UK supermarket to make plant-based food range cost the same as meat equivalents

[GeorgeC1]

Economics of scale are taking place with meat alternatives, in a few years your average meat free sausage will cost the same as a Meat sausage - subsidies play a role as well.

UK supermarket to make plant-based food range cost the same as meat equivalents

UK supermarket chain the Co-op is to price match its own-brand plant-based food range against equivalent meat products to help shoppers adopt “flexitarian” diets, it has announced.

www.independent.ie

This isn't a meat bashing post, I eat meat but I am aware that vegetarian and vegan alternatives will become cheaper as the scale of manufactoring increases.

 

[betweenthelines]

What a load of bol locks!

Plant based snacks and meals are already cheaper to produce (rice and past cheaper per kg than beef for example) but the markup is double as the woke consumers will pay more!

 

[primmiemoo]

Co-op is boosting its margins by selling processed junk food?
Plant-based is a brand to be marketed to the credulous and gullible, unfortunately. I'm fed up with seeing perfectly good vegetables bashed into gloop that needs artificial fortification to restore any nutritional value.

 

[PSQ]

Economics of scale are taking place with meat alternatives, in a few years your average meat free sausage will cost the same as a Meat sausage - subsidies play a role as well.



This isn't a meat bashing post, I eat meat but I am aware that vegetarian and vegan alternatives will become cheaper as the scale of manufactoring increases.

You’re talking about ‘equivalent’ pricing as if they’re equivalent products, but meat and dairy alternatives are usually inferior in taste and nutrition.
Take Quorn as an example, made by propagating the Fusarium Venenatum fungus in vast vertical stainless steel tanks by sparging a gas through a chemical soup, before heating the fibrous mush to reduce the excessive ribonucleic acid, and adding in egg white and palm oil. The resultant product has little taste, and the consistency of cold puke.
The Monde Nissin corporation price it to maximise their profits, not because they care about the planet or any green ideals beyond the colour of money. If that wasn’t the case they wouldn’t be using palm oil and contributing towards deforestation and habitat destruction.
But as long as Mo Farah tells the public they’re ‘saving the planet’ they’ll be guilt tripped into buying the synthetic ultra processed goop, and feeding it to their kids.

 

[Courier]

Now Birds eye are getting in on the act with their pea based "Green Cuisine"

At least we grow quite a lot of peas in the UK..

 

[Sid]

Have I missed something or as a human race only started consuming plants recently?
I am sure we used to have plant based food with our Sunday roast.
In proportion terms around 75% would have been plant based.
Does this mean that vegetables and fruit are going to get cheaper in the supermarkets allowing those on budget to eat more instead of these overly processed products they peddle?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I'm highly suspicious of the idea that it's better to synthesise highly processed ingredients in a factory which must be hugely energy intensive compared to eating plants or animals that are grown naturally outdoors using solar energy as the main driver.

Why not just eat the plants?

 

[betweenthelines]

Take Quorn as an example, made by propagating the Fusarium Venenatum fungus in vast vertical stainless steel tanks by sparging a gas through a chemical soup, before heating the fibrous mush to reduce the excessive ribonucleic acid, and adding in egg white and palm oil. The resultant product has little taste, and the consistency of cold puke.

Mmm......scrumptious.

But how is it vegan or vegetarian if it contains egg white? Or do they have another factory where artificial hens lay artificial eggs? And if it contains palm oil, does that make it OK for farmers to utilise the by-product PK meal?

 

[Raider112]

Can somebody explain why meat is said to be safe but processed meat is harmful but yet processed vegan food is acceptable?

 

[Tarw Coch]

Humans have evolved over millions of years to be omnivores, I for one ain’t going to go against evolution

 

[The Seeker]

Guys more and more of our meat will go abroad where people will appreciate the product , look up any high street the quality of food is poor at best, with the incomming inflation people will be looking for either quality or quantity.

 

[Storeman]

Ah, the forums resident troll has once again woken up and crawled out from under its bridge .

 

[Cowabunga]

Guys more and more of our meat will go abroad where people will appreciate the product , look up any high street the quality of food is poor at best, with the incomming inflation people will be looking for either quality or quantity.

