I don’t eat bacon much anyway so I definitely wouldn’t eat this on a consistent basis due to all the sodium but I’d try it for the novelty.
> consumers will likely be willing to give it a shot—especially knowing that it’s easier on animals and on the planet.
The ultra-health-conscious will still probably avoid it. Oreos are also vegan and not very healthy.
Presumably that was a typo and you meant non vegetarians/vegans?
[0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/funga [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fungus#Declension
Basically - outside of the cost of the land, pork is really cheap to raise, even for small farmers. As low as $0.64/lb for commercial production, and around $2.50/lb for small farmers and families.
Current mushroom production methods are FAR more expensive (just the spore cost can be $0.50 to $1.00 per lb).
This might scale to make it cheaper, but I'd be pretty surprised. Mushrooms require much more intensive care and handling.
https://myforestfoods.com/myblog
They rebranded from Atlast Food Inc in that blog section. They also mention going after the "alt-meat market".
Nothing wrong with more choices. However, nothing will ever really replace bacon.
Begs another question of how well a food start up does vs tech ones.
It's mostly speculation, imho, as people are willing to spend more on these products. Some of these things are just as bad, if not worse, than cheap real meat. Back in the before going full veggies, I've tasted some horrible things that should be illegal. I am baffled people are willing to eat factory chicken, pork, etc. Shit is disgusting even if you don't care about the horrible lives of all the animals
If the product is not meat, shouldn't be tagged as meat.
Just the spore costs to produce a lb of mushrooms can rival the total cost to raise a lb of pork (commercial pork can be as cheap as $64/CWT carcass weight - so $0.64/lb. Mushroom spore can be as high as $1.00 in spore costs to generate 1lb of mushroom). Processing the meat will raise costs, but it's hardly like mushrooms have low care/processing costs (If you don't know, they often require clean room levels of care to ensure proper spores without contamination).
There's a reason white mushrooms (unsliced) goes for $4.49/lb at my local Kroger, and the boneless pork goes for $1.99/lb.
I don't see this ever being cheaper.
I'm not at all convinced a pound of mushrooms is worth that much more than pork. Are you sure it's not the meat industry subsidies that are keeping the price down?
The problem mushrooms have is scale, much like spices. We can grow 20K acres of mechanized corn, but mushrooms are a little less mechanized. So its to be expected for mushrooms to cost as much as basil or cilantro per pound.
https://peterattiamd.com/how-did-we-come-to-believe-saturate...
But that link doesn't seem to contain any information.
The worst case scenario would be "foods" that are both salty and high carb, which is mostly junk food and fast food.
They’re not harming anyone by existing so I frankly don’t see why this complaint comes up in every thread on the internet. Just don’t eat it if you don’t want it, meat isn’t going away.
I do also care about the animals and the environmental impact and it’s just extremely naive to think that a large part of humanity would switch from meat-based diets to tofu and steamed veggies. People are lazy and like tasty easy things.
I wonder to what extent the customer base of these products is mostly curious people who are just dipping their toes in, not quite ready to take the plunge into veganism/vegetarianism. Or well-intentioned parents/friends who want to include vegans in things like cookouts?
I dunno. I'll observe that people who've successfully been vegan for a long time (the kind of recurring customers you'd presumably want) have been following their dietary restrictions that whole time, I guess they don't have an overwhelming hankering for bacon or whatever. But then I guess they are hard to address, if they are already happy!
Most vegetarians/vegans don't try and mimic food like this. Just want you to target your statement to the right people --> companies trying to make money on niche/high margin items.
With the growth of veganism in the west, it's not surprising that we will see more companies targeting them with novel food products.
It doesn't seem like there's any more conspiracy when it comes to alt-meat products than what underlies all of the products in the supermarket, especially all of the packaged goods.
We have completely eliminated ground beef from our diet and choose Beyond Beef instead as it tastes better. I have tried lots of bacon alternatives and most of them are disgusting.