Plant-Based Mince Now 29% Cheaper Than Beef at Tesco as Meat Prices Climb

Impossible, at least to me, is functionally indistinguishable from a ground beef patty. Back when I was vegetarian and before I was vegan, I went to Burger King on lunch to try the Impossible Whopper. I wasn't fond of Burger King, but I was mostly curious enough to see what an Impossible Burger tasted like having had Beyond at home once (where Beyond is pretty easily distinguished from ground beef by its flavor).

Walked in, walked out, took a bite in my car. Straight-up almost went back in and asked for a new one before realizing it wouldn't do any ethical good and that I didn't have the time. This was even after seeing that it was in the Impossible-branded wrapper. I decided to go there another time to "try the real one", and it was the same. I was dumbfounded; it was straight-up just a Whopper – having admittedly not eaten a BK burger in a few years at that point. (They also put mayo on it by default without telling you, so good job, BK.)

The greatly increased sodium content is a concern for my household, though.

Totally. I’m hoping they can get it real close and less expense. Then start the swap out

Same. I tried a Burger King when they had a deal where you could get the regular Whopper and the Beyond (or whatever brand it was, of plant-based meat) Whopper for the price of one, so I figured, taste test. The regular Whopper is your typical trashy fast food burger that is on the better side of decent, without being good. The mayonnaise and ketchup are a bit strong, but between the lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles, it's a well balanced sandwich. I'd like the burger to be thicker, but this is what's keeping it from being a good burger. So then the Beyond one. It tastes burnt, like the most important flavour to emulate was the "char-broiled" feature. Beyond the burnt flavour, it just tastes... bland. They could have seasoned it better, maybe.

I want to believe in plant-based. Not because I want to be a vegan. But because IDGAF about whether it's animal-based or plant-based. I don't think most people should. I have a unique condition (bariatric surgery) where I actually need animal protein. So vegan stuff can't be my main thing, but I can have some of it. But for people who don't actually need animal protein? I wanna see that stuff succeed so much.

Edit: Someone actually beat me to it, and the plant-meat BK uses is Impossible, not Beyond. Still, I disagree with that person — there was a pretty big difference between the two. Maybe Impossible has gotten better over the years?

I don't really see the point in them though. Why would I buy plant meat to make a not chicken wrap when I could just make a mixed bean wrap.

When burger king launched their plant based whopper, it was legitimately better tasting than their normal beef whopper.

Yep

1. tell me it's not meat clearly
2. make it taste pretty good

If you do the above 2 things and its 29% cheaper than mince, you best believe I'll be eyeing up the plant stuff

Like so much else, it seems to be a useful innovation predicated on a certain degree of professionalized cultivation and expert engineering. I predict I'm going to enjoy the loss-leading rollout and hate the post-market-saturation enshittification.

Soybeans as a commodity can be cheap, but that doesnt mean that an end product made out of soybeans will also inherently be cheap.

The market for soybean based meat alternatives is not that huge, so one of the more expensive aspects of trying to have an end product in an actual brick and mortar store is going to be getting space on the shelf in the first place. Packaging design and maybe some marketing, not to mention creating the actual product itself. All that stuff is expensive even if its mostly soybeans that the end product is made from

Laundry detergent is like 95% water, but it costs far more than if it was actually 100% water

Same. I feel like vegans are being taken advantage of. Soy and oat and other grain based replacements for animal products should be dirt cheap. They're marketing to hipsters and pricing accordingly. So all that shit about the economy and whatnot? Marketing trash. Make that shit cost what it should and way more people would buy it. Especially with everything going up.

What am I paying for? Marketing? Corporate profits?

They want to make money by targeting the smaller market of people with more money. It's marketing strategy, usually tied to "wellness" - which is a super huge market (almost entirely grifters.)

This. I could go vegan today if the fake meat stuff was more affordable. Right now I'm maybe half of the way there.

Now in Belgium, a fake chicken meal with 2 fake chicken fillets is <4€

The cheapest chicken fillets at aldi are 6.50 € for 2.

Here real meat has been increasing for years while plant based stays the same. Ground pork is still cheaper though.

The actual chicken fillet is like 1.5x the protein still, but not too bad. My girlfriend is not veggie and I feel financially bad now also when I get meat for her, but she needs very calorie dense foods sometimes because she can't eat a ton.

You might be able to incorporate more lentils and beans. They're dirt-cheap and fill you up similar to meat.

I always get pre-cooked beans, and red lentils are my go-to for lentils, because they cook quickly and don't need pre-soaking for reducing their fartiness.

non-meat stuff to be cheaper

Beans and lentils are dirt cheap and a great source of protein and fiber.

If the meatless option is 29% cheaper, the meat option is .29/(1-.29) = 41% more expensive, not 29%. Meatballs in the article are .41/(1-.41) = 69% more expensive than plantballs, which is close to your target number.

