Beyond Meat is good but too expensive
The grocery market closest to my home has started selling Beyond Meat burgers. When I saw it on sale for $1 less than its usual retail price ($5.99 vs $6.99) I decided to give it a try.
Let me start by saying I enjoyed the taste and the experience of cooking a Beyond Meat burger. Having said that I think anyone who regularly eats beef burgers will easily identify this as not a beef burger. Nonetheless it was much closer to that experience than any other veggie burger I’ve ever eaten. And I have eaten a lot of Boca and Garden burgers. A “Beyond Meat Burger” is not going to be mistaken for a real beef burger but it is good enough in its own right to be used in place of a beef burger.
The main problem is the price. When I picked up the package it felt less heavy than I expected. That’s because it contained only 1/2 pound of pretend meat (two 1/4 pound patties) and I was expecting a full pound. At the suggested price that is $14/pound. Even at the sale price it is $12/pound. Both of which are much higher than typical ground beef in the San Jose, California area where I live. The price needs to become much closer to the $4/pound price of cheap commercial ground beef bought in “max packs”. Even $8/lb (rather than $12) would greatly increase its adoption where I live.