To me, that's the "where's the beef" moment. The meatless alternatives are usually more expensive than the cheapest real-meat options in the stores. While I s

To me, that's the "where's the beef" moment. The meatless alternatives are usually more expensive than the cheapest real-meat options in the stores. While I suppose some of this is still "relatively early-stage firm versus entrenched industry that's spent the last century streamlining its operations", it means that it's still a conscious "I'm going out of my way to choose the meatless wonder" decision. Once it got cheap enough, I figured you'd start to see it widely adapted by food services as a way to stretch margins or compete more aggressively. Although I suspect this will be hindered by various product-labeling legal issues; they'll have to still be explicitly telling people "it's not beef" and that's going to shape customer expectations. I always liked the premise of selling vegetarian products as an economic choice rather than a moral one-- it avoids any direct personal values conflict by saying "You could try the McVeggie and save a buck on this meal."