I remember the days when a veggie cheeseburger was a grilled cheese sandwich. Progress.

Same with alcohol-free beer and other drinks. Somehow they always cost considerably more than regular ones.

Don't forget the cross subsidies from co-products.

If ground beef (aka beef mince in the UK where this story is running) is the cheapest trimmings that remain after all of the expensive cuts have been processed, it's entirely possible that the low price for this byproduct is partially subsidized by the high prices for the premium product (expensive steaks, moderate expense whole cuts). Plus things like hides for leather.

For now, the plant-based competition is aiming at the types of meat that are easier to mimic or replace with plant-based foods. And unfortunately, those happen to be the cheaper types of meat. If we get to the point where there is significant plant-based competition to filet mignon, that product will have a lot more room to work with in being price competitive.

Pricing inputs get complicated, and government subsidies are only a piece of the picture.

meat and dairy subsidies

That has been proven to be incorrect: https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/meat-subsidies

Removing the subsidies would rise the prices by cents.

Raw food - any food - is dirt cheap. Most of the costs is the chain of logistics (and that every middleman takes their cut).

A distinction without a difference. Let's subsidize legumes and plant-based products to the same level animal-based parts are subsidized and see which one is cheaper.

The CPI changes the basket of goods all the time, and I've long suspected the degradation in food quality keeps hitting a lower bar for food processing and quality, which then gets integrated as the permanent price floor as the money supply grows. Margins become too low on anything but shit tier food.

Beyond isn't cheap. It's super expensive. I don't really get the appeal, but I've never really eaten corpses so that's probably why.

its similar to the catfish organizations who demanded foreign catfish to be marketed as swai or basa because they couldnt compete.

I've never heard of it called mince in the US.

Extra form tofu.

taste may be great but for me it’s sometimes the “mouth feel” that gets me with tofu. wish i could fix that. (it’s a me thing)

Which is great if you live anywhere near a Costco.

Sadly my closest Costco is a two hour drive away. And that's not actually counting any city driving that I'd need to do.

Man I wanted so much to love tofu but it seems that it isn't it for me. They say that tofu is like a blank form that soaks up the flavor of whatever you through at it but for me every time I tried it seems that the flavors is not deep enough or it gets too salty and in any case it kind tastes like plain flour with salt and seasoning. Granted, I am not really good at cooking but solving cooking with throwing seasoning at it is right up my alley. In any case I always try tofu when I see it "in the wild" and always got the same experience. Granted again, never went to a place that is focused on tofu, but had tofu with miso soup for example and stuff like that.

I know it is a me thing, but the way I see online how awesome tofu is described I thought that I would just fucking love it. I still eat it though, but more like to bulk up something else and add a little nutritional variety, but I hoped it could be it's own thing for me.

On a Side not, the silken variety really impressed me, feels like good substitute for cream, mayo or cream cheese to mix with stuff like ground beef and have it less dry almost with a thick sauce.

I haven't successfully made tofu :(

Idk how but it gets a weird tangy taste when I make it

Some people pay extra to not torture animals.

Lentils, beans, tofu, chickpeas. Much healthier, cheaper.

This is correct, however:

You need to also take into account that plants are just the primary ingredients and it needs a lot of intermediary steps during manufacturing.

I say this not to say you're incorrect but just to be a more complete picture so it's unassailable

Just of the top of my head here are some possible ideas to explain why not:

• Meat subsidies
• Meat substitutes require more processing and additional ingredients
• Meat sells a lot more than meat substitutes hence the whole chain benefits more from economies of scale
• Animals raised for meat can extract nutrition from plants and parts of plants which humans cannot (for example cattle can actually break up the fiber in food and extract nutrition from it, which humans cannot), plus they can eat plants which are far more hardy than most plants grown for human consumption. Some will also eat other animals which humans do not, such as insects.

I doubt it's just one of those things that is responsible and suspect it's a mix of those and maybe more.

Meat and dairy are heavily subsidised

what are you on about? don't you know it's far cheaper to grow a bunch of plants and then feed it to an animal for a long period of time while that animal grows and then harvest that animal for a small portion of the calories it consumed?

If it is the same process I saw years ago they extract something from vegetables that is what gives blood its color and taste, and that is the the sauce that make it taste like meat, and that process, I guess, is expensive at least in part because plants have very little of this compound.

I can chime in here (I work in plant based meat). It should be but it's not. Why... Lots of reasons. But basicly it's split between animal based meat is artificially cheap and plant based meat costs a lot to make. A lot of the costs (for the good brands) are in the flavorings.

This image always upsets me. I really don't think Ronnie O'Sullivan deserves this treatment. At least not that I know of.

When vegans promote a whole food, plant based diet: "I will only switch when there are drop-in meat and dairy replacements"

Ok then I guess we'll develop drop-in meat replacements: "why emulate meat? So processed!"

