[lampe3]

Can we add an "in the US" at the end?

Since for EU countries this is not true.

I'm living in sweden now and lived in germany and poland.

Plant-based meat products are growing in numbers and the price of meat is going so high that its cheaper to buy the plant-based one.

In Germany one producer of meat sausages want to turn 100% plant based[1].

I will not go into the whats better and not for you. Since this highly depends on not just one food category. You can eat "Vegan" and still eat unhealthy and you can eat meat and be healthy. The body is to complex on just saying is something is healthy or unhealthy on one factor.

[1] https://www.ruegenwalder.de/vegetarische-und-vegane-produkte

[rob74]

I'm from Germany, and I can confirm that the number of vegan alternatives to any imaginable animal product have increased sharply both in quantity and quality over the last years, to the point that you can get good vegan alternatives at discount supermarkets now.

Even in the US, I wonder if what Bloomberg is calling a "flop" is a real flop or just some companies falling short of their over-ambitious forecasts (or the even more ambitious goals of their investors/stockholders)? But I'm not really qualified to talk about the situation in US supermarkets...

[myspy]

Aldi has a great chicken replacement and the meatballs packaged with a pack of ketchup are excellent. I would wish for them to be available in a larger version without the ketchup.

Another problem I have with all of this is the plastic packaging for everything. Getting something like that at a veggie butcher would be cool.

[whazor]

In a podcast I heard that The Vegetarian Butcher initially had experimental biological degradable packaging, but after buying hundreds of thousands they all went bad, and had to be thrown out. Now they use plastic packaging and they only try to solve one problem at a time.

[stavros]

This sounds weird to me, it was a surprise to them that biodegradable packaging biodegraded?

[wongarsu]

The general assumption is that biodegradable materials biodegrade under conditions different from regular use and storage, or over long timeframes. The timber in your house is biodegradable, but if you keep it dry it will last a century or so. Packaging that biodegrades in regular storage isn't nessesarily bad, but surprising

[stavros]

Ah, it was a storage issue? That's interesting, thank you.

[cduzz]

Didn't our ancestors just use paper for such things? Or cloth?

I guess lots of them died of dentistry before getting to oregon, but still.

[enobrev]

Killer cavities or misspelling of "dysentery"?

[dfxm12]

Knowing that the dentists of the early-mid 19th century were mostly trained as barbers, probably both.

[AstralStorm]

Waxed paper, usually. It is not nearly close to biodegradable. It requires specific yeasts yo be present in the soil or the paper will remain for a very long time. Also waxed fabrics and glass or ceramic jars.

[openplatypus]

Dysentery?

[pfdietz]

I prefer polypropylene packaging to cardboard coated in PFAs. The latter is ostensibly "compostable", as long as you're ok with compost laced with forever chemicals.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis https://www.theherbivorousbutcher.com/

[giantg2]

"Getting something like that at a veggie butcher would be cool."

Wouldn't it just be shipped in plastic and repacked in plastic?

[myspy]

They could ship a lot of them in less plastic to a vendor where you could get them in a paper bag.

[giantg2]

How does that work if they use fake blood?

[Insanity]

In the EU the quality is good of the plant-based meats. In the US/Canada is it quite bad though.

Maybe it is the same situation for regular meat, can’t comment on that. But finding actually good tasting and healthy meat replacement here in Canada is a challenge.

[FpUser]

>"finding actually good tasting and healthy meat replacement here in Canada is a challenge"

I can confirm. Few things I tried - I did not like it at all. Also I do not know about now but back way before COVID when I actually tried this fake meat the cost was outrageous. Throwing some decent fresh meat into a grinder and turning it into burger tastes way better and was way cheaper.

[brodouevencode]

Beef prices have fallen in the US over the past year (quite unlike all other meat) because farmers increased production. That certainly contributes to the "flop", but anecdotally no one I know (in the US) likes or even seeks out the fake meat. It's just not accepted here as far as I can tell (and I work in the restaurant/hospitality industry).

[gonehome]

Depends where you live, in SF, LA, Vegas, Austin, and Miami I have impossible burgers all of them time - even Mighty Taco in Buffalo has impossible meat and Buffalo is last to get anything (they “allowed” Uber ten years after everyone else).

The high quality fake meat is great - really satisfies the want for a burger or hot dog since becoming vegetarian and makes a lot of dishes where something like ground beef is usually called for very similar to what I used to have.

