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Plant-based meat deceleration signals niche future
- Factorium 5y agoPlant-based meats are processed foods - consumer spending probably follows marketing and advertising intensity, same as for a can of Pringles or a bottle of Red Bull. To replace frozen meat in a Whopper, it simply needs to be a cheaper input. The 'Impossible Whopper' was $1-2 more expensive.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marricks 5y agoAlways bugs me when a news source like this is so small it doesn’t have a Wikipedia listing. With only their “about us” to go by who funds them and what their angle is is hard to divine.
- dustintrex 5y agoThe content of the article doesn't really square with the pessimistic title? Yes, sales aren't exploding like they were in the last couple of years, but that's because Impossible & co have been on the market for a while and still cost more than regular meat. If they become equal or less in price than meat, they'll go from a slightly indulgent curiosity into a viable alternative. And there's also a lot of potential in plant-based chicken and seafood, neither of which (in my limited experience anyway) are anywhere close to replicating the original taste and texture.
- mattwad 5y agoQorn is a near perfect replacement for chicken nuggets.. but then I can barely tell what's in chicken nuggets anyway!
- LoveMortuus 5y agoI mean... When you buy an Apple you also don't get an apple but instead get a phone. :P
- 9387367 5y agoSo perfect, the list of ingredients is full of crap and not vegan, which surprised me and may be hurting their sales. > Frozen Quorn Crispy Nuggets > Mycoprotein (39%), Water, Rehydrated Free Range Egg White, Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamine), Vegetable Oils (Sunflower, Rapeseed), Salt, Maize Flour, Wheat Starch, Milk Proteins, Textured Wheat Protein (Wheat Protein, Wheat Flour), Natural Flavouring, Raising Agents: Tetrasodium Diphosphate, Sodium Carbonate; Pea Fibre, Firming Agents: Calcium Chloride, Calcium Acetate; Wheat Gluten, Gelling Agent: Pectin; Dextrose.
- cies 5y agoThought in Oz (their home market) Quorn is fully vegan already, and they are working on it everywhere else. (Just hearsay, haven't been to Oz in a while and with the current political climate I'm not too interested)
- grvdrm 5y agoThis is pretty fascinating. Meat alternatives are sometimes packed full of other ingredients. I try to use a simple rule when I substitute one food for another: consume things with the fewest number of ingredients. Otherwise, is that alternative truly healthier? Not so sure.
- cies 5y agoMeat can hide a lot of ingredients behind one: the animal. Maybe they fed the animal rubbish (likely in case of cheap meat), stuff that changes the color of meat and preventive antibiotics amongst other medicine cocktails. Meat (and dairy and eggs for that matter) also comes with all kinds of hormones, as it is from an animal not much unlike the creatures we are ourselves. So those hormones also affect our system. Yes plant-based "fake meats" have more ingredients, while also having less of the downsides of animal foods (saturated fats, sulfur-rich protein, hormones, high levels of persistent "forever chemicals"). So the choice is yours. From what I know the plant-based alternatives are usually healthier. If you want to reach the next level use traditional meat replacers: lentils, beans, nuts, tofu, tempeh, soy-skin.
- shoto_io 5y agoIt’s definitely not chicken…
- cute_boi 5y agoit's not vegan too I don't understand this product? Is it for vegetarian?
- mint2 5y agoIt’s also for people who simply look to eat less meat, but aren’t strict vegetarians.
- detaro 5y agoWhat's so hard to understand about vegetarian products?
- cies 5y agoVegetarian is hard to understand once looking from an ethical perspective. Why is the chicken flesh bad, but the eggs okay while producing those eggs also has chicken killed? Same for dairy. It seems vegetarians are okay with lifelong encagement, and eventual killing, as long as they dont have to eat it. Leather is "vegetarian", and so are wool and silk.
- weeblewobble 5y agowait, do they kill chickens after they lay eggs?
- cies 5y agoThey do not go to chicken retirement houses after they age beyond peak egg production. Also the males are not needed of breeding breeds, they go straight to the wood chopper after they've hatched.
- mint2 5y ago
- totony 5y agoI think there's a lot of variation in chicken taste so it's pretty hard to have a perfect replacement. Not sure why creates such a big range of taste
- mint2 5y agoQuorn was my best discover this year. It’s been a long time since I’ve had real chicken nuggets though I do occasionally eat chicken, but at this point I find quorn better than actual chicken nuggets.
