I think the key thing to test is when plant based substitutes are significantly cheaper than animal products. The two examples I know of now are margarine and egg replacer. The former got big market penetration (and I think some actual substitution) and the latter didn’t. As I’ve argued elsewhere, we could get plant based burgers to cost parity or better if we built a bigger factory. Then I think there would be some substitution for price sensitive consumers.
Jacob, together with Samara Mendez, previously wrote a shallow review about butter and margarine price substitution. They found that some studies, surprisingly, show them to be complementary goods, and thought this was primarily due to weird consumer behaviour not always reflecting econ 101, and secondarily due to econ methodologies always not capturing reality.
I agree that cost is the most important variable, especially when considering global impact. This study further reinforces some core beliefs I have about meat analogues:
1. At least for the next several years, the primary goal of commercializing meat analogues is to drive further R&D and scale production that will reduce cost (and increase quality)
2. An underrated outcome of meat analogues is making the cognitive leap to decide to become a vegetarian or vegan less daunting, which probably would not show up in these data
3. The vast majority of people who eat meat will not consider meat analogues attractive until they are far superior to animal products in at least one key way (cost, taste, and/​or nutrition)
4. No matter how high-quality meat analogues become, most vegetarians and vegans will often choose traditional plant protein options like tofu, tempeh and legumes
I think the key thing to test is when plant based substitutes are significantly cheaper than animal products. The two examples I know of now are margarine and egg replacer. The former got big market penetration (and I think some actual substitution) and the latter didn’t. As I’ve argued elsewhere, we could get plant based burgers to cost parity or better if we built a bigger factory. Then I think there would be some substitution for price sensitive consumers.
Jacob, together with Samara Mendez, previously wrote a shallow review about butter and margarine price substitution. They found that some studies, surprisingly, show them to be complementary goods, and thought this was primarily due to weird consumer behaviour not always reflecting econ 101, and secondarily due to econ methodologies always not capturing reality.
Wow—bizarre.
I agree that cost is the most important variable, especially when considering global impact. This study further reinforces some core beliefs I have about meat analogues:
1. At least for the next several years, the primary goal of commercializing meat analogues is to drive further R&D and scale production that will reduce cost (and increase quality)
2. An underrated outcome of meat analogues is making the cognitive leap to decide to become a vegetarian or vegan less daunting, which probably would not show up in these data
3. The vast majority of people who eat meat will not consider meat analogues attractive until they are far superior to animal products in at least one key way (cost, taste, and/​or nutrition)
4. No matter how high-quality meat analogues become, most vegetarians and vegans will often choose traditional plant protein options like tofu, tempeh and legumes