4 ms·

This is a very thin article. Wired has a few in-depth articles on the subject: - https://www.wired.com/2016/10/nerds-cattle-food-technology-will-save-world/ ht

by kjksf 9y ago

This is a very thin article. Wired has a few in-depth articles on the subject: - https://www.wired.com/2016/10/nerds-cattle-food-technology-will-save-world/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/nerds-cattle-food-technology-w... - https://www.wired.com/story/the-impossible-burger/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-impossible-burger/ - https://www.wired.com/2016/07/lab-grown-meat-coming-win-haters/ https://www.wired.com/2016/07/lab-grown-meat-coming-win-hate... - https://www.wired.com/story/navigating-the-uncanny-valley-of-food/ https://www.wired.com/story/navigating-the-uncanny-valley-of... The reality is that currently lab grown meat is extremely expensive (thousands of dollars per pound) and we don't even know if we can bring the cost down to a level competitive with cows. Impossible Foods, however, is already making an impact. They make "burger" meat purely from plants by mixing thing up and adding fake "blood". They're already shipping (there are 8 restaurants in SF alone that offer their burgers, https://www.impossiblefoods.com/locations/ https://www.impossiblefoods.com/locations/). People seem to like their stuff (reportedly in some restaurants their burgers outsell the real beef burgers). They just finished their first large scale factory (1 million pounds per year) and are ramping up distribution across US. Cost-wise, they're already comparable with organic beef and there's a clear path to make them cheaper than beef by increasing the scale. In terms of impact and transforming meat industry, Impossible Foods seems to be in much better position.

gnicholas 9y ago
> Cost-wise, they're [Impossible Foods] already comparable with organic beef and there's a clear path to make them cheaper than beef by increasing the scale. We buy organic ground beef for around $7/lb at Costco. A restaurant I talked with said they pay $11/lb for Impossible Foods "meat". Do you consider these prices to be comparable? Or are you aware of restaurants paying much less than $11/lb? To be clear, I understand prices of IF will come down—I'm just trying to get clarity on current pricing, since a 40% price difference is material for restaurants.
- rflrob 9y ago
  Once you've established that people are willing to pay a $2-5/lb premium to ensure that their meat is organic, I think another similar premium for non-meat meat is reasonable to call "comparable", especially when the alternative is thousands of dollars per pound.
- kjksf 9y ago
  To be honest, you have more inside information that I do, so thanks for that pricing tidbit. (my info comes from an interview with the CEO where he didn't say the exact price, just compared it to the price of organic beef) It looks like there's a solid premium on their "beef", good to know. That being said, it certainly beats thousands of dollars for lab grown meat. The important thing is that it's commercially viable at current prices. I think Impossible Foods deserves credit for picking the right "go to market" strategy. Kind of like Tesla started with a sports car, they started by supplying gourmet burger chains. At $10+ per burger, the cost of raw material is clearly acceptable for the restaurant, or else they wouldn't be buying.

by kjksf 9y ago

gnicholas 9y ago

> Cost-wise, they're [Impossible Foods] already comparable with organic beef and there's a clear path to make them cheaper than beef by increasing the scale. We buy organic ground beef for around $7/lb at Costco. A restaurant I talked with said they pay $11/lb for Impossible Foods "meat". Do you consider these prices to be comparable? Or are you aware of restaurants paying much less than $11/lb? To be clear, I understand prices of IF will come down—I'm just trying to get clarity on current pricing, since a 40% price difference is material for restaurants.

rflrob 9y ago
Once you've established that people are willing to pay a $2-5/lb premium to ensure that their meat is organic, I think another similar premium for non-meat meat is reasonable to call "comparable", especially when the alternative is thousands of dollars per pound.
kjksf 9y ago
To be honest, you have more inside information that I do, so thanks for that pricing tidbit. (my info comes from an interview with the CEO where he didn't say the exact price, just compared it to the price of organic beef) It looks like there's a solid premium on their "beef", good to know. That being said, it certainly beats thousands of dollars for lab grown meat. The important thing is that it's commercially viable at current prices. I think Impossible Foods deserves credit for picking the right "go to market" strategy. Kind of like Tesla started with a sports car, they started by supplying gourmet burger chains. At $10+ per burger, the cost of raw material is clearly acceptable for the restaurant, or else they wouldn't be buying.