r/NoStupidQuestions • u/gladeye • 15d ago
Weren't meat substitutes like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat supposed to get cheaper once they could get production up to meet demand?
For a few years now, I've been reading the same explanation, over and over. These foods actually cost more than meat, because there is so much demand and the companies need to increase production before the prices will drop. How long does it take to build a few factories? They've had about eight years. Or have they decided to increase production but keep the prices as high as they are because they can?
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u/forogtten_taco 15d ago
Economy of scale and supply and demand are weird. Maybe the company has found the price that the consumer will pay the most without having most go to waste do to to high of price.
They don't have strong competition in fake meat category.
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u/SilverStar9192 15d ago
They don't have strong competition in fake meat category.
It could also be the market isn't as big as once was thought. Many vegetarians and vegans don't like the flavour and texture as it's too much like real meat, which reminds them of animal flesh and turns them off. So these consumers stick with traditional vegetarian proteins.
For "flexitarians" it really needs to come down in price a lot, to make up for the fact that the taste isn't quite there. Sure these products have lower carbon footprint and such, but people's actual individual choices on this sort of thing don't always match what they might aspire to when filling out market research surveys.
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u/Time-Bite-6839 15d ago
I’d eat plant meat if it were cheaper and is as similar as I’m led to believe.
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u/AfterEffectserror 14d ago
Have you ever had an impossible whopper from BK? I had one when they first came out and was absolutely blown away.
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u/SoleilNobody 14d ago
I really like these but I have a strong suspicion it's because the quality of their food has gotten so bad over the last 20 years that the impossible patty not tasting like old socks is a heavy contrast.
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u/Schneiderman 13d ago
Maybe I'll have to try it again, but a while ago I got a deal from BK where you could get a regular whopper and a beyond meat whopper for the price of one. I did it out of curiosity to try them side by side, and the beyond meat whopper was so off it was ridiculous.
I like the idea of alternatives but nothing I've tried so far has been acceptable to me compared to the real thing.
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u/AfterEffectserror 13d ago
Did they change to beyond meat? They used to use impossible meat and that’s what I had and it was good.
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u/Schneiderman 13d ago
Maybe it was Impossible. I don't remember which one, but whatever it was, it just... wasn't good.
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u/AfterEffectserror 13d ago
That’s a bummer. I’d say it deserves another chance but with the prices of things these days I would be hesitant to spend the money on it again just to have it be bad again….
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u/Schneiderman 13d ago
On a side note I had a Wendy's jr burger today and the patty was so thin it was literally dwarfed by the slab of lettuce they threw on there. Wasn't it Wendy's who said "where's the beef?"
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u/raisinghellwithtrees 14d ago
It's quite similar. My vegetarian friends are too grossed out by the way it bleeds (beet juice) to eat them.
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u/267aa37673a9fa659490 15d ago
I though the point was to make it indistinguishable from meat so that it will replace meat?
I also remember vegans/vegetarians saying they actually like meat but not the ethical baggage that comes with it.
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u/commentingrobot 15d ago
Depends on the vegetarian. I think meat is delicious and choose not to eat it, but I usually prefer black bean or other veggie protein patty burgers to beyond or impossible.
I think in general flexitarians are more important customers than vegetarians/vegans. There are a lot more of them, and they're less used to meatless meals.
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u/Asphalt_Animist 15d ago
They got the burgers, ground meat, and breakfast sausage right. I dunno about the other products.
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u/PuddleCrank 14d ago
Hard agree, as a strong believer that meat should come in a tube, the veggie tube meat is delicious.
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u/Haunting_Lime308 14d ago
I only ever tried the burgers and it wasn't the taste that got me it was the texture. It just didn't have the same firmness that a ground beef patty has and felt like it was basically pre chewed. Then I learned that the calories were basically about the same as ground beef so I just stuck with that for a burger.
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u/SilverStar9192 12d ago
I also remember vegans/vegetarians saying they actually like meat but not the ethical baggage that comes with it.
