Why are vegan specialty foods more expensive than their counterparts?

[Betty Blue]

The reason why I didn't check individual prices is because, as far as I can tell, it depends on the store, the day, and the region. Show me a way to price-check store brands online and I'll do it. This thread was created for discussing facts, and since I was unable to find that data, I would welcome it.

I still don't understand why your tone is so combative. Am I attacking you?

I just want some clarity. I'm not sure why you are perceiving combativeness.

Can you name the the stores and the brands?

 

[EJCC]

I just want some clarity. I'm not sure why you are perceiving combativeness.

Can you name the the stores and the brands?

I'm probably reading the thread's general defensive tone into your post. Apologies.

Generic brands from: Giant, Albertsons, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club

Also off the top of my head:
- Lucerne
- Darigold
- Land O' Lakes
- Dannon

 

[Betty Blue]

I'm probably reading the thread's general defensive tone into your post. Apologies.

Generic brands from: Giant, Albertsons, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club

Also off the top of my head:
- Lucerne
- Darigold
- Land O' Lakes
- Dannon

Of processed meats? fresh meats? vegan alternatives?

I recognise Danone is that yoghurt brand?


Edit: just looking at Danone (if it is the same brand) I am using my local big store which is one of the supermarket giants in the uk tesco for price comparison... using this it is more expensive than the soy based/dairy free yoghurts from the same store at the same time. You will also note a pretty good selection.

Search (danone yoghurt) - Groceries - Tesco Groceries

Search (soya yughurt) - Groceries - Tesco Groceries

 

[EJCC]

Of processed meats? fresh meats? vegan alternatives?

I recognise Danone is that yoghurt brand?

Lucerne, Darigold, and Land O' Lakes are dairy/egg brands. And yes, Dannon is the yogurt brand. I don't know any meat brands because most meat at the groceries I go to is attributed to a farm, not a large scale brand. And there are lots of those factory farms.

As for meat product brands... Off the top of my head: Jack Links, Jimmy Dean, Hungry Man, Hillshire Farms, Smithfields, Boar's Head.

It's worth noting again, per [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION], that there could be significant UK vs US price differences at play here.

 

[kyuuei]

In most grocery stores where I'm currently living -- can't speak to where [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] lives -- there's typically one "natural and organic foods" aisle, or half an aisle, where all that sort of food is. In my experience, some of it is the same price as the meat/dairy equivalent, but none -- NONE -- beat the generic non-vegan store brand. I typically avoid that aisle because I always buy generic. Not to mention, it's such a small section of the store, God knows how complete a selection they have.

Exceptions to that rule:
- Trader Joe's, which sometimes has vegetarian/vegan food, but only sells its own brand, so you can't comparison-shop
- Whole Foods, which is almost always 1.5-3x more expensive than other stores
- Mom's Organic Market (MOM) -- same as Whole Foods

I am fairly confident that if I checked each item on that PETA list that came first on your Google search, each item would be 1.5-2x more expensive than their non vegan equivalents in my city.

Precisely. We don't have MOM but Fresh Market is very similar. I've lived in a few cities now, and grocery shopped in many more, and it tends to be same in the major markets.. HEB, Walmart, Safeway, Publix, Ingles, Food Lion, etc.. they all tend to have the same set ups. Anything that would be as cheap as the generic brand would come from sales, near-expiration-date buying (Krogers does this, not all stores do.. most do not), and coupons adding to those elements.. they would definitely not be from-the-shelf cheaper by any means. Typically, there is a brand name (which you are buying for the name), and maaaybe the fancier ones of those will be on-par with fake meats.. like, for example, bacon-cheddar-sausages from Ball Park might be same price as tofurky.. but straight up Ball Park dogs will be cheaper than tofurky, and the generic brand even cheaper than ball park.

