I agree—AI estimates we could get cost parity to beef burgers by building a 100,000 tonne dry per year factory that is far larger than anything out there now (~2% of global burgers) (more like paper factory size). But that would cost close to $1B. I’m pretty sure that 2% of consumers would accept current taste of plant based burgers if they were slightly cheaper, but that’s a big investment.
Interesting numbers (although with it being AI, I wonder if it’s derived from substantive research others might have done or if they’re purely arbitrary figures hallucinated to fill the gap).
A single factory making 2% of global burgers sounds like an implausibly large factory, but I don’t see why it would actually need to be that big to achieve cost parity. There isn’t a massive R&D cost (cf cultured meats and some alternative proteins) and most of the ingredients I’m aware of are available in bulk at relatively low cost. Of course there is also a wide disparity between burgers to achieve cost parity with and wholesale and retail prices. Being cheaper than the cheapest brand probably isn’t necessary, being cheaper than the most expensive burgers brands which market themselves based on meat quality (which I think has already been achieved) probably isn’t sufficient
I agree—AI estimates we could get cost parity to beef burgers by building a 100,000 tonne dry per year factory that is far larger than anything out there now (~2% of global burgers) (more like paper factory size). But that would cost close to $1B. I’m pretty sure that 2% of consumers would accept current taste of plant based burgers if they were slightly cheaper, but that’s a big investment.
Interesting numbers (although with it being AI, I wonder if it’s derived from substantive research others might have done or if they’re purely arbitrary figures hallucinated to fill the gap).
A single factory making 2% of global burgers sounds like an implausibly large factory, but I don’t see why it would actually need to be that big to achieve cost parity. There isn’t a massive R&D cost (cf cultured meats and some alternative proteins) and most of the ingredients I’m aware of are available in bulk at relatively low cost. Of course there is also a wide disparity between burgers to achieve cost parity with and wholesale and retail prices. Being cheaper than the cheapest brand probably isn’t necessary, being cheaper than the most expensive burgers brands which market themselves based on meat quality (which I think has already been achieved) probably isn’t sufficient