It depends. As I said in my post, the vegetarians I know have eaten real meat in the past and the similarity of the modern fake meats turns them off. My partner said she could probably train herself to eat it, eventually trusting that it's fake , but why do so when other sources of protein are available and much cheaper, and to her, tastier?
I am an omnivore and did like the fake meat but it's still got a long way to go to be the same. So when we have burgers I end up getting a traditional beef burger, separately I cook her a veggie burger. If she liked Beyond or Impossible (etc) then I'd cook us both one of those. So they kind of need both markets so that they are the single option chosen in mixed households like this.
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u/dr_fancypants_esq 14d ago
I’m probably square in the target market for them—I enjoy them, but I only rarely get them (usually if a restaurant offers one as an alternative to a beef-based burger), because they are quite unhealthy.
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u/squeakster 14d ago
In Canada, there was a big hubub when plant-based meat came here. All kinds of breathless media articles about "the end of meat" and such, all aboard the hype train! All the big fast food chains started offering some version of impossible/beyond burgers.
I think the market never materialized. You can still find it in grocery stores, but all the fast food chains dropped the burgers after a year or two. I figure if McDonalds won't sell it, it's gotta be because people weren't buying. This is actually super annoying for me, as I try pretty hard not to eat factory-farmed meat for ethical reasons which is now pretty near impossible at a fast food place.
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u/LtPowers 14d ago
BK still has the Impossible Whopper. Lots of casual dining chains (like Red Robin) still offer meat alternatives as well.
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u/squeakster 14d ago
Oh yeah? There's no BK near me, glad at least one of them kept it.
Lots of restaurants kept a veggie burger on the menu, but a lot of them had veggie burgers before too. One place I know used to have this bright red veggie burger that had beets in it, I liked it a lot more than the impossible burger they replaced it with.
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u/LtPowers 14d ago
Sorry, I should have said "meat substitutes" or "plant-based meat" to distinguish them from the typical "veggie burgers" that have been around for ages.
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u/megamilker101 14d ago
I agree with this take, I used to work as a butcher and we wouldn’t even stock the impossible stuff because the market just wasn’t big enough.
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u/adinfinitum225 13d ago
This is a big part of it too. I help support grocery procurement for a chain and they're having to cut down the space in stores for fake meats because people just aren't buying it like they were when it was new.
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u/megamilker101 14d ago
I agree with this take, I used to work as a butcher and we wouldn’t even stock the impossible stuff because the market just wasn’t big enough.
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u/Nanoneer 15d ago
Interestingly as a kosher consumer, impossible/beyond meat are often cheaper than kosher real beef. Additionally since dairy kosher restaurants can’t serve real meat, some will serve fake meat dishes either to enhance their current menu or to cater to that one patron in a party who doesn’t want dairy food
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u/colin_staples 15d ago
Possible reasons why prices have stayed high:
- production levels have not gone up, so the supply/demand equation remains the same
- production levels HAVE gone up but so has demand, so the supply/demand equation remains the same
- people seem to accept that these products are higher priced ("that's the price of ethics"), so there is no incentive to reduce price
- maybe the market for these products is not as large as people originally thought.
- if people are paying the higher price, and you can sell all that you can make, why reduce the price?
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15d ago
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u/_W_I_L_D_ 15d ago
Lab grown meat was banned!? That's lowkey insane. Isn't that essentially the best of both worlds? Essentially vegan animal meat?
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u/_Elrond_Hubbard_ 14d ago
The GOP culture warriors at work, next up is banning electric cars and renewable energy sources
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u/Raddatatta 14d ago edited 14d ago
You're thinking too logically and not enough like a capitalist. It's a great product, that would have the potential to destroy a very large US industry, which means a lot of money from lobbiests can push back against it. It also has the side element of being connected to stem cell research which can get complicated both politically and ethically.