"Abroad" is awash with competition and export markets were always available and for the most part are under the same commercial pressures and the domestic UK market. All first world economies will have artificial meat products competing with and eventually undercutting the real thing. Third world countries can't afford what we are selling and the end result will be that quite soon we will not be able to compete at all. It would only take the loss of some 10% of the meat market to artificial meats or pseudo-meat to actually collapse the market for the real thing. How long that will take is unknown and would be 'fortune telling' but estimates vary from five years to ten. One thing is for sure, current government policies are hastening the day.

 

[Top Tip.]

Have I missed something or as a human race only started consuming plants recently?
I am sure we used to have plant based food with our Sunday roast.
In proportion terms around 75% would have been plant based.
Does this mean that vegetables and fruit are going to get cheaper in the supermarkets allowing those on budget to eat more instead of these overly processed products they peddle?

I grew up eating meat and three veg . You would think that eating vegetables was a recent innovation. Balanced diet ,way to go.

 

[Exfarmer]

Economics of scale are taking place with meat alternatives, in a few years your average meat free sausage will cost the same as a Meat sausage - subsidies play a role as well.

UK supermarket to make plant-based food range cost the same as meat equivalents

UK supermarket chain the Co-op is to price match its own-brand plant-based food range against equivalent meat products to help shoppers adopt “flexitarian” diets, it has announced.

www.independent.ie

This isn't a meat bashing post, I eat meat but I am aware that vegetarian and vegan alternatives will become cheaper as the scale of manufactoring increases.

Of course it will get cheaper, at the moment it sells at a premium as a novelty food trading on highly dubious health claims. Soon the consumer will get wise to the fact that this dross, is the highly processed product of mega corporations, with the health benefits of eating a tub of margarine.
Those who frequent the low budget burger/kebab chains will appreciate this mixture of colourings, flavourings, fortifiers, textured mush, while the rest of us will continue to buy proper real food.

 

[melted welly]

I'm highly suspicious of the idea that it's better to synthesise highly processed ingredients in a factory which must be hugely energy intensive compared to eating plants or animals that are grown naturally outdoors using solar energy as the main driver.

Why not just eat the plants?

because it’s driven by a desire to have total control of the market, not some noble quest to save the planet.

It’s meat today, fish/seafood going same way, be veg grown in actual soil next, then fruit that’s grown outside.

Same with the chemical job, big Corps worried that their bread and butter of ‘icides have their days numbered so they’re pushing for the smaller niche biological products that have been the work of the small guys, to require registration, the cost of which will make it hard for smaller companies to survive and push that “technology” into the hands of those who can afford to sell it. Then suddenly it will work as the glossy pamphlets start appearing with positive graphs.

It is hard not to become disillusioned with the way things are going. None of this alternate meat/faux outrage over livestock emissions is to do with making the environment, or people better or healthier, it is all about making money to feed the investors.

We grew food without chems or fert for thousands of years and (steered by policy, technological advancement and incentives) we’ve slowly f**ked things up over the last 70 or so, so that now we’re totally reliant on inputs to produce our outputs.

it’s not right.

 

[wanton dwarf]

This isn't a meat bashing post, I eat meat but I am aware that vegetarian and vegan alternatives will become cheaper as the scale of manufactoring increases.

It's processed food.

All processed food gives you cancer and other health negatives. I expect this will be exactly the same.

 

[wanton dwarf]

It is hard not to become disillusioned with the way things are going. None of this alternate meat/faux outrage over livestock emissions is to do with making the environment, or people better or healthier, it is all about making money to feed the investors.

Yep, it's all about marketing and our government(s) is in on the take.

Climate Rubbish is all about the money .. if they wanted to reduce CO2 then they'd ban flying for holidays, ban luxury goods and produce locally .. but they don't because those in control want to be RICH.

We grew food without chems or fert for thousands of years and (steered by policy, technological advancement and incentives) we’ve slowly fudgeed things up over the last 70 or so, so that now we’re totally reliant on inputs to produce our outputs.

Human waste has all the inputs we bought in it BUT it's treated as trash and thrown away into the sea.

I have to wonder how it can possibly be that the media and "Science" fails to even recognise the waste and lack of recycling. It's almost as if they don't want to see it. In times past waste would be reprocessed for a multitude of uses.

These days rubbish is sent for recycling and then burnt or dumped in the sea - just 1,000s of miles away - but someone somewhere has made £millions in a fake Green policy.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Ah, the forums resident troll has once again woken up and crawled out from under its bridge .

Ohh fudge..........which one of us are you referring too

 

[Storeman]

Ohh fudge..........which one of us are you referring too