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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

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kyrra

> ... can be both cheaper ...

Impossible Burger patties are actually more expensive. For example, Burger King:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meatless-fast-food-burgers...

> The meatless burger is $5.99, around a dollar more than the regular Whopper with meat.

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Unless I missed it in TFA, it doesn't say that the raw materials (the meat) are more expensive but rather that the product is more expensive. If a fast food chain can charge more for cheaper materials, that's a double win for them.

I imagine that that difference is going mostly to recoup R&D costs at e.g. Impossible right now, who is making the patties.

for now I expect you're correct. But in the long run it should ideally have really nice margins. Once Beyond and Impossible get a version that is as close as it needs to be, they can start focusing on supply chain and stuff like that.

Agree w/ you & GP, and I suspect that the parent of my reply is actually correct. I just didn't think the linked article supported the claim.

Could also be due to scaling costs and farming subsidies on meat vs the plants used in Impossible Burgers.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US heavily subsidize meat costs?

yes. and corn and soy production is also subsidized which is fed to livestock.

For now. But as more people start selecting the plant based substitute, the cost will come down because of volume.

I would assume the margins are really high. It's a premium product right now because they're still building out a market and because there was a big up-front research investment, but the fundamental sustainability of the raw materials and process must be miles better than raising cattle.

On the other hand, Swedish fast food chain Max has a pretty good "plant beef" burger made of wheat and soy protein, and it costs the same as the meat version.

I guess with Beyond and Impossible you pay a hefty price for their marketing. Or for irrelevant features: Didn't one of them put a lot of research into making a "bleeding" plant burger? Bleeding may be relevant in some settings, but not at Burger King where you always get your burger well done (AFAIK).

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