- tekromancr 5y agoIMO, May Wah has absolutely nailed the texture and taste of chicken, particularly if you season it.
- cute_boi 5y agowell the pricing doesn't makes sense atm if we compare the subsidies received by animal industry. Also I think pricing would be comparable if plant based industry enjoys the same amount of subsidiary.
- cies 5y agoSubsidy, and scale. The meat business is huge. Once plant-based alternatives have more than half the market the price will come down a lot, which will increase demand further.
- wyager 5y ago> If they become equal or less in price than meat, they'll go from a slightly indulgent curiosity into a viable alternative This would only be true if it weren’t significantly worse in both taste and health risk than actual meat. I think fake meat as it exists now would have to be a lot cheaper than actual meat for most people to be willing to switch to it.
- unpolloloco 5y agoTaste is highly contextual for these products. A badly cooked impossible burger is WAY better than a badly cooked meat burger imho. A meat burger that's cooked well is better than the same for an impossible burger (also imho). So...they're getting pretty close. Health-wise is highly debatable as well (I'd claim functional equivalence there, though there are people in both camps). Neither is good for you!
- wyager 5y ago> Neither is good for you! I disagree very strongly. Ruminants are a huge fraction of my ancestors’ diet (possibly a caloric majority) over evolutionary timescales, so it should come as no surprise that ruminants are not only better for me than extruded pea protein, but one of the best possible foods for me.
- OJFord 5y agoDeceleration in growth. Surely it's more natural to equate sales (not YoY growth in sales, d/dt sales) to velocity, in which case they're still accelerating, just less than before.
- sneak 5y agoYeah it's super rude and unprofessional to intentionally conflate first and second derivative in a headline. This makes it seem like a meat industry hit piece.
- detaro 5y agoAlso at least going by the supermarket shelves here, part of that might be that they didn't prepare for that explosive growth. The more popular lines are almost never fully available.
- chrismckleroy 5y agoIt’s extremely tough to compete with a subsidized industry. A burger should cost $45, not $6, but with incentives, this is the reality.
- organic_popcorn 5y agoCare to explain or add sources on this?
- chrismckleroy 5y agoReference: https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cogn... I overestimated; we should be paying 3x more for meat than we do at retail.
- aww_dang 5y agoYes, the government subsidizes corn and soy. That doesn't mean that alternatives cheaper than the unsubsidized price of these inputs couldn't be found. If subsidies are removed, innovation may follow. There are also cases where the government restricts crop production. http://sites.gsu.edu/us-constipedia/wickard-v-filburn-1942/ http://sites.gsu.edu/us-constipedia/wickard-v-filburn-1942/ https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conservation-reserve-crp-usda-vilsack/ https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conserva...
- zionic 5y agoIf burgers cost $45 you’d see an explosion in cattle farming. That would put the value of a cow over 6 figures. All the crypto miners would be buying cattle at that rate.
- burkaman 5y agoNo, burgers would cost $45 because cattle farming would be unsubsidized and very expensive. It wouldn't just be a random $40 tax on burgers, that's obviously counterproductive.
- jl6 5y agoSome of these plant-based meat substitutes are very high in oil and salt and sugar. They’re an effective transitional product for getting people off their meat-every-day habit, but I feel they are the start of a journey that leads to eating more actual fruit & veg, not more ultra-processed fake meats.
- cies 5y agoYes. For health the "Whole Food Plant Based" (wfpb) diet has a lot of research behind it, and excluded all heavily processed ingredients (like oils, white flour and refined sugars).
- dekhn 5y agonothing beats morningstar breakfast patties.
- mmastrac 5y agoI miss these even after I started eating meat again (but still no beef or pork for me). Nearly impossible to find in Canada.
- whywhywhywhy 5y agoI can’t see any other future than the working class only having a option of artificial meat. The money to be made by completely owning all meat that goes through fast food and low budget food is too great that someone’s going to collude with government to make it happen. The people who make it happen will definitely still be eating steak though. If you want to see the future, look at how little the 2020 travel restrictions affected the rich. Could tell the rich people I know were getting a perverse kick out of traveling last year using loopholes when the rest of us were denied.
- claudiulodro 5y agoThis is an interesting theory because I wonder if people would start growing and butchering their own animals again if it ever gets to that point. It is much more gruesome than having your own veggie garden, though, so I wonder if Americans would take to it.
