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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

60% seems like a lot, but it actually isn't: there are a lot of consumers (like myself) who would be more than happy to eat nothing but plant-based burgers, now that they're within spitting distance of meat in terms of taste and feel.

I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian, but the only times I really eat hamburger anymore are when I need a convenient meal while traveling and a plant-based alternative is not available.

Steak and other "whole" cuts are harder, obviously. But 40-45% of beef consumed in the US is ground beef[1], so cutting that by even half would get us half way there. And that seems entirely possible, even conservative, without coercion based on current consumer trends.

[1]: https://beef2live.com/story-ground-beef-united-states-128-10...

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> Steak and other "whole" cuts are harder, obviously. But 40-45% of beef consumed in the US is ground beef[1], so cutting that by even half would get us half way there.

Frustratingly it wouldn't, because the ground beef being consumed is largely an afterproduct of cows raised for those larger cuts. Burgers are cheap not because beef is cheap (it's not) but because they're being subsidized by brisket roasts and tenderloins cut from the same animal (there's surely some dairy cows in the mix too, but I'm led to believe that most older dairy animals get slaughtered for non-grocery products like animal feed).

We need to reduce steak/bbq consumption primarily, doing so will make burgers more expensive and reduce their consumption as a side effect.

Sure, but don't forget you can't have steak and other "whole" cuts without also creating an entire cow. There's always going to be random bits of it that are best suited to be hamburger. We can't really just stop eating hamburger and keep eating steak.

I do think that if McDonalds ends up selling a beef alternative burger at or below the cost of hamburger it'll be a huge shift. Their beef isn't great to begin with so the fake stuff might even be an improvement.

>Their beef isn't great to begin with so the fake stuff might even be an improvement.

It's a big improvement (the UK recipe anyway). I love beef but get the McPlant any time I get a McDonalds burger, it's a lot nicer than their beef patties. I wish it came with the option for real cheese, although the vegan cheese they serve it with isn't bad. They just need to lower the price.

The McPlant sold in the UK is fantastic:

https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/vegan-mcplant.htm...

It uses a Beyond Meat patty, and a bespoke non-dairy cheese slice.

Unlike the trial in the US, this product is available in every UK store and is 100% Vegan.

The UK has long had a significant Vegetarian market, and the Vegan market has grown significantly. This isn't even the first Vegan product McDonald's UK has introduced.

Can't wait for it to hit the US.

> Can't wait for it to hit the US.

The McPlant has already been discontinued:

https://www.foodbeverageinsider.com/formulation/mcdonalds-dr... (link credit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32387526)

Wow what the hell. I guess we're just not ready for that.

> 60% seems like a lot, but it actually isn't: there are a lot of consumers (like myself) who would be more than happy to eat nothing but plant-based burgers, now that they're within spitting distance of meat in terms of taste and feel.

Quantify "a lot."

> I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian...

Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

> Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

> Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

It might be an ideology like "I care a lot about climate change," but I think it's unusual for people to make food choices ideologically like that; especially independently, outside of something like a religious group.

I think that puts a limit on the adoption of these substitutes. The vegetarians, vegans, and some other ideologicals will quickly jump on board. After that it will get a lot harder to sell these things.

> No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

Where I am, they're roughly the same price as real meat, easier to keep frozen, and I don't appreciably notice the difference (they're definitely not meat, but they're much better than the previous generation of meat alternatives).

Separately, a lot of my friends are vegetarian or vegan, which makes them convenient when I'm having company. But I'm perfectly content with them myself, as someone who loves animal products otherwise.

>> Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

>No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

I'm not the person you're replying to but I don't see how that follows - wouldn't you try something new on a menu and then keep ordering it if you liked it? To refuse to try something because it doesn't contain meat seems, to use your words, ideologically motivated.

Also let's get real here - we're talking about burger patties, the majority of which will be served by fast food joints like Burger King and McDonalds. Thin, made out of flavourless meat and cooked until they're choking hazard dry.

Idealogical motivation is such a deceptive phrase. We all have motivations. Motivations form a framework that we make decisions from. We like tastes, textures, new experiences (or not), etc, depending on who we are as a person.

Calling eating a plant meat "idealogical" like it's a bad thing is just pure deceptive rhetoric.

Right now beef is cheaper and better tasting. But vegan meat is tech. It's improving and getting cheaper. 3-5 years down the road it might be the more affordable option. Imagine burger chains offering you the same two burgers. You can't taste the difference but one is 50c cheaper and healthier.

How many people would choose the beef?

That's where the chasm will be crossed. Farming can't scale further but vegan beef is tech. There's a lot of efficiency that can be added to the process to reduce costs and improve taste/texture.

> But vegan meat is tech. 3-5 years down the road it might be the more affordable option.