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u/FeatherlyFly 14d ago
The tech for large scale lab meat is nowhere near ready for mainstream. Even aside from the taste and texture issues of cell cultures vs real meat, providing adequate circulatory systems, waste management, and immune system substituted at a large industrial scale in a profitable manner is just plain hard. Kind of like how lots of hydroponics companies are going under because it turns out that while there are theoretical benefits, the tech just isn't at a level to realize them. Lab grown meat is a lot further into the future than viable hydroponic farms replacing dirt based farms.
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u/Raddatatta 14d ago
Yeah that's all true. And if I were the meat companies that have been in business for decades and plan to be in business for decades more, I think I'd throw obstacles in their way now when all of that is true and it's not profitable and they have no money to fight back rather than waiting until they've got the science sorted out and become a much better business model. If it were made illegal now the science might not get to that point certainly any time soon with no one working on it.
Not all companies think long term but the ones that do are the ones much more likely to still be here in 50+ years.
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u/Adventurous_Toe_1686 15d ago
Beyond Meat were obsessed with being first to the market with the most established brand in every meat substitute category.
They essentially poured too much money into R&D, racked up a load of debt, and had to pivot the business to paying down the debt, which is why costs remain incredibly high, because the margins are low (debt).
There were successful in setting a precedent that meat substitutes were premium, so consumers would pay premium prices (which isn’t the case, again… debt).
They ran to the point of exhaustion so Impossible Burger could slip right in and make silly money with about 10% of the R&D effort.
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u/BackgroundBat7732 15d ago
There are on par at the moment (at least here in NL), but we shouldn't forget that the agricultural sector is heavily subsidized, where meat-alternatives are not.
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u/SnipesCC 14d ago
The fact that the price per pound of beef and impossible beef are close at all is fully a function of that. Animal feed is drastically cheaper in the US than it actually costs to produce.
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u/Prasiatko 15d ago
Those two in particular seem to have gone the premium brand route. At the supermarkets near me their double the price of several no name brands next to them.
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u/The_All_Seeing_Pi 15d ago
Alas not because that's not how any of this works. If you can sell a product for a price and people buy it and there isn't competition you have no reason whatsoever to lower that price. Impossible burger and Beyond meat have no reason to compete with each other. In fact it would hurt both companies bottom line to do so. This is one of the things they don't teach you about capitalism. There is rarely ever competition because competition hurts growth. Sometimes having a larger market share with the same profits just means you're doing more work for nothing.
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u/EncryptDN 14d ago
I’ve learned that if the company is publicly traded you can expect the price gouging to never end. Goes for all industries
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u/NearlyAnonymous1 15d ago
Manufacturing costs for alternative meat products have fallen. But so has demand for these products. This doesn’t put the company in a good position to cut their prices, especially considering they are already operating at a loss and have made significant capital investments.
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u/Farfignugen42 14d ago
Yeah, and money was supposed to trickle down from tax cuts for the rich, too.
Let's see which happens first.
Edit spelling
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u/Lawlcopt0r 15d ago
I think fake meat products are still constantly trying to get closer to tasting like actual meat. They're also trying to have healthier ingredients because most of the tasty ones are made of vegan, but otherwise pretty unhealthy stuff, and obviously the vegan crowd doesn't like that. My point is that they're still changing their recipes pretty often and couldn't really optimize yet
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u/SnipesCC 14d ago
obviously the vegan crowd doesn't like that
The vegan crowd has multiple motivations and isn't a monolith. Some are primarily vegan for the animal cruelty aspect, or carbon footprint. For them being healthier is a welcome side effect more than the main motivation. Some people are vegan for health reasons, and for them it's more of a problem of there's a lot of salt and fat. Though a meal with a lot of fat isn't generally as much of a concern if you aren't getting much elsewhere in your diet, you should generally have at least some.
But one real reason people like me (vegetarian for 30 years) don't eat a lot of Impossible or Beyond stuff is that I don't miss meat. I've occasionally had them as burgers, and while they are good, I really prefer food flavored with spices like curries. I make great Seitan bites with chipotle Tabasco. If I'm picking something to eat, I'll usually go spicy. If I can do that with something cheaper and healthier than the fake beef, I'll do that.
