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How does the meatless meat production costs compare to meat products? Their retail price is higher, so they may be increasing their profits in the process, not

How does the meatless meat production costs compare to meat products? Their retail price is higher, so they may be increasing their profits in the process, not cannibalizing it.

matt4077 8y ago
“Cannibalizing” only requires a new product to grow at the expense of an older one. Total revenue and profit can be lower, higher, or net neutral. Arguably, the most famous examples include combined profits exceeding those of the product being cannibalized: iPhone vs iPad, or Netflix streaming vs Netflix DVD-by-mail. This would actually be expected, since any other sort of cannibization would constitute quite a bad managerial decision. If anything, errors seem to be made more often in the opposite direction: existing products tend to have a leg up in internal politics and therefore more likely to fall prey to external competition rather than internal cannibals. Plus the inherent risk of food born pathogens like mad cow making cannibalism inherently risky.
gibolt 8y ago
I'm sure this is partially due to (lack of) scale and equal parts lack of competition.
- ianai 8y ago
  They’ve got product development costs to recoup.
bb88 8y ago
So the local diner sells an impossible burger on the menu along with a regular burger. The burger with fries is $5.99. The comparable impossible burger with fries is $11.99 If fries cost $2, then the regular burger costs $4 and the impossible burger costs $10 or 2.5 times the cost of the regular burger. That suggest there's a lot of room for profit for both the company and the retailer. But the key thing is that there's demand. And apparently there's a lot of it. They've created a new market with a new product and have shown there's a huge amount of demand for it.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  Most of the places I know of selling Impossible Burgers used to sell a veggie burger. Looks like an incremental improvement to me.
  - bb88 8y ago
    Back in the 1990's Denny's once had a veggie burger on their menu and they sold a total of 2 dozen I think nationwide. That's how bad veggie burgers were once though of. Having had more than my share of bad veggie burgers, I've already eaten more than a dozen Impossible Burgers.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    In San Francisco the Impossible Burger is being sold at places that did not sell veggie burgers (e.g. Gott's at the Ferry Building). I generally don't like veggies pretending to be meat, and I definitely don't want my veggies to bleed, but I did like the texture of the thing. Unfortunately it really only works with a ton of seasoning to mask the catfood taste.
    - bb88 8y ago
      I'd be interested if you'd be willing to do a blind taste test between just a plain patty from McD's, BK, Shake Shack, and Impossible. Because this has not been my experience at all.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    I like the Impossible Burger, but I will not order a veggie burger.

How does the meatless meat production costs compare to meat products? Their retail price is higher, so they may be increasing their profits in the process, not cannibalizing it.

matt4077 8y ago

“Cannibalizing” only requires a new product to grow at the expense of an older one. Total revenue and profit can be lower, higher, or net neutral. Arguably, the most famous examples include combined profits exceeding those of the product being cannibalized: iPhone vs iPad, or Netflix streaming vs Netflix DVD-by-mail. This would actually be expected, since any other sort of cannibization would constitute quite a bad managerial decision. If anything, errors seem to be made more often in the opposite direction: existing products tend to have a leg up in internal politics and therefore more likely to fall prey to external competition rather than internal cannibals. Plus the inherent risk of food born pathogens like mad cow making cannibalism inherently risky.

gibolt 8y ago

I'm sure this is partially due to (lack of) scale and equal parts lack of competition.

ianai 8y ago
They’ve got product development costs to recoup.

bb88 8y ago

So the local diner sells an impossible burger on the menu along with a regular burger. The burger with fries is $5.99. The comparable impossible burger with fries is $11.99 If fries cost $2, then the regular burger costs $4 and the impossible burger costs $10 or 2.5 times the cost of the regular burger. That suggest there's a lot of room for profit for both the company and the retailer. But the key thing is that there's demand. And apparently there's a lot of it. They've created a new market with a new product and have shown there's a huge amount of demand for it.

greglindahl 8y ago
Most of the places I know of selling Impossible Burgers used to sell a veggie burger. Looks like an incremental improvement to me.
- bb88 8y ago
  Back in the 1990's Denny's once had a veggie burger on their menu and they sold a total of 2 dozen I think nationwide. That's how bad veggie burgers were once though of. Having had more than my share of bad veggie burgers, I've already eaten more than a dozen Impossible Burgers.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  In San Francisco the Impossible Burger is being sold at places that did not sell veggie burgers (e.g. Gott's at the Ferry Building). I generally don't like veggies pretending to be meat, and I definitely don't want my veggies to bleed, but I did like the texture of the thing. Unfortunately it really only works with a ton of seasoning to mask the catfood taste.
  - bb88 8y ago
    I'd be interested if you'd be willing to do a blind taste test between just a plain patty from McD's, BK, Shake Shack, and Impossible. Because this has not been my experience at all.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  I like the Impossible Burger, but I will not order a veggie burger.