Thal brought up Hebrew National quite a few times, and I think that's an interesting take on it.. They are more expensive by far, but they're a niche market that's made some real headway in mainsteam masses.. non-jewish non-kosher people buy the brand for the quality of the product and price. I think it's a pretty good reference point for what I'm talking about here.. Morningstar Farms (the first vegetarian meat I learned about) is actually fairly reasonable in price, but unfortunately tends to not taste anywhere close to the real thing..

But, when you have things like the Gentle Chef The Gentle Chef engineering these things for basically free and/or the price of a cookbook, I can't imagine the engineering alone is driving the market.

Are you are comparing generic store brands to speciality foods.

Well, it's part of the discussion... Because the market of people being driven by price point tend to go for price.. so, for the fake-meat-market to make anymore headway than it currently does, it would need to be competitive in price with generic brands.


And. Yes. Seriously. "Seriously?" in response to my saying it'd be super swell if you were a little less attack-y in your posts is still pretty easily perceived as hostile.

It's worth noting again, per [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION], that there could be significant UK vs US price differences at play here.

I think this is the case.. Maybe I'm totally wrong with modern day tech, but it seems cheaper to buy beef and eat meat in a place like Texas where ranches are a dime a dozen vs the UK with limited land space and being an island.. it seems like it'd be more advantageous to the market to have affordable non-meat-dairy options.

And while I am sure there are cheap options at very particular regions of the US (i.e. there's probably enough people in San Fran that go vegan that can find decently-priced vegan products), this is certainly not the case for the majority of US cities and groceries.. Though that's a potential source of brainstorming on how to expand that basis from sources and pockets like that..

 

[Betty Blue]

The problem for me [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] is that you have presented a mess of an op with very mixed messages. Which, maybe more subtly than some will get, is pretty heavily biased towards the meat industry in general.

I see a lot of people very quick to try to convince me to go vegetarian or vegan and the environmental or health benefits.. and.. in some ways, I'd probably be willing--but at the end of the day, everything for grocery shopping for me comes down to price. To a lesser extent, the health of the food, the ease of cooking it and how much I'll actually eat it. And at the end of the day, a package of hot dogs from cruel awful facilities that don't give a shit about their beef is 12 cents a dog for me, while vegan hot dogs come in packs of like 5 or 7 (what?!) for $4-6. For someone like me who doesn't feel guilt about eating animals, it just doesn't ever seem practical to do.. Especially with nutritionists torn about whether meat is bad for you or not,

The foods you talk about are not the meat nutritionalists are talking about. There is no-one debating that that 'processed' meats have any goodness at all. I'm pretty sure it's a no brainer that they are bad food.

The op's premise is that you are discussing foods of equal nutrition... specialist counterparts would suggest specialist alternatives yet you use the crap for meat hotdogs as an alternative suggestion.

As it has already been discussed to death with you it comes across as arrogance. Yes I have taken umberance with it. I don't think thats particularly surprising given the circumstances.

The problem is that you are using specific circumstances to label a whole market and incorrectly. If you want to compare crap for meat with crap for vegan alternatives we can find some. But the premise was 'speciality' So the question remains... what do you actually want to compare here?

 

[Betty Blue]

Lucerne, Darigold, and Land O' Lakes are dairy/egg brands. And yes, Dannon is the yogurt brand. I don't know any meat brands because most meat at the groceries I go to is attributed to a farm, not a large scale brand. And there are lots of those factory farms.

As for meat product brands... Off the top of my head: Jack Links, Jimmy Dean, Hungry Man, Hillshire Farms, Smithfields, Boar's Head.

It's worth noting again, per [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION], that there could be significant UK vs US price differences at play here.

The difficulty I have here is that I can not search your supermarkets without some more specifics... because a lot of those brands do not sell here. I showed you an example of one brand (which does sell here) versus all the soy based yoghurts and you could see the soy based products were cheaper in the links provided.

I would need links to the supermarkets so I have have a look through. And maybe the city name so I can see alternatives in a short distance of where you are shopping. I'm pretty sure there will be products. It just comes down to weather people can be bothered. I think thats something which is particularly frustrating, though thankfully the attitude does seem to be changing as awareness grows and more meat alternatives become mainstream.

