So I shop around to get some bits and pieces for a good home made meal, and I notice some items say, a pack of vegan burgers, these are more expensive than regular burgers!
I’m not a vegan but I’m curious as to why these items are priced as such, it’s a bit of a pain for people who can only eat gluten free food as those items are priced high too. The bread we get for me grandpapa is pricey for what you get.
Is it different production methods that make it pricey? You’d think with healthier, easier to get ingredients would be cheaper than producing regular non vegan items.
Lower volume of sales makes the niche supply lines more expensive to maintain
Less competition means more premium prices until a competitor gets attracted to the market
As a long time vegetarian this is exactly what I noticed in the last years. 15 years ago it was almost impossible to get good vegetarian products in the supermarket. I’m talking about something like a vegetable spread, tofu sausages weren’t a thing. Over the years there were more and more competitors and now the spreads are cheap (cheap as in fucking expensive like everything else).
This was also true for Tofu etc. It started with super niche ecological brands, now there are cheap no name products available. This is what will finally also happen to the fancy burger patties that are on the market for some years now.
But you can be sure everyone in the chain will make their margin on the way except for you.
Edit: Beware US citizen, I am speaking for my home country which is Germany.
There’s probably also a lot of r&d that still needs to be earned back as opposed to the meat industry which has streamlined everything.