From inews.co.uk
Meat-free fast food is finally starting to come down in price, which means thousands more people will try options that might help to save the environment
Until now, faux meat vegan burgers have been more expensive than traditional ones made with beef. In Tesco, supposedly a budget supermarket, two Beyond Meat patties cost £4.40. In the same store, you can buy four regular quarter pounders for £3. We’ll have to gracefully skip over the argument that it’s meat that’s too cheap for now.
We all know why these plant-based products aren’t competing on price. It’s because, for the most part, they can’t – beef has been around for centuries, and for decades as a cheap commodity. By comparison, the vegan meat market is infantile and hasn’t yet scaled in the same way. Even Beyond Meat, one of the most popular vegan brands in the UK and widely used by restaurants, is diminutive in the grand scheme of things.
That’s beginning to change, and it is no more apparent than at Neat Burger, which, fresh from announcing 30 new restaurants in London, is trialling a £1.99 vegan burger. They launch today (1 November). The Lewis Hamilton-backed vegan restaurant chain claims it is the “world’s cheapest”. This isn’t strictly true – visit Ready Burger in north London and you’ll find one for the same price.
The point is, vegan burgers are finally starting to come down in price, which means thousands more people will try them. Neat Burger, if not quite the first, is quickly becoming mainstream. It has Britain’s greatest ever Formula 1 star to thank in part but also rapid expansion and clear plans to launch outside London.
It’s been years since vegan burgers were a field mushroom in a bap, or a claggy bean burger covered in sweet chilli sauce. We all know about these plant-based meats, whether made with pea protein or soy, fungus grown underground or fermented vegetables extracted from Willy Wonka-like jars. Tastes are starting to rival their meat counterparts (at least in fast food settings if not wedges of steak hache, peppered with bone marrow and blasts of rendered fat). When I first tasted Neat Burger, I commented it tasted a lot like a McDonald's – tangy, salty, soft, moreish. That was two years ago. We’ve progressed since. There are so many acceptable places to grab a plant-based hangover cure.
The Neat Burger’s price point is a statement of intent and it lessens the typical “vegan food is too expensive” excuse. It may not be the 99p cheeseburger but it’s getting closer. And it’s a whole 50p cheaper than McDonald’s McPlant, which came out last month. Both use Beyond Meat, by the way, though I would say McDonald’s has the better plant-based cheese.
I will never stop eating meat. I love it too much. I don’t believe I’ll live to see an artificial steak grown in a lab or cultivated in a scientist’s LED-lit lair that will replicate a piece of cow. Maybe one day, if humans exist that long. I am, however, a fan of regenerative agriculture and I’m one of those boring people who repeats the point that we should all eat better quality meat, but less of it. If I had a family and not very much money I’d probably punch myself in the face.
I do think, though, fast food is where we can make the most gains, because while I don’t think an actual vegan steak is close to coming to fruition, and being sold en masse, vegan burgers are. Cover Beyond Meat or some other textured plant-based protein in enough vegan cheese and oil-based sauce and the difference between it and real meat is minute.
I don’t know what would happen if we swapped half the McDonald’s cheeseburgers consumed for vegan ones. Maybe the whole world would combust. It’s worth a try, though. It won’t save the world by any stretch, but it might help save the environment. For that to happen we need cheap options. And they’re finally here.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/vegan-food-more-affordable-lewis-hamilton-neat-burger-1277082
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