 

[EJCC]

The difficulty I have here is that I can not search your supermarkets without some more specifics... because a lot of those brands do not sell here. I showed you an example of one brand (which does sell here) versus all the soy based yoghurts and you could see the soy based products were cheaper in the links provided.

I would need links to the supermarkets so I have have a look through. And maybe the city name so I can see alternatives in a short distance of where you are shopping. I'm pretty sure there will be products. It just comes down to weather people can be bothered. I think thats something which is particularly frustrating, though thankfully the attitude does seem to be changing as awareness grows and more meat alternatives become mainstream.

As far as I can tell, the only stores on my list that have their prices online are the stores that don't just sell groceries. I have tried to check numerous times over the years but have never found prices listed. I am 99% certain that the reason for that is so prices can vary between locations of the same store.

This is why I said earlier that it depends so heavily on location. Cost of living, including grocery cost, varies widely from one part of America to the next.

I'll link you to some, though -- see if you can find what I couldn't:

Non-grocery:
- Welcome to Costco Wholesale
- http://www.target.com
- Sam's Club
- Walmart.com: Save money. Live better.

Grocery:
- Home - Giant Food
- https://www.foodlion.com
- http://m.safeway.com
- https://www.kroger.com
- http://www.traderjoes.com (some prices, but likely to change and not be updated on the website)
- http://m.wholefoodsmarket.com
- https://momsorganicmarket.com

 

[EJCC]

The foods you talk about are not the meat nutritionalists are talking about. There is no-one debating that that 'processed' meats have any goodness at all. I'm pretty sure it's a no brainer that they are bad food.

The op's premise is that you are discussing foods of equal nutrition... specialist counterparts would suggest specialist alternatives yet you use the crap for meat hotdogs as an alternative suggestion.

If you re-read the OP, you'll see that the bolded is completely false. What is being compared, in this thread, is meat product to equivalent vegan imitation. Meat hot dog to meatless hot dog. Ground beef to vegan ground beef. Yogurt to vegan yogurt. Etc.

As it has already been discussed to death with you it comes across as arrogance. Yes I have taken umberance with it. I don't think thats particularly surprising given the circumstances.

Well, that explains the hostility.

Please keep this on topic and without ad hominem? Thanks.

The problem is that you are using specific circumstances to label a whole market and incorrectly. If you want to compare crap for meat with crap for vegan alternatives we can find some. But the premise was 'speciality' So the question remains... what do you actually want to compare here?

"Specialty" = any vegan imitation of a meat-based food that you buy pre-packaged when you get it at the store. Eating vegan can be very cheap when you make everything from scratch, but when you add in vegan meat and cheese, vegan dairy, etc, that's where the stereotype about expensiveness comes in.

You're superimposing a different argument onto this argument. This is not about "labeling a whole market". This is about seeing if the label on a very specific section of the market -- a label used by millions of people -- is unfair. It may well be. Let's analyze, talk data, and and find out why.

 

[Betty Blue]

If you re-read the OP, you'll see that the bolded is completely false. What is being compared, in this thread, is meat product to equivalent vegan imitation. Meat hot dog to meatless hot dog. Ground beef to vegan ground beef. Yogurt to vegan yogurt. Etc.


Well, that explains the hostility.

Please keep this on topic and without ad hominem? Thanks.

"Specialty" = any vegan imitation of a meat-based food that you buy pre-packaged when you get it at the store. Eating vegan can be very cheap when you make everything from scratch, but when you add in vegan meat and cheese, vegan dairy, etc, that's where the stereotype about expensiveness comes in.

You're superimposing a different argument onto this argument. This is not about "labeling a whole market". This is about seeing if the label on a very specific section of the market -- a label used by millions of people -- is unfair. It may well be. Let's analyze, talk data, and and find out why.