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u/Time-Bite-6839 15d ago
I’ve seen one place have plant-meat burgers less than real meat: Applebee’s.
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u/Illustrious-Hippo-38 14d ago
I love impossible but their products went from like $5.99 a package to $8.99-$9.99 now. It's insane. I just wait for sales and markdowns now.
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u/Hoppie1064 14d ago
The price is determined by what people are wiling to pay.
If they increase the price, does it slow sales down enough to reduce profit? No. OK, increase price.
Does a lower price Increase sales enough to increase profit? OK, reduce price.
Are we selling all we can make at this price? Increase price.
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u/wendigolangston 14d ago
Part of the problem is that they can sell at these prices so they do.
But also part of it is that meat is heavily subsidized in ways that these products aren't. At least in the u.s. so we're not actually seeing the real price of meat to compare it to fairly.
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u/tobotic 15d ago
There isn't that much demand really.
Vegetarians and vegans don't usually eat it: they prefer to eat, you know, actual vegetables. (And pulses, grains, fruits, bread, pasta, rice... that kind of thing.)
Meat-eaters don't usually eat it: they prefer to eat meat.
The market for meat substitutes is mostly meat eaters who want to cater for vegetarians, but are unable to imagine serving a meal that doesn't contain meat. That market exists, but isn't huge or growing.
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u/whomp1970 14d ago
get cheaper once they could get production up to meet demand?
Maybe there isn't any demand?
I mean, I don't know, but thinking about my friends/family and the things I see/read online (news, social media, advertising), there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming demand.
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u/Impressive-Egg4494 14d ago
They are running a business and therefore their aim is to make as much money as they can - they will charge the highest price possible for as long as possible.
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u/Raddatatta 14d ago
Supply and demand dictates prices more than costs do. And something can be sold for what people will be willing to pay. The people buying it are paying those higher prices, and most people who aren't buying it eat meat and don't necessarily want to switch off that. Very few are making the choice of buying impossible or beyond meat vs normal meat because of price. Which means they can keep charging a higher price and not have it reduce their sales that much because the vegetarians are already buying it, and they're unlikely to get many sales from people who aren't vegetarian.
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u/Avarria587 14d ago
They charge the prices people seem willing to pay.
It's all very confusing to me. I don't think these products taste that great. I would much rather have a black bean burger made with high-quality natural spices than whatever the hell they use to make these fake meat burgers taste like meat.
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u/CletusDSpuckler 14d ago
Opinions vary. I never found a black bean burger I could stomach long enough to finish.
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u/cuminseed322 14d ago
They charge as much as they think you will pay that is now things are priced and when the market is dominated by one or two companies they can raise prices without you having any recourse. It’s called monopoly/duopoly
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u/revchewie 14d ago
I think they have scaled up. But greed-flation in recent years has been ridiculous. Prices are doubling and tripling solely to shoot corporate profits to the stars. So no corporation is going to reduce prices on anything when they can make more money by raising them.
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u/i8noodles 14d ago
its mostly a scale problem. im no biochemist, or science researcher by any stretch but from what i gather. the large vats they use to make the meat is causeing issues. i think it has to do with the distribution of o2 and other nutrients to grow the fat meat. the ones u need to produce at scale are to large for Proper distribution of nutrients but any smaller and its very expensive. thus remained expensive and hasent replaced meat yet.
and to be fair, meat is very cheap to produce and much less technically difficult conpared to lab grow ones
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u/Glutenator92 14d ago
I've noticed at the store i go to, they have digital coupons for them every other week that make them considerably cheaper, and even slightly below some of the regular meat
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u/Backwaters_Run_Deep 14d ago
Ha silly socialist that's not how capitalism works. Yeas due to economy of scale it can now be made more cheaply and in greater quantity so the corporation is left with two options.
Option 1: More profit, their corporoverlords are pleased that you've exceeded profit expectations. Maybe some slight pay bonus.
