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Comment by lawlorino | Hacker News Reader

Similar story here in Finland, real meat is just so much cheaper than the fake veggie stuff. My theory was this was supply chains (being physically far away from the rest of Europe) and a relatively small market size, but interesting you have the same price discrepancy in France which I guess has neither of these issues.

Just speculating here but do you think it is because of the strong food culture and links to identity in France?

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It's partly due to the insane subsidies that livestock farming receives in the EU.

If meat was not heavily subsidised, it would be much, much more expensive.

There's a reason these subsidies exist: maintaining Europe's food sovereignty.

See how well it turned out for Germany -and the rest of Europe- to transfer it's energy sovereignty to Russia...

I don't mind food sovereinty per se, but do we need to subsidize meat?

Lately, in the supermarket, there would usually be some meat at about 2€/kg, which I could not comprehend, as most other groceries have gone up. Pricewise it's competitive with carrots, potatoes and bananas.

How can meat end up cheaper than ordinary pastry? Measured per kg and yes, meat has a lot of water, but still..

I find people around me very averse to "fake"/replacement of a real product, there is no way it will replace meat in cooking. What I don't get is why it's not more successful in fast foods. In that setting you are already forgetting yourself for eating not healthy, and French paradoxically love fast food (McDonald's has a strong presence here for example). At Burger King I find it's nearly indistinguishable from real meat, so it should be a no brainer.

Half the battle at least is most likely in your head. If you bite into a sandwich with very negative thoughts (e.g. it's probably horrible/bad/diseased) then you'll most likely taste something much more different than if you had thought it was a normal delicious meal.

I would guess that it is because real meat is a commodity, and fake meat is not. That means that fake meat companies do not enjoy the same economies of scale, nor do they experience the same kinds of market forces that help keep prices down.

The obvious answer is that animals are very efficient because they use self-replicating biological means to construct the flesh, and industrial animal operations are extremely efficient particularly when they dont have to care about animal welfare, consumer safety, or the environment.

Tax policy is also very favorable, and public infrastructure usage and pollution costs are not internalized.

Biotechnology, taxation, and regulation would be the answers.

I think we're not yet at the point where supermarket-bought products are on par with price, but we are on par when it comes to restaurant/fast food chains.

Every vegan/vegetarian food that I try from the likes of McDonalds is surprisingly good and costs about the same as the meat equivalent. In London there is also a fast food chain dedicated to vegan food (Neat Burger), it is fairly cheap for what it is and tastes amazing.

For what it's worth, it's still more expensive in the US, too. I think it's likelier simple economies of scale + branding than anything else.

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