No it's not hostility it's frustration. I'd appreciate not be labelled as hostile or ad homein-en because you do not like my frustration. I am perfectly allowed to be frustrated and to voice that frustration please do not try to police me over that, it's really not on.

So anyway, that aside, lets get back on topic.

TVP in walmart

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bulk-Grains-Non-gmp-Tvp-Minced-5-16-Irregular-5-Lbs/30985590

Super cheap alternative to meat, better in quality AND cheaper than crap for meat weiners (once reconstituted) ... it's also available pretty much everywhere. I think it's even used by the armed forces etc because it's such a cheap alternative and still has high levels of protein.

 

[erm]

Well that was a weirdly passive-aggressive OP Different from the usual ones (outside of politics).

Anyway I don't see any evidence that vegan specialty foods are more expensive than non-vegan specialty foods. Specialty foods in general are pricier, as are health foods etc. I think most people associate that stuff with vegan alternatives rather than the cheaper stuff going around.

The cheapest faux meat, dairy and eggs are widely used around the world, but not advertised as such, because they are so much cheaper than the real thing, but have a bad reputation. A market for that stuff openly advertised as vegan/vegetarian food just doesn't exist.

The other vegan stuff, that's also cheap, is all around markets in Europe. I don't know about the US, but a quick google is showing no signs of any big differences.

 

[EJCC]

^ Yeah, TBH what I'm learning from this thread is that if I want to eat packaged vegan food and not break the bank, I should move to Europe or to California.

 

[belgianvalid]

Hi, for me everything nowadays is expensive. But if one is a vegan , he can just plant some vegetables in his own lot if he has a space around. I can see that vegetables can grow easily. Our family friend is a vegan and he does just the same. In fact, he even give us some of his harvest for us to eat too.

 

[kyuuei]

The problem for me [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] is that you have presented a mess of an op with very mixed messages. Which, maybe more subtly than some will get, is pretty heavily biased towards the meat industry in general.

"I see a lot of people very quick to try to convince me to go vegetarian or vegan and the environmental or health benefits.. and.. in some ways, I'd probably be willing--but at the end of the day, everything for grocery shopping for me comes down to price. To a lesser extent, the health of the food, the ease of cooking it and how much I'll actually eat it. And at the end of the day, a package of hot dogs from cruel awful facilities that don't give a shit about their beef is 12 cents a dog for me, while vegan hot dogs come in packs of like 5 or 7 (what?!) for $4-6. For someone like me who doesn't feel guilt about eating animals, it just doesn't ever seem practical to do.. Especially with nutritionists torn about whether meat is bad for you or not"

For the record, my "what?!" comment was the number itself, since buns come in an 8 count in the US and it always leaves a staggered number of buns or dogs. I'm not trying to say that hot dogs in particular are 'good' for you, I don't consider them a healthy dinner by any means, but I fail to see where I say price point is what matters to me and that, generally speaking, you'll find nutritionists that say meat in general is alright (heavily favoring portioned pieces of lean cut meats) and others who will support vegetarian and vegan diets is all attacking vegans. None of that is attacking vegans. I could definitely make the thoughts flow better, but I was writing this while on my lunch break which I don't get much time in... though I don't think the OP is an entire mess anyways.. perhaps lacking flow without proof reading, but still I think my questions are pretty valid to ask.

The foods you talk about are not the meat nutritionalists are talking about. There is no-one debating that that 'processed' meats have any goodness at all. I'm pretty sure it's a no brainer that they are bad food.

I'm only talking about hot dogs and burgers because these are the most common vegan counterparts I see and the prices that are easiest to look up, so I'm more using them as a frame of reference than as the ONLY things available.. I tend to find the other specialties like vegan chicken and fish to be even pricier. The ONLY reason I mention nutritionists is, like I stated in the OP, you'll find those who support and turn away meat, and I'm not down for talking about nutritional content in this thread because I think it's distracting and detracting from the conversation I want to have here. There is easily a whole other thread that can be done on nutrition and meat and fake meat and all of that, and it is a distracting element.