Just like margarine.

> Imagine burger chains offering you the same two burgers. You can't taste the difference but one is 50c cheaper and healthier.

Key word: imagine, as in fantasy.

Honestly, I don't really see that happening, except at the very low end (e.g. swapping out a crap-quality McDonald's beef patty with some plant thing to save a nickle, but I'm not sure if even that would make any sense. IIRC, most of McDonald's beef comes from used-up diary cows (e.g. waste from other processes).

True, no one can predict the future.

So far the price did go down and quality did improve but obviously it might hit a wall. I do feel that these are the type of processes that can be made more efficient at scale but that's a feeling from an external observer. Not an expert in the field.

OTOH the quality of meat is deteriorating due to industrial farming. Antibiotics, bad feed, etc. The quality vs. price problem goes both ways.

I'm sure most people would happily eat a McVeggie patty if it was cheaper than beef and tasted the same.

I wouldn't make that assumption. I wouldn't order that. I would always pay more for the beef. I'm just not going to eat that other stuff.

And that's fine, the point isn't to make everyone go meatless. People with strong preferences are always going to exist. The point is to reduce meat consumption overall in absolute terms.

I just wonder if the market for meat substitutes is already about as big as it ever will be without an ecological disaster or government coercion to increase demand.

Probably not. Beyond and Impossible are considerably better than previous products and there are still many people that aren't aware of that. They are still scaling up because of high demand. As they open bigger factories they'll get cheaper than meat which will drive even more demand.

I think we should work against this point. Eating meat is a fundamental part of the human experience. We're losing our agricultural genomes that can never be replaced. We need to encourage people to eat a broader variety of meats from smaller producers, not eliminate meat consumption.

Agreed, but most people going through a drive-thru are not there to order something healthy.

Actually not even close. The proteins are completely different and one has a ton of carbs. Beyond burger is struggling pretty hard right now.

Wat? Beyond Meat's revenue grew 36% and 14% in 2020, and 2021 respectively, they have a 25% gross profit margin. They're doing just fine.

You need to look at more recent data, it's looking really rough.

Oh I am not debating wether or not it is healthier. I am talking about Fast Food.

>>Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.<<

I'm not a conservative on most issues, but youthful (18-39) conservatives might be more ecologically bent than you would expect, so I'm not sure which ideology you were referring to. The "let it all burn" and "toss it into the ocean" attitude is a dinosaur and people are (finally) seeing the writing on the wall. The Boomers are retiring and starting to die off. Gen X and the generations after are starting to make decisions, and they've always been more ecologically sound on both sides of the isle.

https://www.yccdaction.org/

https://www.climatesolution.eco/the-american-climate-contrac...

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916238283/light-years-ahead-o...

EDIT: formatting

> ...so I'm not sure which ideology you were referring to.

Any ideology that's mainly about something other than food (e.g. choosing a vegan diet out of concern for animal welfare).

You're not going to get anywhere close to 60% adoption of fake-meat without coercion or some unrealistic level of popular ideological commitment.

OK, the animal welfare angle makes more sense to me than the environmental concern. I apologize if I spoke out of turn if I misunderstood. So many people are bringing politics into conversations, which it turns out I may have done, inadvertently =)

Though, honestly, I think they have a better chance at moving the needle with alternative meets like rabbits or even grasshoppers (eventually). Those veggie burgers are pretty bad for you, nutritionally.

You have to remember that you don't actually have to have 60% of people quit meat cold turkey to reach that number, you just have to get ~6/10 meals averaged over everyone meals that would have had meat to not be either by switching to something naturally meatless or using a subsitute. You can drastically reduce meat consumption across a population without anyone being vegetarian or vegan.

> ideological motivation

Maybe it's possible you don't literally mean "ideology" but the reasons people choose to consume less meat are typically epistemic:

* Because it reduces their carbon footprint and is better for the environment.

* Because, for them, cutting out meat improves their health. Usually related to cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease, fiber, and sometimes osteoporosis.

* Because veggies and meat substitutes take longer to spoil.

* Because veggies and grains are less expensive.

* Because cutting out meat is associated with long term successful weight loss.

The only ideological reason to switch is animal suffering.

There are other ideological reasons, such as inefficiencies of meat production through grain, water shortage issues, meat factory working conditions, boycotting the importing of low quality foreign meat, possibly others.

I don't know what you want quantified, since it's not a quantitative claim: it's a perceptual claim about how 60% of anything seems like a big number when it can actually be explained by relatively small changes in consumer behavior.

> Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

No, not really. I like animal products a lot. I think the closest ideological interest I have here is broad environmentalism. My understanding is that that's a common interest, to say the least, and that I am not particularly stringent or earnest when it comes to it (at least in terms of my individual choices).

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