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> vegan meat products saw a 21 percent increase in unit sales from 2020 to 2022 > During the same period, animal-based meat and milk sales dropped by eight and

by mtkd 3y ago

> vegan meat products saw a 21 percent increase in unit sales from 2020 to 2022 > During the same period, animal-based meat and milk sales dropped by eight and nine percent, respectively There are likely additional factors at play in the animal based drop UK ONS shows whole milk at low of 43p/l in 2020 increasing to 70p/l in Mar 23 and minced beef from 609p/kg to 812p/kg in 23 -- but those numbers likely do not reflect the reality of multi-buy discount offers commonly being available in 2020 that are rarer now in 23 -- so the inflation felt by consumers is potentially even higher

_cenw 3y ago
Milk was heavily subsidized and the prices were pushed to a point where all but the largest scale producers were making losses (~30 cents per liter) where I live whereas the price of plant based milk used to have a huge novely / vegan markup that wasn't based in production cost. The cost of plant based milk is not exactly much less than dairy now, but it is actually cheaper if you go by discount brand prices. That so many people don't mind switching with so little monetary incentive is great, that's a lot of animal harm prevented.
- Reason077 3y ago
  Here in the UK, plant based milks are typically more expensive than cow’s milk, particularly if you go for the well-known brands (Alpro, Oatly, etc) Typically in a corner shop you’re paying around £2 for 1 litre of plant milk, compared to £1.25 for 2 pints (1.13L) of cow’s milk. That doesn’t seem to have dampened demand for plant milks, however!
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Jealous that you get a choice. Netherlands here which is actually better for vegan options as a whole than the UK in my experience but never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy.
    - diego_moita 3y ago
      > With anything but cow dairy. The Dutch love their cows? Who would have imagined that? :D /s
      - xvilka 3y ago
        s/love/torture/. If anything, brutality of dairy produce is hundred times worse than butchering them for meat.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        concordDance 3y ago
        End result of selective pressures on cow farmers. Humane treatment would raise the cost by like 20%, but the inhumane treatment readily visible to the buyer while the price is.
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        Other than the corner shops it's the most vegan friendly place I've seen in Europe. The farmers and their supporters aren't the whole population.
    - Reason077 3y ago
      > "never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy" That's strange. They certainly are popular in the UK, and their long shelf life means there's little risk for shops in stocking them. I wonder if dutch "big dairy" could be using dirty tricks to keep plant alternatives off shop shelves?
  - geoah 3y ago
    Is this just a London thing or can you actually get alternatives as easily in other parts of the country?
    - nicoburns 3y ago
      You can get them everywhere. All the mainstream supermarkets sell them. In London you might well have a choice between 10 different plant based milks.
    - petesergeant 3y ago
      Everywhere, and also a large selection of fake meat and other vegan stuff in big supermarkets. UK is great for this
- smeagull 3y ago
  It's not cheaper here. The moment it is I'll switch to oat milk. I think it tastes better.
  - bitL 3y ago
    Oat milk has no lactoferrin, a powerful anti-viral/bacterial/fungal compound in milk, so you are going to eliminate a significant immunity boost.
    - ornornor 3y ago
      It also doesn’t have hormones or antibiotics.
    - danielbln 3y ago
      You can supplement with lactoferrin if you so choose, and on the flip side oat milk doesn't contain any hormones, antibiotics or pus, all of which can slip into cow milk.
      - bitL 3y ago
        Oat milk would likely contain pesticides and other chemical residues. There is no hiding from bad chemicals but one can choose food that contains support for their removal. I'd be concerned about pure vegan diet for its lack of certain removal-supporting compounds, leading to massive issues after many years as one can read on Internet. I doubt they will supplement missing things.
    - smeagull 3y ago
      So I'll throw in some cinnamon. There's no shortage of foods that preserve themselves.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Make your own. It's easy and cheaper than dairy. Takes minutes. Not drank dairy in five years, never miss it. Guests never tell that they been given oat milk and usually convert to drinking and/or making their own oat milk immediately following the experience.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Which animal harm do you mean by having cows for milk? Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows, the cost of it is almost the same as basic milk where I live. I can tell you from my daily personal experience those are some of the happiest non-wild animals you can meet in person. I mean if we move away from it, yes technically there will be 0 harm possible because we will have to kill all the diary cows, and prevent their offsprings from ever again being born. But thats kind of argument like killing all humans apart from me will end all of human suffering, technically true but not what we want. Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors. Not judging or arguing for/against, but its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste.
