How can we reduce the cost of plant-based meats, fish, eggs, and dairy?
Plant-based products exist to offer consumers an easy way to get the tastes and textures they know and like, but still reduce their consumption of animal products.
But even when the plant-based products do meet consumer expectations, cost is still a factor. While some people may be willing to pay significantly more for a plant-based meat analogue (people who are vegan for example), the whole hypothesis behind offering plant-based alternatives is they are meant to influence behavior of people who are not strongly motivated to alter their diet. This means the products must have similar, or even a lower cost than the animal product they are meant to replace. In other words, cost matters.
Through our Food System Research Fund, FSI has contracted with Intelligent Analytics and Modeling (IAMECON) to empirically investigate the cost structure of plant-based meat and develop an enhanced understanding of the way the industry is likely to evolve, as well as the potential barriers and innovations required in order to achieve cost parity (or near cost-parity) with animal-based meat. These insights can then be used in discussions about public policy relevant to alternative protein.