Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 813 posts

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

#171

Post by brnt »

lampe3 wrote: post #161

Can we add an "in the US" at the end? Since for EU countries this is not true. I'm living in sweden now and lived in germany and poland. Plant-based meat products are growing in numbers and the price of meat is going so high that its cheaper to buy the plant-based one. In Germany one producer of meat sausages want to turn 100% plant based[1]. I will not go into the whats better and not for you. Since this highly depe…

Sausages always seemed such obvious candidates. Many nondry sausages are already often a majority nonmeat. They get their flavor already from plant derived flavorants. Yet mostly fake meat products are burger and chicken nugget replacements.

I've got to say, the fake chicken schnitzels are the first one that I really can't distinguish from the real chicken schnitzel. (Before the purists pour in, yes, compared to supermarket chicken schnitzel, which moreover isn't a real schnitzel anyway.)

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

#172

Post by sofixa »

litenboll wrote: post #160
dubcanada wrote: post #137

I’d feel better if the ingredients list wasn’t as long as my arm. I know it’s a bunch of stuff to make it look like meat, but it’s basically cow meat vs a burger containing 50 random items and chemicals that is worse or equal in nutritional content then cow. Like one impossible vs cow is 14g of fat vs 16g of fat. 370mg of sodium vs 90mg of sodium. They are not even that much better for you. Rather than trying to get…

> 370mg of sodium vs 90mg of sodium. While I agree with your comment, this is very misleading unless you eat your steak raw and unsalted.

Does the cooking itself add sodium? Salting isn't mandatory, and there are tons of spices you can add if you want some extra taste that aren't salt (i know this might be anathema to some who think seasoning starts and stops with salt and maybe pepper but it's true, try it out!).

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

#173

Post by jhanschoo »

hannob wrote: post #146

How strange, we massively subsidize meat production, we don't even consider letting meat producers pay for the externalities they cause, and then plant-based alternatives have a hard time competing. It's a real mystery.

I don't see it purely as a policy problem. Plant-based meats are primarily focused on the US market, and so outside the US these brands can't compete in price either for price-conscious consumers, lacking supply chains that employ cheap domestic labor.

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

#175

Post by kris_wayton »

lampe3 wrote: post #161

Can we add an "in the US" at the end? Since for EU countries this is not true. I'm living in sweden now and lived in germany and poland. Plant-based meat products are growing in numbers and the price of meat is going so high that its cheaper to buy the plant-based one. In Germany one producer of meat sausages want to turn 100% plant based[1]. I will not go into the whats better and not for you. Since this highly depe…

The numbers I can find do suggest high percentage growth in Europe, but growth on numbers that are small compared to the US. Something like ~$7B in sales in plant based meat in the US, and ~$3B in sales for Europe. So maybe a bit early to judge? Meaning, maybe there's a similar plateau for EU, but it hasn't gotten there yet?

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

#176

Post by defrost »

dubcanada wrote: post #137

I’d feel better if the ingredients list wasn’t as long as my arm. I know it’s a bunch of stuff to make it look like meat, but it’s basically cow meat vs a burger containing 50 random items and chemicals that is worse or equal in nutritional content then cow. Like one impossible vs cow is 14g of fat vs 16g of fat. 370mg of sodium vs 90mg of sodium. They are not even that much better for you. Rather than trying to get…

> but it’s basically cow meat vs a burger containing 50 random items and chemicals that is worse or equal in nutritional content then cow.

Is that the central north american urban choice palette?

Here in rural Australia our meat intake (albeit Camel and goat are introduced feral animals that overstock and get routinely culled - they're not feed lot cattle, and anybody eating them is arguably doing the local environment a favour by denting the numbers.

Kangaroos are culled by population monitoring estimates, they have a tendancy to explode in numbers in the good years and die by the hundreds of thousands in the dry years that follow.

It's decades at least since I ate meat that didn't come from a known location, killed and butched | filleted by someone known, and passed on either directly or through a single known intermediary.

That said - kangaroo, camel, and goat make an interesting alternative to beef - the meat is lean and comes at a much lower environmental impact.

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

#177

Post by pjmlp »

michaelteter wrote: post #149

And we don't need fake meat. It's just something that the food industry can make and sell to us instead of us just eating stuff that grows in the earth. If you want something with a texture similar to meat, many mushrooms will do the job. If you want something reminiscent of ground beef, quinoa with seasoning will suffice. However, limiting yourself to vegetarian approaches of recreating meat dishes, then you are mis…

Agreed, I am not vegetarian, but when I want to eat vegeatarian dishes the last thing I ever want to get is fake meat.

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

#178

Post by nodding_smiling »

dubcanada wrote: post #137

I’d feel better if the ingredients list wasn’t as long as my arm. I know it’s a bunch of stuff to make it look like meat, but it’s basically cow meat vs a burger containing 50 random items and chemicals that is worse or equal in nutritional content then cow. Like one impossible vs cow is 14g of fat vs 16g of fat. 370mg of sodium vs 90mg of sodium. They are not even that much better for you. Rather than trying to get…

As I understand it, most of the ingredients are just extracts from or purifications of natural products. I'm not just saying this to defend plant-based meats - it's true of many chemicals with scary-looking names in other foods. "Calcium pantothenate", for instance, is just a salt of the essential vitamin B5. "Ascorbic acid" is vitamin C. And so on.

And it's worth bearing in mind that the ingredients list of a steak would be just one item - beef - but red meat consumption is nonetheless associated with increases in certain cancers and cardiovascular problems. This is even more true for processed red meat which, realistically, represents a big share of most people's red meat consumption.

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

#179

Post by Lio »

n4r9 wrote: post #70
Reubend wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is no surprise, that people aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product You hit the nail on its head. I think there's still hope for meat substitutes if they can improve their flavor while also lowering their price. But I'm not holding out hope for that.

Not sure where you're located, but in the UK the supermarkets stock stuff like this: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-... https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetar... They taste delicious and are absolutely competitive with meat burger prices.

I find the "chicken" pieces to be the best meat substitute.

They're not exactly like chicken but if you treat them as their own thing then they're a perfectly good substitute in things like stir fries.

Quorn bacon substitute rashers are also pretty good in a fry up. Again, they're not bacon but if you treat them as their own thing, very enjoyable.

Not sure anything substitutes for a good steak or nice bit of cod yet but that's only an occasional treat for us anyway.

Post reply on HN