- whywhywhywhy 5y agoWeird you assume owning animals would be legal. You have to pay the carbon tax on those cows flatulence you do realize right? If animal farming is so unethical we need to make plant based "meat" and "beyond meat" then farming no longer exists and you can't just buy a cow anymore. 2 futures exist, everything the same as today or the future where your kids never know the taste of actual meat and only "meat" provided by the "Amazonn of "Meat" ". I'll leave it up to you to figure out how we get to option A or B.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoThe alternatives market is going to be quite something in the coming decades. Given that HN thread from several weeks back where it was clear that lab-grown meat isn't going to happen any time soon, I'll be curious about alternatives that aren't gross processed frankensteins like the current offerings.
- OJFord 5y ago> that HN thread from several weeks back where it was clear that lab-grown meat isn't going to happen any time soon I missed that, found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621288
- xyzelement 5y agoI do think it's a fairly niche market. The people in my life who like "plant based meat" are the same ones that are "veggie burgers" before. Either they don't love the taste of meat or don't eat it for religious reasons. Potentially if it gets very cheap it may be something poor people opt for to save a dollar vs a real burger. Other than that, the excitement about not eating real meat is limited to the same circles that claim climate change is their reason for not having kids (see story from yesterday.) For the rest of us, a nice juicy burger or steak is where it's at and that's not changing anytime soon
- blunte 5y agoYou don't need plant based meat. That's just a a crutch for people who don't know how to cook. It's much easier to take decent meat, throw it on a pan or grill, and end up with something pretty tasty. As a Texan, former steak and ribs consumer, and now 10+ year vegitarian, I have discovered that _good_ vegitarian creations are divine - textures, flavors, and fewer belly aches later. But it takes some real effort for a while to start to learn to really cook. And it's as or more expensive, since quality organic veggies are not cheap (and you can consume more by volume than you can meat). However, even the best meat replacements are rarely as nice to eat as a good veggie dish (imo). So people just need some good education and training. Then they can eat very healthy and very tasty food without all the sodium and other additives that go into the manufactured fake meat.
- bradgessler 5y agoWhat’s a good veg cookbook for preparing such dishes?
- blunte 5y agoI'm sorry, I don't know! I'm just really skilled at searching for and selecting restaurants with good vegetarian options. That said, there are a lot of recipe books. And most of the ones I've seen seem to have good combinations of ingredients. There are certain things that tend to go well together (and prep techniques that work best). In general, you have to consider both flavor characteristics (such as bitterness, acidity, "green" taste (brussel sprouts, kale, spinach, broccoli), sweetness (cooked peppers, onions), and so forth. Then you consider textures - too many crunchy veggies in one dish make you feel like you have to work to eat... LOTS of chewing. However, too many soft stuff without some firm/crunch can be like just a sauce. So you'll see things like cashews added for protein and texture, etc. Not all veggie dishes need a lot of ingredients. Just go dine at some places that have good reviews about their vegetarian dishes to start to get an idea. But avoid the really expensive places, as they tend to like to turn everything into some kind of cream sauce :P.
- IdoRA 5y agoVegetables Unleashed by José Andrés and Matt Goulding is great.
- hnmullany 5y agoBeyond Meat is a fairly big % of this and they had a bad Q1 (11% growth) but a good Q2 (30%+). I personally don't like the taste of Beyond Meat (although I find the Impossible Burger delicious - and tastes exactly like high quality meat.)
- Chris2048 5y agoWaaaaay too early to make this call. The early brands have barely begun to establish themselves. Also, who is this "Food Institute": > As a marketing director in the food and beverage industry, the Food Institute gives Harry Davis & Company a direct line to c-suite influencers at all of the major brands. Is this company a vehicle for food marketeers? Are they actually placed to make predictions, or is this PR for the meat industry?
- mbostleman 5y agoAnecdotally, I've evolved in to a flexitarian (first I've heard that term is this article) since I met my partner who's a vegan. As a result, I eat many vegan meals, both at restaurants and prepared at home. When I eat vegan, I generally avoid plant based "meats", partly because I don't really know what's in them, partly because they are inevitably highly processed, and partly because if I'm eating vegan it's because I don't want to eat meat, so why would I eat something that goes out of its way to be like meat.
- seba_dos1 5y ago> if I'm eating vegan it's because I don't want to eat meat, so why would I eat something that goes out of its way to be like meat Sameish situation here, but I can't agree. I love plant-based "meats", because meat taste and texture is not at all why I want to eat less meat.
- mbostleman 5y agoWhat does [flagged] mean and, assuming it's something bad, what could possibly be construed as bad about this article?