  - ahelwer 3y ago
    1. Cows, like humans, only produce milk after giving birth 2. These cows, in order to get pregnant in the first place, are artificially inseminated (and it isn't a very nice process) 3. What do you think happens to the offspring if it's male and thus uneconomical to keep? The fact that these statements (which are incredibly obvious if you have an eighth grade education or higher) have to be spelled out is a testament to the power of the milk lobby that people think there are some bucolic scenes where farmkids go to milk Bessie each morning, who produces day in and day out without fuss.
    - ornornor 3y ago
      The fact you’re getting downvoted so much also illustrates how much our species is willing to hide our head in the sand and buy the milk lobbies’ lies.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        I just really like cheese and yogurt and milk and other cow milk products.
        ornornor 3y ago
        It doesn’t change the suffering and abuse involved in making it. Downvoting parent won’t make that go away even if you don’t like hearing it. I love cheese too. I was eating some almost every day growing up in cheese country. But I gave it up once I learned the cost of making it in term of animal abuse and pollution. We mostly gave up raping and pillaging so maybe one day we’ll also vastly reduce the abuse we inflict onto the billions of animals we “raise”…
- simplotek 3y ago
  > Milk was heavily subsidized (...) The whole agricultural industry in Europe is heavily subsidized through Europe's common agriculture policy. It's a strategic and national interest policy so that Europe's access to food is not jeopardized in case of war. It's ok that these subsidies exist, and they surely won't go away any time soon.
  - 411111111111111 3y ago
    At least in Germany the subsidiary is disproportionate for the large scale industry as it got paid by animal, so the more you can cram into a building, the more you get subsidized. Animals in Germany are living through an extreme hell because of several financial incentives which make it so profitable for the one's willing to ignore the animals. And the farmers that have even a tiny bit of a conscience are getting in severe financial trouble as they just can't compete on price. Especially as that kind of animal cruelty they're forced into comes with it's own psychological issues.
roenxi 3y ago
The headline seems to be mixing two trends in food randomly. The drop in meat & milk is likely independent of vegan trends - the $ figures are different orders of magnitude. This isn't substitution at all, so there is no reason to think they are interacting. Europe is probably being hit by some sort of hardship right now meaning people can't eat as well as usual. The UK seems to be being hit by an energy crisis for example, although they also seem to be having a much worse time of it than mainland Europe. Per capita figures are lower than China and it might drop below the global average in a decade if the current trend keeps up.
- Eduard 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    The evidence I've seen seems to indicate that meat and dairy are the healthy alternative. They also have centuries of safety data, unlike many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered. I doubt you'll agree, and I'm sure you'll be able to pull out some studies suggesting otherwise, but perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people when we're dealing with a field (nutrition) that is really in its infancy.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Nutrition isn’t in its infancy. The real issue is people assume small changes in diet are more important than they are. Fiber for example is useful for mechanical reasons in your digestive system, but you don’t actually digest it. It’s possible to be completely healthy and eat essentially zero fiber. Similarly eating massive quantities of fiber isn’t particularly beneficial. There’s this misconception that there’s some single ideal diet and anything else is unhealthy. But we turn a high percentage of our food into energy and excrete stuff we don’t need. That provides extreme flexibility assuming you’re eating a wide range of plants and animals it’s probably fine. Eat a more limited diet and you have to be more careful, but not excessively so. Of course when you take an even closer look things do get more complex, but for most people it’s not particularly relevant. The biggest issue is simply number of calories.
Reason077 3y ago
Cow’s milk has bucked the inflation trend and fallen in price recently in the UK.[1] Dairy farmers are also suffering significant cuts in “farm gate” prices they receive, due to a glut of supply amid weak demand.[2] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65267367.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65267367.amp [2] https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/milk-prices/huge-milk-price-drop-to-below-40p-litre-for-arla-producers-in-april https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/milk-price...
polishdude20 3y ago
Soo "unit sales". Is this by weight? By volume? By calorie?