It's amazing if you're into WFPB, it's one of the healthier diets out there. You're just not the target consumer of these meat replacements. But they're useful for some people to have a better choice. They're usually not unhealthier than the animal-based product they aim to replace (see meta analysis ).

Oh I know this one, it's pretty simple. Considering I at least try to give my meals some taste (by adding spices I feel like adding, theres no real skill or logic I use) I do realize that a lot of "western" people don't really know anything past salt and pepper, when it comes to meal preparation. At best maybe drown the food in some basic premade condiment like ketchup, mayo, etc.

So asking people to eat vegetables, just for them to turn around and say they taste bland and aren't worth it, and they don't know how to make it taste good or even try, is not going to get them to ditch meat.

Humans wanna eat stuff that satisfies more than just hunger now, you know that, unless they have absolutely no choice in what they eat. Nobody is gonna eat anything healthy when equally priced alternatives taste better and require less effort.

Most legumes have always been cheaper than meat

lol what you guys need is a decent government Anna voters who aren’t complete morons

Don't worry, all animal products will be going up in price a lot as a result of the oil and fertilizer crisis going on now. The real question is if the planting plans are getting shifted to food crops or if there will continue to be more feed crops, which will lead to famines in the poorer parts of the world thanks to how the markets work.

V2 was awful. And so salty it made my skin tingle.

V3 is like night and day.

MAGA importing beef… to the UK?

You mean donkeys?

You shouldn't be paying that much for Bolognese sauce, it is cheap to make and tastes better.

Bro how expensive are tomatoes in the UK for bolognese to be that much more expensive than the meat to put in it?

After making tofu, something about shredded tofu really saddens me.

Beyond Meat is at the point where carnivores won't notice unless you point it out to them.

Which is one of the reasons a lot of vegetarians I know don't like it, it tastes like they remember meat tasting and grosses them out.

Yeah, no, I refuse to eat anything that has "versions" and my diet is limiting consumption of anything that needs a formula to make. Those are not indicators of food fit for human consumption.

(Before someone calls me names, I'm on plant-based)

I've started making my own tofu "mince" by shredding a block of tofu into a big cast iron pan with oil and lots of seasonings. Get it real hot--you want that Maillard reaction to give it a chewy "crust."

It does not taste like meat, but imho it's better than anything I've found off the shelf.

Perhaps also Mycoprotein like what they use for Quorn products (though other ingredients around it might pose issues)? One study put it at a similar nickle content to egg whites (<6 μg/100 g) see table 4

I've read that Seitan might be better for low nickle because of the refinement compared to regular wheat products. I couldn't verify that for sure

Maybe non-animal whey and non-animal egg white products would be worth trying? They use precision fermentation to make them. I should not these are biologically identical so allergies to the animal based versions of those proteins will still likely apply here. There are more of those coming down the pipeline as well

EDIT: also quinoa too might be lower in nickle from what I'm reading?

In Tesco apparently.

it doesnt cost double, youre just being charged double. the prices only make sense due to the colossal subsidies from the animal agriculture lobbies

it most often isnt, and it IS weird. pretty simple tho, its just bc of subsidies to dairy and meat

Not sure what you mean by BM (I assume Beyond Meat?), but every single plant-based food comes out insanely far ahead from animal based foods

Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/html

If I source my beef or lamb from low-impact producers, could they have a lower footprint than plant-based alternatives? The evidence suggests, no: plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases than meat and dairy, regardless of how they are produced.

[…]

Plant-based protein sources – tofu, beans, peas and nuts – have the lowest carbon footprint. This is certainly true when you compare average emissions. But it’s still true when you compare the extremes: there’s not much overlap in emissions between the worst producers of plant proteins, and the best producers of meat and dairy. https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat

The process around meat is no less industrial either. Whole food plant-based diets come out ahead health wise of course, but the research comparing animal meats to beyond show beyond coming out ahead for health

In terms of environmental effects, processing is not a major factor at all. It's hardly a minor one either

For most foods — and particularly the largest emitters — most GHG emissions result from land use change (shown in green) and from processes at the farm stage (brown). Farm-stage emissions include processes such as the application of fertilizers — both organic (“manure management”) and synthetic; and enteric fermentation (the production of methane in the stomachs of cattle). Combined, land use and farm-stage emissions account for more than 80% of the footprint for most foods.

[...]

Not just transport, but all processes in the supply chain after the food left the farm – processing, transport, retail and packaging – mostly account for a small share of emissions.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

ew? its just plants prepared in familiar form factors and flavor profiles. let people enjoy plants the way they want.

I will agree that aiming for a meat substitute is meh, but I will argue that it is a good stepping stone and also texture variety is nice. not that most plant based meat have good texture tho lol