Soy is one of the few mass produced vegan foods that contains most or all of the proteins humans need. So, tofu is hunger-satisfying, this probably accounts for a lot of its staying and gaining power. Soy also promotes estrogen, I've heard, so keeps the peace a little better maybe? Oats are soothing to the nerves, accounting some for the appeal of oatmeal breakfasts. What if micro-regions like Maine's "midcoast" were to develop cooperative mass production of soybeans and oats and a few other rock-solid nutritional items? That could provide local livelihoods, engage people in their own food production, & might reduce shipping & packaging costs somewhat. A little research could figure out "horticultural guilds" around soy and other plants, like the famous "squash-beans-corn" configuration that Southwest Ancient Americans follow(ed). Another thing that plays in is feeling a strong local or regional culinary identity which lab meats definitely miss. Not sure what that would be in Maine, however . . .
So all I have is vibes and hunches, not actual knowledge — but with that caveat, I'm not surprised by this trend, nor by the general decline in plant-based animal product sales of which it's a part. I don't think the news is as bad as it looks, though.
Most of the new products I've encountered the past few years seem to have emerged from a Silicon Valley / big capital mindset that (surprise) completely misread people's appetites, both literally and culturally. They follow the Beyond / Impossible model: ultraprocessed, high-fat products that are too expensive for most people and feel like embodiments of factory farming and the Big Ag system that people dislike even as they rely on it.
Of course something similar can be said about commercial animal products—but meat doesn't *feel* like that to the average consumer. At a visceral level it's an authentic, natural product rather than something that was extruded on an assembly line.
Even as those products fizzle, though, other plant-based proteins are flourishing. Some are traditional types of food: tofu sales keep going up, as do soybeans. Others are established brands: Field Roast, Upton's, Morningstar. I suspect they've thrived through a combination of taste and presentation (and in Morningstar's case, reasonably accessible pricing). And then there are small, innovation-forward companies like MyBacon (or, here in Maine, Midcoast Vegan) who are doing incredible things with minimally processed ingredients, and selling like gangbusters.
They feel—the products themselves, and also the brands—like the opposite of Big Ag. I suspect that quite a few of the meat bros I know would happily eat their products, both because they're delicious and because they embody an ethos the meat bros share. And of course there's Oatly, whose sales rose last year even as plant-based milk sales dropped, who are strikingly transparent about their animal-forward values rather than tiptoeing around them.
I wonder what the alt protein landscape would look like if investors had put more resources into products like these, and less into extra-high-tech burgers and the like. Who knows, maybe nothing would be different. But I don't think so. And it'd be interesting to see.
Except in China, Alt meat is picking up and the government is backing it. If China can find a way to feed its people protein and scale up in a way that makes sense, they will.. and preferences will be damned. I'm an alt meat supporter, and wish I could be an early adopter, but it's not going as well here in the States. I think given the benefits of alt meat, it's only a matter of time.
Soy is one of the few mass produced vegan foods that contains most or all of the proteins humans need. So, tofu is hunger-satisfying, this probably accounts for a lot of its staying and gaining power. Soy also promotes estrogen, I've heard, so keeps the peace a little better maybe? Oats are soothing to the nerves, accounting some for the appeal of oatmeal breakfasts. What if micro-regions like Maine's "midcoast" were to develop cooperative mass production of soybeans and oats and a few other rock-solid nutritional items? That could provide local livelihoods, engage people in their own food production, & might reduce shipping & packaging costs somewhat. A little research could figure out "horticultural guilds" around soy and other plants, like the famous "squash-beans-corn" configuration that Southwest Ancient Americans follow(ed). Another thing that plays in is feeling a strong local or regional culinary identity which lab meats definitely miss. Not sure what that would be in Maine, however . . .
So all I have is vibes and hunches, not actual knowledge — but with that caveat, I'm not surprised by this trend, nor by the general decline in plant-based animal product sales of which it's a part. I don't think the news is as bad as it looks, though.
Most of the new products I've encountered the past few years seem to have emerged from a Silicon Valley / big capital mindset that (surprise) completely misread people's appetites, both literally and culturally. They follow the Beyond / Impossible model: ultraprocessed, high-fat products that are too expensive for most people and feel like embodiments of factory farming and the Big Ag system that people dislike even as they rely on it.
Of course something similar can be said about commercial animal products—but meat doesn't *feel* like that to the average consumer. At a visceral level it's an authentic, natural product rather than something that was extruded on an assembly line.
Even as those products fizzle, though, other plant-based proteins are flourishing. Some are traditional types of food: tofu sales keep going up, as do soybeans. Others are established brands: Field Roast, Upton's, Morningstar. I suspect they've thrived through a combination of taste and presentation (and in Morningstar's case, reasonably accessible pricing). And then there are small, innovation-forward companies like MyBacon (or, here in Maine, Midcoast Vegan) who are doing incredible things with minimally processed ingredients, and selling like gangbusters.
They feel—the products themselves, and also the brands—like the opposite of Big Ag. I suspect that quite a few of the meat bros I know would happily eat their products, both because they're delicious and because they embody an ethos the meat bros share. And of course there's Oatly, whose sales rose last year even as plant-based milk sales dropped, who are strikingly transparent about their animal-forward values rather than tiptoeing around them.
I wonder what the alt protein landscape would look like if investors had put more resources into products like these, and less into extra-high-tech burgers and the like. Who knows, maybe nothing would be different. But I don't think so. And it'd be interesting to see.
Except in China, Alt meat is picking up and the government is backing it. If China can find a way to feed its people protein and scale up in a way that makes sense, they will.. and preferences will be damned. I'm an alt meat supporter, and wish I could be an early adopter, but it's not going as well here in the States. I think given the benefits of alt meat, it's only a matter of time.