[brodouevencode]

Of course there are markets where it has been more readily adopted than others, but even in those markets it's not performing the same as it has in Europe or Asia.

[gonehome]

Yeah, I was just sharing my own anecdote - I know lots of people that eat it and I’ve personally had it in lots of cities when traveling.

[chengiz]

Re your second paragraph, you are exactly right. The title is clickbaity, to the point of using a disparaging term (fake) instead of a generally accepted one (lab grown). The article is meant to be shared by meat lovers, who were never the market. Entrepreneurs and early adopters did proselytize it - but that happens in every industry. Lab grown meat is everywhere in the US and people buy and eat it. It's just another choice that consumers have now. It is not a flop.

[AzzieElbab]

Do you think this trend will continue if the price of meat falls?

[tduberne]

I wanted to say the same thing. Here i Germany the choice of vegan sausage and cold cuts is huge, even in small grocery shops. I know lot of people who eat meat regularly _and_ buy the vegan alternatives on a regular basis.

[hef19898]

Which totally puzzles me. Nothing wrong with a vegetarian diet, but would I prefer processed food, vegan or otherwise, over unprocessed one?

[audunw]

I think the whole "processed" vs "unprocessed" food label is too imprecise to say anything about whether it's healthy or not. I don't think there's anything that implies that processed foods have to be unhealthy. It's just that most processed food tend to be less healthy.

[thiht]

> I don't think there's anything that implies that processed foods have to be unhealthy

Honestly it's just a good rule of thumb to use. Even if it's not 100% true, you're better off acting like it's 100% true in the end.

[stuaxo]

People like variety. Also, people may still like eating meat, but want to eat less of it - not for health reasons, but for the environment and to kill less animals.

[tpush]

Meat sausages and cold cuts are processed as well. And are likely made with carcinogenic preservatives!

Edit: cancerous -> carcinogenic

[hinoki]

A nit: The nitrates/nitrites/celery powder in bacon etc. is carcinogenic, the bacon doesn’t have cancer.

[tpush]

Thanks for the correction!

[blowski]

Normally, but not always. I can get freshly produced sausages from my local butcher.

[zidad]

"fresh" sausages most likely contains some of those preservatives too, as they prevent worse things like botulism. Unless maybe they're made the same day as you consume them?

[hef19898]

According to our local, nitrate free, butcher freshly slaughtered meat contains enoigh natural nitrate-alternatives to not require additional nitrate if ham, sausages and so on are prepared soon enough.

[blowski]

"Fresh" as in made on the day they're sold from the same meat that's sold there.

[brodouevencode]

When butchered a clean facility foods without nitrates will last longer than a day.

[pilotneko]

Making a sausage is a form of processing. Sausage is a processed food, no matter what. The distinction is whether or not it is highly processed (i.e., amount of additives).

[blowski]

By that logic, splitting a peapod with my hands is processing, and thus all food is processed.

[Felmo]

Vegan chicken nuggets are similar easy food than processing vegetables yourself.

For me, I love meat, makes it easier to buy the 'better' processed food having this option.

If your supermarket doesn't have a vegi option than I can't buy it, try it etc.

[unity1001]

> but would I prefer processed foo

When the processed food tastes as good and as fresh as the one you cook in your house - why not. In the case of European plant-based meat, this is the case.

[abcc8]

I would prefer unprocessed food as well but it sounds like cost is a major driver in this case.

[LBJsPNS]

Do you cook your food?

Congratulations, it's processed. Worrying about something as nonspecific as "processing" is much the same as worrying that it's made up of chemicals.

[brnt]

Sausages always seemed such obvious candidates. Many nondry sausages are already often a majority nonmeat. They get their flavor already from plant derived flavorants. Yet mostly fake meat products are burger and chicken nugget replacements.

I've got to say, the fake chicken schnitzels are the first one that I really can't distinguish from the real chicken schnitzel. (Before the purists pour in, yes, compared to supermarket chicken schnitzel, which moreover isn't a real schnitzel anyway.)

[trompetenaccoun]

What brand do you mean? I've never tried a vegan schnitzel I think but all the nuggets and such I tried didn't taste good to me. And yeah, you're absolutely right that it makes sense to start with sausages/cold cuts because they're easier to imitate. Depending on where you live, there is a lot of choice now and they've gotten really good. I also had vegan cheese the other day that I'd assumed was real cheese until I found out.