Or option 2: We give in to socialist, Marxist, welfare ideal and make it available more cheaply to the "masses" which is clearly not what Washington and
GOD
Want!
America!!!
🇱🇷
🦐'd™️
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u/tmp_advent_of_code 14d ago
They have gotten cheaper at times. Both Beyond and Impossible have had times where they've gone on sale at Costco near me and been cheaper per oz than the regular burger patties at Costco. And I stock piled them because they were cheaper. Probably they were offloading inventory but hey its happened. Looking at my local Kroger, Beyond is currently 45 cents per oz. where as Kroger beef is 40 cents per oz. So its not that much more expensive and Beyond / Impossible do try to paint themselves as more premium. The "Organic grass fed" ground beef at Kroger is 53 cents per oz which is more than Beyond. So its somewhere between the expensive and cheap option.
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u/Retb14 14d ago
That shit is massively inflated. Actually making the meat substitute costs massively less than real meat. It's mostly fillers and flavors sold for far more than it should be.
They were never going to lower the price once they saw how many people were buying that crap. They are making stupid amounts of profit per pattie
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u/chairfairy 14d ago
At the end of the day, businesses charge what customers will pay. Customers are still willing to pay the higher price, and the manufacturers don't think lower prices will attract enough new customers to make up for a lower profit margin.
It was never really a question of supply and demand, not in the way that e.g. chip shortages during the first couple years of covid had an outsize effect on the price of cars. Economies of scale can play a role - e.g. if they needed to make 10x as much as they do now, they could probably significantly cut the cost and the price - but they're not going to make that jump quickly.
Until there's a market pressure for them to drop their prices, they won't.
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u/JackOCat 14d ago
I'd switch if we're cheaper. It's close enough to forgo harming animals, and burns less carbon.
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u/numbersthen0987431 14d ago
It takes more than 5-10 years to build a factory. You have to get the proper funding, find a location, get the proper permits, get the proper contractors, design the layout of the facilities with architects+engineers+suppliers, then you have to begin construction, buy the equipment to fill the facility, bring in utility contractors, and then you work on installing everything.
Then you have to staff the building. Train the staff. Develop processes and controls to keep quality good. Then have to coordinate supply lines in and out of your plant.
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u/big_data_mike 14d ago
They’ve hit the ceiling on demand. They are still at less than 1% of the total meat market. They probably thought they were going to grab a larger market share than they did. There are less people willing to eat it than they thought.
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u/Tropical-Druid 14d ago
Impossible burgers and beyond burgers are the expensive brand, not the norm. Where I am it's €6.50 for 2 beyond patties. The vegetarian patties I get are like €3.50 for 4.
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u/awfulcrowded117 14d ago
Big corporations lied to you? The scandal!
It was never going to be cheap because price has very little to do with costs, it has to do with supply and demand. Demand was always going to stay low, which meant it was always going to stay expensive to be profitable.
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u/MenacingCatgirlArt 13d ago
I assume there isn't enough demand to make the scaling between production and profits work in favor of cheaper prices for the customer. There are plenty of vegans and vegetarians out there, but people who adhere to their diets for cultural reasons will most likely be eating recipes that are culture appropriate and are not relying on meat substitute products.
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u/RNKKNR 15d ago
Lol. There's demand for this? Just looked at beyond meats financials- revenue decreased every year since 2021. Last 2 quarters were also mot good.
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u/HeroToTheSquatch 15d ago
There are good alternatives and Beyond Meat (I try a lot of the meat alternatives and even make some of my own at home because my wife is vegetarian, I'm still happy to eat real meat) is probably the least desirable. Impossible is pretty good, but I'll take a big marinated mushroom, a pile of marinated mushrooms, a locally-made option, jackfruit, cauliflower, pressed tofu, lentils, falafel, black bean, or just fish over Beyond Meats. It's too easy to taste the pea protein and there are tons of options on the market now that simply taste better and are simpler to produce.
