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Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

bloomberg.com

251–260 of 813 posts

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

#251
post #171
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 supe…

What brand do you mean? I've never tried a vegan schnitzel I think but all the nuggets and such I tried didn't taste good to me. And yeah, you're absolutely right that it makes sense to start with sausages/cold cuts because they're easier to imitate. Depending on where you live, there is a lot of choice now and they've gotten really good. I also had vegan cheese the other day that I'd assumed was real cheese until I found out.

The next step will be cultured meat (precision fermentation and similar methods). If you're in Singapore or Israel you can already try it in restaurants.

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

#252
Whole chicken, stick it on a tray, whack it in the oven, chop some onions if you fancy it. Bam, not far off 1kg of meat for 5 GBP.

Healthy, tasty, keeps in the fridge for a good amount of time, can be used for sandwiches, roast dinners, snacking cold or hot, whatever.

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

#253
post #171
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 supe…

In soviet times they had this saying: "the pieces of lard visible in your sausage are the only part which you can rely on to be meat."

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

#254

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…

Hopefully, soon we'll be able to get the exact pleasure that comes from animal fats and proteins without slaughtering cows or plant-based imitations — cultured meat is already a thing, it's a matter of time before it becomes affordable: https://mosameat.com/growing-beef

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most vegetarians were not born vegetarians, though. Some did recently eat meat so can compare. In my opinion, I don't think anything vegetarian will come close to a steak anytime soon, but I have eaten chili sin carne, without noticing it being vegetarian. My main problem is also simply, that I have not learned yet, to cook without meat very good. It takes effort, but is worth it.

Fable mushrooms are the closest thing to steak-like that I've ever had. It's even better than the fake meat steaks I've found in supermarkets. I was never a lover of mushrooms in the first place, but these don't even taste or feel like a traditional mushroom. It looks and feels more like steak.

I love fable mushrooms and mushrooms in general. They are not steak substitutes. I’m surprised by people who make this claim.

100/100 if a good chef cooks fable mushroom and a filet or ribeye or sirloin and blind taste tests they are distinguishable.

And that’s ok. Mushrooms and steak are different. The textures are a little similar but definitely different. Things can be different, that’s ok.

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

#257
post #248
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Germany, and I can confirm that the number of vegan alternatives to any imaginable animal product have increased sharply both in quantity and quality over the last years, to the point that you can get good vegan alternatives at discount supermarkets now. Even in the US, I wonder if what Bloomberg is calling a "flop" is a real flop or just some companies falling short of their over-ambitious forecasts (or the…

Aldi has a great chicken replacement and the meatballs packaged with a pack of ketchup are excellent. I would wish for them to be available in a larger version without the ketchup. Another problem I have with all of this is the plastic packaging for everything. Getting something like that at a veggie butcher would be cool.

"Getting something like that at a veggie butcher would be cool."

Wouldn't it just be shipped in plastic and repacked in plastic?

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

#258
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…

It's a bit of a flop in the UK too tbh. It's been pushed fairly hard, but not that much uptake.

I've avoided it because of the push. A tech-adjacent company that's pushing a "disruption" that hard makes me very suspicious.

In principle I'm all for it ethically, and it's probably no "worse" then any other ready meal/processed food à la Unilever that I sometimes eat. But I'd rather just eat tofu (which I do very much like anyway) than whatever some "founder" is pushing on me so he can get another funding round in.

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

#259

Of course, this is in the US. Impossible doesn't sell its products in Europe (or none of the good ones anyway). Here we have things like Burger King UK which has a more or less 50/50 plant based/meat split on its major products advertised in store. Or McDonald's that has a dedicated menu of 100% Vegan options: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/menu/vegan.html

In Germany they introduced the McVegan a couple years ago. It wasn't great with a weird patty.

They changed that to Veganburger TS sometime ago https://www.mcdonalds.com/de/de-de/product/veganburger-ts-25...

The Veganburger is really good. The patty has a nice bite to it and the sauce tastes great. Great alternative.

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

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to say the same thing. Here i Germany the choice of vegan sausage and cold cuts is huge, even in small grocery shops. I know lot of people who eat meat regularly _and_ buy the vegan alternatives on a regular basis.

Which totally puzzles me. Nothing wrong with a vegetarian diet, but would I prefer processed food, vegan or otherwise, over unprocessed one?

People like variety. Also, people may still like eating meat, but want to eat less of it - not for health reasons, but for the environment and to kill less animals.
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