The next step will be cultured meat (precision fermentation and similar methods). If you're in Singapore or Israel you can already try it in restaurants.

[brnt]

eg https://www.jumbo.com/producten/jumbo-lekker-veggie-krokante...

[jnsaff2]

In soviet times they had this saying: "the pieces of lard visible in your sausage are the only part which you can rely on to be meat."

[pilotneko]

In the US, both Beyond and Impossible have very good bratwurst-style sausages. Like you said, sausage is apparently very forgiving when it comes to replacing the meat.

[manojlds]

Here in the UK, there's a lot of vegan sausages. The others like vegan / vegetarian burgers and such are relatively less common.

[petepete]

Vegan Richmond are among the best, better than their (somewhat) meaty alternatives in my opinion.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Richmond are amazing.

Lidl also have a range of various vegan options including pizza (surprisingly good), lasagne, and burgers.

Quorn has been ubiquitous in stores for decades now. I've never been a fan, but it will do at a push.

The problem elsewhere is insane pricing. I've had a lot of "I'm not paying that!" experiences looking at the veg/vegan options in supermarkets. The prices are completely out of reach for most shoppers.

If there's been a "flop", that will have been a big factor.

[stuaxo]

Yup, things where the texture is very removed from the original food definitely make sense.

[dfxm12]

I live in the US and I know it's a big country, so I can only speak for my little slice of the country, but we've always had vegetarian & vegan options at our restaurants, and only recently has plant based meat entered into the picture. Lots of food brought to the US from other places, like Mexico, China, India, Italy, etc. is already vegetarian or vegan, so we don't need to have fake sausage on a restaurant menu when we can have huitlacoche quesadillas, sesame noodles, chana masala, tomato pie, or vegetarian variations of other dishes.

[orf]

Mostly the same for Europe. Varies by country but lots of dishes don’t rely on meat.

But you’re missing the point. The bulk of American sausages sold are fake as hell. If I’m eating fake meat, why not actually eat fake meat

[dfxm12]

But you’re missing the point. The bulk of American sausages sold are fake as hell. If I’m eating fake meat, why not actually eat fake meat

No one is making this point, lol. If you want to try to bash America for no reason in particular, at least wait for it to be on topic.

[orf]

> so we don't need to have fake sausage on a restaurant menu

The point is you already do have “fake sausage on the restaurant menu”.

[LBJsPNS]

"The bulk of American sausages sold are fake as hell"

What in the world are you talking about?

[orf]

I’m talking about how the bulk of American sausages would be classed as “fake as hell”? It’s in the comment you read, replied to and quoted.

[LBJsPNS]

Always is a relative term. I can assure you that as recently as the 1990s there were large swaths of the U.S. where if you didn't consume meat at each meal you would essentially be branded a communist.

[unity1001]

I second this. Where I am in Europe, plant based 'meat products' are growing in number and variety, and their prices are falling. Their taste is as good as or better than meat, and actually they constitute pretty well fleshed out, tasty dishes in themselves. Especially when old housewives start buying a product, you know that it has succeeded in the taste department.

This brand seems to be the one that is pretty successful where Im at (a Mediterranean country), and you know that Mediterranean cuisine is quite tasty and housewives are very picky. This brand is able to replicate Mediterranean taste in all its meat products.

https://heurafoods.com/

These two ones are its particular hits:

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/burgers-epices

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/bocados-mediterraneos

[Semaphor]

Your link doesn't support your statement. Where does it say they want to turn 100% plant based?

[jansan]

I have not found any news that would support that claim. They sold more vegan products in 2021 than meat products, but nowhere can I find anything that they aim at selling only vegan products.

[onli]

Source is https://app.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/mittelstand/ruegenw..., a "we would if consumers choose that route".

[Semaphor]

> Letztlich wird das der Verbraucher entscheiden. Vorstellen können wir uns alles.

which is far better translated to

> In the end, the consumer will decide. We can imagine [doing] anything.

Which is extremely noncommittal (and also the only thing that makes sense)

[onli]

No, this was extreme. When that interview came out it was completely astonishing to read that this option is in play at all for such a traditional meat processor. Other companies would have talked about their tradition and old strengths they should not give up, and said something like "we expect there to always be a market for our high quality meat products". But he opted for a different route.

> (and also the only thing that makes sense)

Companies die all the time because they refuse to adapt to a changing market, especially private german companies. Adapting to the market might be "the only thing that makes sense", but that is in no way the default position. Think about how much force was necessary to get german car companies to even just make alibi electric cars, even though it was completely obvious that not investigating that path would lead to their destruction in the next decade.