by mtkd 3y ago

_cenw 3y ago

Milk was heavily subsidized and the prices were pushed to a point where all but the largest scale producers were making losses (~30 cents per liter) where I live whereas the price of plant based milk used to have a huge novely / vegan markup that wasn't based in production cost. The cost of plant based milk is not exactly much less than dairy now, but it is actually cheaper if you go by discount brand prices. That so many people don't mind switching with so little monetary incentive is great, that's a lot of animal harm prevented.

Reason077 3y ago
Here in the UK, plant based milks are typically more expensive than cow’s milk, particularly if you go for the well-known brands (Alpro, Oatly, etc) Typically in a corner shop you’re paying around £2 for 1 litre of plant milk, compared to £1.25 for 2 pints (1.13L) of cow’s milk. That doesn’t seem to have dampened demand for plant milks, however!
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Jealous that you get a choice. Netherlands here which is actually better for vegan options as a whole than the UK in my experience but never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy.
  - diego_moita 3y ago
    > With anything but cow dairy. The Dutch love their cows? Who would have imagined that? :D /s
    - xvilka 3y ago
      s/love/torture/. If anything, brutality of dairy produce is hundred times worse than butchering them for meat.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - concordDance 3y ago
        End result of selective pressures on cow farmers. Humane treatment would raise the cost by like 20%, but the inhumane treatment readily visible to the buyer while the price is.
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      Other than the corner shops it's the most vegan friendly place I've seen in Europe. The farmers and their supporters aren't the whole population.
  - Reason077 3y ago
    > "never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy" That's strange. They certainly are popular in the UK, and their long shelf life means there's little risk for shops in stocking them. I wonder if dutch "big dairy" could be using dirty tricks to keep plant alternatives off shop shelves?
- geoah 3y ago
  Is this just a London thing or can you actually get alternatives as easily in other parts of the country?
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    You can get them everywhere. All the mainstream supermarkets sell them. In London you might well have a choice between 10 different plant based milks.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    Everywhere, and also a large selection of fake meat and other vegan stuff in big supermarkets. UK is great for this
smeagull 3y ago
It's not cheaper here. The moment it is I'll switch to oat milk. I think it tastes better.
- bitL 3y ago
  Oat milk has no lactoferrin, a powerful anti-viral/bacterial/fungal compound in milk, so you are going to eliminate a significant immunity boost.
  - ornornor 3y ago
    It also doesn’t have hormones or antibiotics.
  - danielbln 3y ago
    You can supplement with lactoferrin if you so choose, and on the flip side oat milk doesn't contain any hormones, antibiotics or pus, all of which can slip into cow milk.
    - bitL 3y ago
      Oat milk would likely contain pesticides and other chemical residues. There is no hiding from bad chemicals but one can choose food that contains support for their removal. I'd be concerned about pure vegan diet for its lack of certain removal-supporting compounds, leading to massive issues after many years as one can read on Internet. I doubt they will supplement missing things.
  - smeagull 3y ago
    So I'll throw in some cinnamon. There's no shortage of foods that preserve themselves.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Make your own. It's easy and cheaper than dairy. Takes minutes. Not drank dairy in five years, never miss it. Guests never tell that they been given oat milk and usually convert to drinking and/or making their own oat milk immediately following the experience.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Which animal harm do you mean by having cows for milk? Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows, the cost of it is almost the same as basic milk where I live. I can tell you from my daily personal experience those are some of the happiest non-wild animals you can meet in person. I mean if we move away from it, yes technically there will be 0 harm possible because we will have to kill all the diary cows, and prevent their offsprings from ever again being born. But thats kind of argument like killing all humans apart from me will end all of human suffering, technically true but not what we want. Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors. Not judging or arguing for/against, but its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste.
- ahelwer 3y ago
  1. Cows, like humans, only produce milk after giving birth 2. These cows, in order to get pregnant in the first place, are artificially inseminated (and it isn't a very nice process) 3. What do you think happens to the offspring if it's male and thus uneconomical to keep? The fact that these statements (which are incredibly obvious if you have an eighth grade education or higher) have to be spelled out is a testament to the power of the milk lobby that people think there are some bucolic scenes where farmkids go to milk Bessie each morning, who produces day in and day out without fuss.
  - ornornor 3y ago
    The fact you’re getting downvoted so much also illustrates how much our species is willing to hide our head in the sand and buy the milk lobbies’ lies.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I just really like cheese and yogurt and milk and other cow milk products.
      - ornornor 3y ago
        It doesn’t change the suffering and abuse involved in making it. Downvoting parent won’t make that go away even if you don’t like hearing it. I love cheese too. I was eating some almost every day growing up in cheese country. But I gave it up once I learned the cost of making it in term of animal abuse and pollution. We mostly gave up raping and pillaging so maybe one day we’ll also vastly reduce the abuse we inflict onto the billions of animals we “raise”…
simplotek 3y ago
> Milk was heavily subsidized (...) The whole agricultural industry in Europe is heavily subsidized through Europe's common agriculture policy. It's a strategic and national interest policy so that Europe's access to food is not jeopardized in case of war. It's ok that these subsidies exist, and they surely won't go away any time soon.
- 411111111111111 3y ago
  At least in Germany the subsidiary is disproportionate for the large scale industry as it got paid by animal, so the more you can cram into a building, the more you get subsidized. Animals in Germany are living through an extreme hell because of several financial incentives which make it so profitable for the one's willing to ignore the animals. And the farmers that have even a tiny bit of a conscience are getting in severe financial trouble as they just can't compete on price. Especially as that kind of animal cruelty they're forced into comes with it's own psychological issues.