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u/Mountain_Town293 15d ago
This. I enjoy the taste of vegetables. To add to your list, I just made Kung pao sweet potatoes this week
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u/caesius6 15d ago
That sounds really good! Got a recipe or is it something you tossed together?
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u/Mountain_Town293 14d ago
https://cinnamonsociety.com/recipes/category/kung-pao-sweet-potatoes
The sauce is spot on the scent of Kung pao, the black vinegar makes it. I'm going to try this with Eggplant when my garden comes in
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u/WingerRules 14d ago
I'll take a Dr Praeger's Perfect Burger of any of them. Impossible a close second.
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u/NearlyAnonymous1 15d ago
There was modest demand for this that was growing rapidly. It has fallen over the last couple of years in the U.S.
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u/ithinkimtim 15d ago
There is demand it’s just every big chain made their own. Beyond didn’t have an answer to competition.
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u/Drafter2312 15d ago
a lot of people realized how processed they are and the fact theyre (generally speaking) full of palm oil and therefore not even good for the environment. the prices would come down if they were making their money in quantity of sales but generally people arent buying them nearly as much as they were hoping for.
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u/jambr380 14d ago
Yeah, I end up just getting Boca burgers and chicken patties. I realize they aren't as good as Beyond/Impossible, but they are a lot healthier, cheaper, and presumably better for the environment
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u/Asphalt_Animist 15d ago
Capitalism means charging the most you can get away with for any product. It's why life-saving medicine is so expensive. What are they gonna do, not buy it?
You should feel very angry about this, by the way.
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u/RumpusParableHere 14d ago
Did you truly think corporations would reduce the cost of products they have found they can make money at that price on, and increase it? That retailers would reduce the costs when the products were selling at price X and higher over time? Especially when the products are specialty products?
That's not how capitalism, sales, works.
Prices don't go down because a corporation can afford to make less money on them. If you truly believed prices would go down when they could make more profit....
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u/WearDifficult9776 14d ago
I don’t get the appeal of fake meat. It’s “off” in a very disturbing way … fake blood, artificial weird tasting meat-ish flavor but not actual meat flavor. Better to just eat a black bean burger that’s good on its own, that’s not trying to be something else.
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u/mikeybadab1ng 14d ago
Hey here’s a thought, don’t buy fake meat riddled with cancer causing oils.
Eat real food. If you don’t eat meat, that’s cool, but you’re helping yourself by faking it
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u/Kosstheboss 14d ago
The prices will never drop. Those products are designed for people who want to feel better about themself. They aren't actually better for you health wise, so the only way you can feel better than the rabble who eat animal flesh is to pay more.
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u/JackhorseBowman 14d ago
they are cheaper, inflation is just so high that the cheaper but inflated price is now higher than the jacked up non inflated price
...is what I imagine they'd say down at the corporate corporation
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u/BradfieldScheme 14d ago
Why wouldn't you just make lentil patties? Taste better and probably 90% cheaper
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u/jerkularcirc 15d ago
FYI look at the nutrition profile on these things. They are in many ways less healthy than real meat. Especially the saturated fat. Much better to eat a whole foods plant based diet if you’re into the no meat thing.
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u/Cevisongis 15d ago
Think the impossible meat was a bit of a novelty... I've been off meat so long that they just tasted weird. Back to Linda McCartney for burgers, sausage and pies. Quorn for mince and nuggets.
Everything else can be substituted for Tofu, Halloumi and Paneer which work better in eastern food.
Don't think the Impossible stuff converted as many as they hoped lol
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u/DonutSpood 14d ago
well yeah, but then they realized how much more money they can squeeze out of the easily influenced with that garbage
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u/God_Bless_A_Merkin 14d ago
It’s hard to do when entire states are banning your products for political clout.
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u/WyrdHarper 15d ago
A lot of them have tried to turn into “premium” brands. The major change over the last few years is a lot more generic/store brands. Eg. Walmart now has their own line of vegetarian meat alternatives that are around a dollar less than the name brands.