[Semaphor]

> When that interview came out it was completely astonishing to read that this option is in play at all for such a traditional meat processor.

The meat producer who had already been dominating the vegan refrigerators… It’s not as if their prediction of 40% for the next year came out of nowhere.

[auggierose]

This is a gross misrepresentation. Ruegenwalder is not turning 100% plant based, in terms of sold products I would be surprised if they turned > 5% plant based, but I don't know the numbers there.

[yreg]

It seems that they don't plan to "turn 100% plant based", but rather built a new factory that is 100% plant based.

The ≤5% estimate is just as inaccurate though.

> “Over the full year [2021], we sold for the first time more of our vegan and vegetarian products than of the classic meat products. Last year, the ratio had been fifty-fifty,” the spokesperson added, without giving detailed figures.

https://www.just-food.com/news/germanys-rugenwalder-muhle-ey...

[auggierose]

> The ≤5% estimate is just as inaccurate though.

Well, render me extremely surprised! I am wondering if that is because the population as a whole goes vegan/vegetarian (which I doubt), or if they are one of the few producers offering a wide range for vegetarians, and so they get all the vegetarians as customers.

[PurpleRamen]

> I am wondering if that is because the population as a whole goes vegan/vegetarian (which I doubt),

At the moment, the number seems to be more around 10%.

> or if they are one of the few producers offering a wide range for vegetarians, and so they get all the vegetarians as customers.

Yes, mainly this. They have a big focus on vegi-products, were building the market in the past, but were also cannibalizing other producers and products. But still, the market grows, people are more often buying replacements, going half-vegetarian and such. But we have to see whether this sticks. The market is still very dynamic, with new products coming every some months and old products changing from time to time. At the moment there is big hype with many companies going into the market, but not all of them are that good.

[moby_click]

The marketing director that started the meatless program said "The [meat] sausage will become the cigarette of the future". Sales were stagnating or declining. Sales in the meatless segment were low but increasing steadily and they entered that segment, convinced, that they could produce alternatives with broader appeal. For one year, they spent all their advertisment budget on the new meatless line.

Initially the target group was "reducers". The first products included a lot of egg protein, so vegans were not targeted at all. Somewhat surprisingly, they decided to launch the new line under their well-known and established brand. That probably prevented some marketing claims that may have been off-puting to their existing customers.

[kuschku]

> I am wondering if that is because the population as a whole goes vegan/vegetarian (which I doubt)

The truth is actually somewhat close to that – not everyone goes vegetarian, but the vast majority of young adults are replacing some (not all) of the meat in their diet with replacement products.

Rügenwalder isn't the only company seeing such growth, though. Nestlé (Garden Gourmet) and Iglo are seeing similar growth.

[InCityDreams]

>but I don't know the numbers there

When you do know [the numbers]...please let us know. Perhaps before posting?

[auggierose]

Luckily, others picked up from where I dropped the ball, and provided useful information. Too bad you are not one of them.

[kris_wayton]

The numbers I can find do suggest high percentage growth in Europe, but growth on numbers that are small compared to the US. Something like ~$7B in sales in plant based meat in the US, and ~$3B in sales for Europe. So maybe a bit early to judge? Meaning, maybe there's a similar plateau for EU, but it hasn't gotten there yet?

[pastage]

Those numbers tracks with GDP per capita of the US and EU. I'm guessing it is going to be different if you look at certain segments of the market. Also in this case you probably need to look at tonnage per capita. You might also be right that it is too early to say, comments here can be up to a year ahead of statistics.

[pclmulqdq]

You should look at gdp, not per-capital gdp, for a comparison of markets. Europe and the US aren't far apart. I'm assuming the slower uptake in Europe is because of stricter food labeling laws and the fact that most of these companies are US-centric.

[pastage]

There is no lack of European veggie food companies, I do not see labeling as a problem, do you know of some actual problems with that? I do think the variance between markets is just too high for me as an European to supply anecdotal evidence.

[robjan]

Same in Hong Kong. Recently Impossible, Beyond and (our local equivalent) OmniFoods have been introduced to almost all restaurant menus. It's died down a bit, but still quite popular. And this is the place with the highest meat consumption per capita in the world.