The op's premise is that you are discussing foods of equal nutrition... specialist counterparts would suggest specialist alternatives yet you use the crap for meat hotdogs as an alternative suggestion.

No. Absolutely not. The OP's premise is, time and time again, "Why doesn't the vegan meat industry adjust its price points and marketing into putting a dent into the meat industry?"

Again, from the OP:

"I don't want the discussion to turn to this [the nutritional] side of things"

The only time I talk about nutrition is in the OP, yet it is always the first thing vegans bring up. Even my favorite-to-watch-on-you-tube lady, when discussing 'affording raw vegan diets' the first mention she makes is that you cannot put a price on health, as if money and health are constantly linked together.

How to Afford Eating FullyRaw - YouTube -- the first caveat posed to her knowledge is "how much are you willing to invest in your health?" It is a concept I see a lot... And I can tell you as someone who eats these not-good-for-you-foods is, no one is thinking about their health when they eat a hot dog. It isn't the reason people eat hot dogs. Again, my ONLY reason for mentioning this nutritional aspect is that vegans place a heavy emphasis on it, and to make a dent in the meat industry the focus must shift away from this because the reality is meat-eaters are not always so heavily focused on this. Particularly those buying hot dogs, hamburgers, and pre-made meat dinners and such. There are plenty of people who only eat grass-fed-organic-this-and-that, but these are not the majority of Americans.

The problem is that you are using specific circumstances to label a whole market and incorrectly. If you want to compare crap for meat with crap for vegan alternatives we can find some. But the premise was 'speciality' So the question remains... what do you actually want to compare here?

... To compare why well-engineered Vegan foods who tend to have an activism component to the movement don't take a great idea and make it non-profit for the purposes of putting a dent into the meat industry. I think I've mentioned several times I think fake-meats are a really good idea, and that I've used them on a vegetarian level and continue to do so and this is what sparked the thread in the first place. No one is here to attack any vegans, or their lifestyle at all. In other threads I've been very vocal about the issues I take up with veganism in other threads, but this thread is not here for that at all and is only discussing a good idea like faux meats and cheeses and asking why not try to push it to be more mainstream. I just want to discuss the price points and what keeps them high, while trying to leave out all the red herring arguments that many vegans are quick to talk about like the health of the food.. no one buying hot dogs is thinking about their health, and some vegans even take an issue with faux meats themselves as being bad habits and bad for you.. So, I'd rather leave nutrition out of this and talk about prices and what drives them.

As you've mentioned many times, the UK and US seem to have vastly different price points, so while it may seem like I am trying to label a whole industry as expensive when it seems not not be there, the information I am using are the grocery store price points here in the US.




At this point, the conversation has already devolved into the distractors I never wanted in here to begin with, and is full of negativity. Brainstorming is not really happening, and the really great ideas and points being brought up were more on-the-side rather than being the stars of the show. So, I think I'm done with the thread.

 

[Betty Blue]

Ok, well you know where marms vegan village is if you want any further info about where to buy cheap vegan alternatives and I have provided you with some myself, so it's not all bad.

 

[Thalassa]

^ Yeah, TBH what I'm learning from this thread is that if I want to eat packaged vegan food and not break the bank, I should move to Europe or to California.

Or shop at Kroger or Ralphs, or your local 7th Day Adventist book store. There are also online shops to order vegan specialty foods in bulk.

 

[Thalassa]

Really confused by the direction this thread went. Seems like [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] had many legitimate questions that were interpreted as an attack on veganism -- when finding flaws in a system is not attacking so much as looking for areas that could be improved. Diagnosing those problems, in the long run, is good for everyone.

The goal of the thread, per kyuuei, was to discuss why vegan foods -- not to be confused with ingredients for vegan recipes -- are typically more expensive. My initial thought is that the size of the market, the size of the manufacturer, and perhaps a bit of price-gouging (looking at you Whole Foods), are to blame.

