, but I wouldn't be surprised if 30-50% of it was.

It is naive to believe that these 86%, assuming the numbers are true, have any impact on the food production at all. Of all the cropland we have, 57% is used to produce human food and 43% is used to produce animal food. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#more-plant-based-d... The whole point is that you need way more crops in general to "produce" the same amount of calories & proteins. That's because feeding t…

The implicit assumption that you are making is that all cropland is fungible and that the 43% used for animal food can be converted directly to human food. That is almost certainly not the case. Also, the original comment's 86% doesn't imply that it is necessarily "cropland" - just that it is land that grows animal feed.

You see this with human crops too - Why do people grow corn when almonds are much higher dollar value per acre? Why not wine grapes? The reason is because not every patch of land is suitable for high-value cash crops. Going down the quality scale, not every patch of land is suitable for food for human consumption either. The reason why is that "cropland" is not fungible - soil has particular characteristics, nutrients, contaminants, and microorganisms, all of which affect which crops you can grow.

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

#525

Post by samuelbalogh »

Swizec wrote: post #479
maury91 wrote: post #429

I'm not a fan of plant-based meat, this is most likely because of my culture ( I'm Sardinian ), we do have many meat based dishes and many plant based dishes, and honestly I don't see the need to cook the meat based ones with processed food that tries to replicate the taste and consistency of meat. I believe that if you don't want to eat meat there's a world of recipes that do not involve meat and are made to elevate…

Fake meat feels similar to my Slovenian eyes. There's a whole world of recipes that just don't include meat and are delicious. It wasn't until I moved to the USA that I even realized those are "vegetarian" ... to me they're just regular foods and recipes. Lots of cottage cheese hearty meals with high protein content. It helps that traditional (100+ years ago) Slovenian culture was that you rarely eat meat because mea…

> Sometimes I talk to my vegetarian friends and ask "If you want to be vegetarian, why don't you just eat natively vegetarian dishes? Why the fake meat?". So far no satisfying answer.

Because there are people who like the taste and consistency of meat, but object to killing animals.

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

#526

Post by jasonjmcghee »

COGlory wrote: post #506
kup0 wrote: post #481

This editorialized link title and the article's headline itself doesn't really match the article's content (as is increasingly common it seems). Sure, Beyond Meat has had lower sales- but soon after they mention that retail sales of Impossible meat products increased 50% in 2022- with an odd "but the CEO left so they're in trouble" assessment which seems a bit bonkers. Then the author seems to say that because fake m…

The fundamental problem is that everyone has a different reason for wanting plant-based meat/fake meat. So by any particular metric, they have failed. Some people want fake meat to be a 1:1 meat substitute because they love meat but can't eat it (allergies, cardiovascular, etc). Some people want cheaper meat because quality meat you can trust has grown too expensive. Some people want more vegan/vegetarian options bec…

I've been slowly cutting meat out of my diet, and stopped eating beef a few years ago.

I think Impossible burgers are too close to beef for me- I feel ill after eating them and no longer do.

Much prefer the classic veggie/bean patties

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

#527

Post by onli »

Semaphor wrote: post #340
onli wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source is https://app.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/mittelstand/ruegenw... , a "we would if consumers choose that route".

> Letztlich wird das der Verbraucher entscheiden. Vorstellen können wir uns alles. which is far better translated to > In the end, the consumer will decide. We can imagine [doing] anything. Which is extremely noncommittal (and also the only thing that makes sense)

No, this was extreme. When that interview came out it was completely astonishing to read that this option is in play at all for such a traditional meat processor. Other companies would have talked about their tradition and old strengths they should not give up, and said something like "we expect there to always be a market for our high quality meat products". But he opted for a different route.

> (and also the only thing that makes sense)

Companies die all the time because they refuse to adapt to a changing market, especially private german companies. Adapting to the market might be "the only thing that makes sense", but that is in no way the default position. Think about how much force was necessary to get german car companies to even just make alibi electric cars, even though it was completely obvious that not investigating that path would lead to their destruction in the next decade.

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

#528

Post by Moldoteck »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #359
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...

It's a matter of taste. If you're accustomed to meat, or even industrial meat-products, then they taste quite good. But if you're from a different taste-realm, it can be indeed very disgusting. This is similar to all the diet-products. People always want the taste, but not the guilt.

well, I was implying that at least for me, those alternatives tasted worse compared to 'classic' meat burgers back when I wasn't vegetarian. I'll even put it another way> I liked the taste at first for some brands, but I suspect they changed the formula in an attempt to 'improve' the taste or maybe cut some cost, but that change in additives ruined the experience for me

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

#529

Post by COGlory »

nicoburns wrote: post #522
COGlory wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental problem is that everyone has a different reason for wanting plant-based meat/fake meat. So by any particular metric, they have failed. Some people want fake meat to be a 1:1 meat substitute because they love meat but can't eat it (allergies, cardiovascular, etc). Some people want cheaper meat because quality meat you can trust has grown too expensive. Some people want more vegan/vegetarian options bec…

Does any of that really matter if people are buying it anyway?

Not sure. But I think it does help explain articles like this one.

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

#530

Post by samuelbalogh »

lawlorino wrote: post #447
themoonisachees wrote: post #430

My perspective from France: Fake meat has never been so available. There are several restaurants that serve it that are not your "we are explicitly vegan" restaurants, burger king served some, and all major supermarkets have it in stock in the freezers right next to normal meat. However, the price is still unattainable. A few days ago i bought patties to make burgers and meat was about 1 euro/100g and plant meat was…

Similar story here in Finland, real meat is just so much cheaper than the fake veggie stuff. My theory was this was supply chains (being physically far away from the rest of Europe) and a relatively small market size, but interesting you have the same price discrepancy in France which I guess has neither of these issues. Just speculating here but do you think it is because of the strong food culture and links to iden…

It's partly due to the insane subsidies that livestock farming receives in the EU.

If meat was not heavily subsidised, it would be much, much more expensive.

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