[vgatherps]

I live in Hong Kong and can only remember one time I saw a fake meat on a restaurant menu, and it was at an extremely western health-focused restaurant of a large gym chain (nood food). It's definitely not "almost all" restaurant menus.

[robjan]

I think it depends on the restaurant, I'm definitely not the kind of person who goes to nood food, Mana or the other upper-middle class restaurants where plant based is in their branding.

We have restaurants which are quick, cheap eats (Cha Chaan Tengs and other fast food) and restaurants where you can sit down an talk for a bit. The latter is what I am referring to. Saying that, even CCT chains like Cafe de Coral and MX are starting to introduce these options and these lower end restaurants are the companies that OmniFoods have been targeting with their partnerships. They are also on the permanent menus of McCafe and KFC these days.

I've also noticed that Park n Shop and Wellcome now have dedicated plant based option freezers.

[bwv848]

Interesting! Can you order faux meat for claypot rice?

[taylorius]

It's a bit of a flop in the UK too tbh. It's been pushed fairly hard, but not that much uptake.

[Oxidation]

I've avoided it because of the push. A tech-adjacent company that's pushing a "disruption" that hard makes me very suspicious.

In principle I'm all for it ethically, and it's probably no "worse" then any other ready meal/processed food à la Unilever that I sometimes eat. But I'd rather just eat tofu (which I do very much like anyway) than whatever some "founder" is pushing on me so he can get another funding round in.

[OJFord]

It's a flop for me because of the 'plant-based' marketing. I make my own burgers with jackfruit or chickpeas and things quite often, but I call them what they are, not 'plant-based', which is about as appetising to me as 'meat-based'. (What's the meat?! Surprise mix of whatever was going cheapest plus horse?).

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

The whole thing is reminiscent of Simpsons marketing joke:

"It has over 60 ingredients!"

[onion2k]

You must live in a very different part of the UK to me then. Every supermarket has extensive plant-based options, Greggs has been expanding their vegan range, McDonalds has the McPlant on the menu permanently now..

[AstralStorm]

The plant burger is not a fake meat patty, it is a vegetable patty. Very different and also tastier than their meat alleged burgers.

[Nursie]

https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/food/meat/meat-substitu...

The size of the meat-substitute market in the UK appears to have grown steadily to about 1.5 billion quid.

With the UK beef products market hitting around 4.4 billion quid, I'd say that's pretty sizeable.

[nxpnsv]

Similar in Austria, veg products are increasing in quality and availability. There is even a 100% vegan burger king...

[AstralStorm]

It actually is not, they use standard mayo.

[scythe]

>and the price of meat is going so high

Sounds like a contributing factor. But this isn't a normal situation; there's a war going on, and before that there was a huge disruption to global trade due to COVID-19. These aren't the sort of conditions that anyone wants to see continue indefinitely.

"Plant-based meat" already existed before 2015. Then Impossible Burger came up with synthetic heme and thought it would be a game-changer. Long story short, it raised a few eyebrows, but it didn't produce the desired uptake.

I might be missing something, but aside from that, I don't know what the core innovation is supposed to be in the recent products, aside from a big PR push and an economic crisis.

[drakonka]

I'm also in Sweden and agree. There are so many great plant-based alternatives everywhere now, and I'm constantly seeing new products and varieties on the shelves. I've found excellent alternatives for everything except whole eggs.

[the_mitsuhiko]

There is definitely more and more meat alternatives in the stores now. One other curious development are these blended meats like 50% meat, 50% mushrooms or 50% meat and 50% plant.

[scythe]

Taco Bell has been selling this as "seasoned beef" for quite a while now.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

McDonald's has been selling it as "McNuggets" for ages.

The nugget is 100% chicken breast - but that's only ~55% of what you're eating - and only about ~23% of the calories.

[bawolff]

In the us, "plant based meat" refers to a specific type of fake meat product (impossible burger and friends), not all meat substitutes.

[Maken]

I am not so sure about that. In Spain we have also seen a remarkable increase of vegan offerings, with even the smaller supermarkets having a good selection of vegan food and vegan precooked dishes. However, I have barely seen anybody ever buying those. So, I can't tell if that increment in supply is a response to an increment in demand by the consumers, or those companies are burning money fast hoping for a market to appear.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

Yep, i've almost completely stopped eating meat because the vegan and vegetarian replacements are so good.

[InCityDreams]

*upvotes in European * Fucking hell, i was eating vegan sausages 30 years in the uk...