roenxi 3y ago

The headline seems to be mixing two trends in food randomly. The drop in meat & milk is likely independent of vegan trends - the $ figures are different orders of magnitude. This isn't substitution at all, so there is no reason to think they are interacting. Europe is probably being hit by some sort of hardship right now meaning people can't eat as well as usual. The UK seems to be being hit by an energy crisis for example, although they also seem to be having a much worse time of it than mainland Europe. Per capita figures are lower than China and it might drop below the global average in a decade if the current trend keeps up.

Eduard 3y ago
[flagged]
- Amezarak 3y ago
  The evidence I've seen seems to indicate that meat and dairy are the healthy alternative. They also have centuries of safety data, unlike many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered. I doubt you'll agree, and I'm sure you'll be able to pull out some studies suggesting otherwise, but perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people when we're dealing with a field (nutrition) that is really in its infancy.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Nutrition isn’t in its infancy. The real issue is people assume small changes in diet are more important than they are. Fiber for example is useful for mechanical reasons in your digestive system, but you don’t actually digest it. It’s possible to be completely healthy and eat essentially zero fiber. Similarly eating massive quantities of fiber isn’t particularly beneficial. There’s this misconception that there’s some single ideal diet and anything else is unhealthy. But we turn a high percentage of our food into energy and excrete stuff we don’t need. That provides extreme flexibility assuming you’re eating a wide range of plants and animals it’s probably fine. Eat a more limited diet and you have to be more careful, but not excessively so. Of course when you take an even closer look things do get more complex, but for most people it’s not particularly relevant. The biggest issue is simply number of calories.

Reason077 3y ago

Cow’s milk has bucked the inflation trend and fallen in price recently in the UK.[1] Dairy farmers are also suffering significant cuts in “farm gate” prices they receive, due to a glut of supply amid weak demand.[2] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65267367.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65267367.amp [2] https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/milk-prices/huge-milk-price-drop-to-below-40p-litre-for-arla-producers-in-april https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/milk-price...

polishdude20 3y ago

Soo "unit sales". Is this by weight? By volume? By calorie?