Other ideas from this page of the thread that I think are helpful re: getting to the heart of the problem:
[MENTION=6877]Thalassa[/MENTION]:

[MENTION=9160]HelenOfTroy[/MENTION]


The more the market assumes that vegans are all willing to pay more money for those products -- and the fewer vegans there are in America -- the more expensive these foods will be. Considering how much cheaper chia seeds, quinoa, etc., have gotten since they became trendy, it's not unheard of that the same thing could happen with vegan food. Especially if somewhere like Trader Joe's tried it out.

Thanks for the helpful post, and I just want to re-state that Kroger and Ralphs do make "store brand veg-anic" packaged foods. I do think some frustration that you may see from myself or [MENTION=9160]HelenOfTroy[/MENTION] is that [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] has a valuation that entirely revolves around quantity, rather than quality. It is a pretty mainstream American value to conflate quantity with quality, and the arguments are pretty much useless to anyone who doesn't prize large amounts of cheap food above all else. I mean then why not just eat oats, homemade nut milks, peanut butter, canned or frozen veggies, some fresh fruit and vegetables from farmers market or on sale, as well as bulk portions of beans, rice, quinoa, vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, and other legumes, grains, as well as spices. But she says if people don't want to live off of that they have to pay more...so do people who eat meat and cheese, unless they eat very low quality meat and cheese. There are very good reasons for why a lot of vegan products cost more (quality, originality/creativity/novelty, re-creation of animal product flavor, companies which are more ethical, lack of factory farming, smaller businesses, and of course less customers) and none of those things seem to move her. I might as well be arguing with someone who asks why they shouldn't live off of dollar frozen cheese pizza and fifty cent frozen burritos. If the only value here is the most exciting tasting or salty/processed/etc food for the least amount of money, then I guess [MENTION=4939]kyuuei[/MENTION] should stock up on Hamburger Helper and go resent vegan companies elsewhere.

I do want to agree with you though that California probably has the widest availability of vegan products in the United States, we even feed homeless people vegan burritos here, but California tends to be the precedent for the future of certain aspects of American culture, after all its also the home of fast food and diners, half a century ago.

 

[Thalassa]

Well that was a weirdly passive-aggressive OP Different from the usual ones (outside of politics).

Anyway I don't see any evidence that vegan specialty foods are more expensive than non-vegan specialty foods. Specialty foods in general are pricier, as are health foods etc. I think most people associate that stuff with vegan alternatives rather than the cheaper stuff going around.

The cheapest faux meat, dairy and eggs are widely used around the world, but not advertised as such, because they are so much cheaper than the real thing, but have a bad reputation. A market for that stuff openly advertised as vegan/vegetarian food just doesn't exist.

The other vegan stuff, that's also cheap, is all around markets in Europe. I don't know about the US, but a quick google is showing no signs of any big differences.

Yeah I agree with a lot of this and some things are incorrectly labeled as privilege just because it's new, different or alternative. For example, menstrual cups are actually cheaper than traditional tampons over the course of a year, and may be easier for homeless women because of long term usage and not having to buy every month, easy to store and clean, etc...they've even been implemented by programs to assist impoverished women in developing countries but you'd never know it by some of the people who automatically respond to the existence of menstrual cups, as though it's something only hipsters use - when the real privilege is filling up landfills with cardboard, plastic and cotton because it's easier for you to just keep doing what you've always done because you don't want to touch your own vagina, make any changes to your life routine, or be inconvenienced in any way.

I see reactions to veganism as similar. Yes, there are pricey vegan specialty foods, but they're along side pricey specialty foods which contain milk, eggs, collagen, or "pasture raised" animal flesh.

The reality, also, is that most vegans don't soley exist on faux meats or cheeses, but eat a lot of basic vegan staples, ethnic foods (like hummus, babaganoush, tahini, and Thai or Indian dishes) and "accidentally vegan"mainstream foods as well as specialty products.