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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

#601

Post by astura »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #547
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…

Price has kept me away for a few years now. But now the price of everything else is rising to catch up, so maybe I should check it out again

I don't eat meat, personally, but my family does. When we do buy meat we get the organic grass fed kind because they prefer to eat less meat but of higher quality. Impossible's price is on par with the high end ground beef. So, at least for my family, there's no increase in cost. I just checked prices online and Impossible is actually 5 cents cheaper a pound.

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

#602

Post by MR4D »

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…

Did we read the same article?

FTA:

> Supermarket sales of refrigerated plant-based meat plummeted 14% by volume for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 4, according to retail data company IRI. Orders of plant-based burgers at restaurants and other food-service outlets for the 12 months ended in November were down 9% from three years earlier, according to market researcher NPD Group.

> Beyond lost sales in almost every channel last quarter. Over the past year it laid off more than 20% of its workforce

That's a pretty good description of a failing growth industry.

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

#605

Post by cableshaft »

scifibestfi wrote: post #570
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…

There was also the health marketing angle that flopped when people starting looking at the ingredients.

That's what's stopped me from getting them. They're not any healthier (and arguably less healthy) than the meat they're substituting. I'd rather they stuck with the old soy burgers that tasted less like meat but were clearly healthier (unless you're on a keto diet) than what they've come up with.

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

#606

Post by uhtred »

purephase wrote: post #571
uhtred wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have to keep having this conversation? Lots of people, like myself, choose to not eat meat because we care about animal welfare. It's not because we don't like eating meat. Therefore food that tastes and feels like meat but didn't require killing an animal makes sense.

Yeah, this is the issue that most people seem to miss. It's not the flavour that is the issue, which is why products that attempt to replicate it are successful with vegans/vegetarians. What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike. Removing that element from my diet is the goal, not th…

Sometimes it seems so predictable that someone will say it that I think they are being deliberately ignorant and trolling.

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

#607

Post by joshvm »

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…

A friend and I did a (literal) blind taste test with impossible/USDA organic beef/beyond. I was excited to do this as we don't get Impossible in Europe. We baked our own buns etc, cooked to temp with a probe, got some nice cheese on top good stuff. We also did a blind tests of the proteins on their own, and in a plain burger. Neither of us had any trouble picking out which product was which, but it was really interesting.

Beyond was the most divisive. It has a very distinct flavour which isn't anything like beef, and not everyone likes. I think it's fine, but it's more of a tasty protein than a beef replacement.

Impossible is a really interesting product. It tastes good, texture is good, and I would happily eat a burger made from it. I can definitely tell the difference side-by-side, but I think if it's cooked well-done in a ragu or meatballs, it would be more difficult to tell.

The main complaint I have is that it both can be quite hard to form and have a tendency to turn into sludge. So you have to handle them very cold before the fat melts.

In Switzerland meat is expensive. Organic ground/minced beef from Farmy is something like $15-20/lb. Organic chicken breast is $50/lb (around $15/breast). Beyond is about $10/lb so there is certainly a cost saving to be had. All the supermarkets have extensive plant based options and vegetarianism/veganism is pretty common here. I think it'll be interesting to see how this pans out globally with improved animal welfare. My next experiment is eggs (which are almost 1 CHF/per!). Unfortunately the egg substitutes are almost the same price per weight from what I can see.

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

#608

Post by jknoepfler »

nightski wrote: post #568
unity1001 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is the most environmentally friendly option Its not. You need 30 kg of grain or other edible product to make just 1 kg of meat. We are literally turning more food to less food. An unrelated statistic showed that if the world has increased its meat consumption just a little bit more, we would run out of food. The conversion rate is that bad. ... Context: https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/hidden-driver-fa…

Well that's not true. Most cattle is grass fed for the majority of it's life at which point they will have them eat at feed lots to fatten up. Second, feed lots can use things like by-products of sugar production (molasses, beet pulp pellets, etc...) for feed. These are not human consumable and require no extra food to be grown. I've worked with a company that does over half a billion in revenue on this alone. There…

Now account for the energy, land, labor, materials, and environmental externalities required to bring a cow from birth to the table at industrial scale (all the way from birth, through the animal's ~1.5 years of life (?), through slaughter, butchering, packing, distribution to the consumer, etc.), and compare that to a proportionate amount of beans and rice.

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

#609

Post by asoneth »

browningstreet wrote: post #580
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…

In every taste test I've watched, Beyond never scores as high as Impossible. Impossible just seems to be doing better because it tastes better.

Odd. Personally there is something exceedingly off-putting in the aftertaste of Impossible and I occasionally get rancid smelling burps afterwards. Beyond is fine, but still not in my top 5 veggie burgers.

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

#610

Post by barbazoo »

purephase wrote: post #571
uhtred wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have to keep having this conversation? Lots of people, like myself, choose to not eat meat because we care about animal welfare. It's not because we don't like eating meat. Therefore food that tastes and feels like meat but didn't require killing an animal makes sense.

Yeah, this is the issue that most people seem to miss. It's not the flavour that is the issue, which is why products that attempt to replicate it are successful with vegans/vegetarians. What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike. Removing that element from my diet is the goal, not th…

Some people just don't care about the same things. And some people also don't have the creativity, joy or whatever to cook a vegetarian meal. People are just different and for some, biting into a burger or eating a piece of chicken gives them some kind of joy. Maybe they even associate some kind of lifestyle, identity with that. I think there is no point arguing these principles over and over. People are different.
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