I thought this was an interesting article. As has been mentioned a lot here, many of the supermarkets and chains are jumping on the vegan bandwagon.
But their profits are often higher on vegan items. Put bluntly, it can be a lot cheaper to make a vegan burger than a animal one - but they charge a similar price for both.
I'm not sure how I feel about this - from an animal welfare point of view any decrease in meat consumption is good, but are they seeing vegans as a market to be exploited? If the cost of vegan food was lower would more people switch?
Yes vegans and also gluten free shoppers are exploited and the foods can be expensive. Maybe it’s because they won’t be bulk buying vegan products so the price reflects that and the space it’s taking up on the shelf but I think if you truly want to be vegan (and what veganism stands for) you would hopefully find a way of doing it that you can afford as lentils and vegetables aren’t that expensive. It is annoying how anything with vegan on increases the price. Maybe that’s the next battle!
There was no real suprise in the report, I think most of us feel exploited. I have to be GF as well, as i always bring up that Tesco sell a small jar of GF peanut butter for £4.50 - now how did they arrive at that figure - its simply outrageous.
I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place - I want the vegan industry to thrive so from that point of view feel i should buy the products, but on the other hand they really are not healthy and are too expensive, so as much as possible I make everything from scratch, its not always possible, but with planning and two freezers its much easier 😊
I do think that some companies exploit vegans and some maybe not. For example I had a lovely meal out in November last year at the Harvester - Jamaican Katsu Curry and I'm pretty sure from memory that it didn't cost any more and the Vegan choices are improving all the time.
I do think the Vegan cheese is expensive as when you think of it you can get a huge block of cheese for say £3.50 and the Vegan cheese is around £2.29 and it's a tiny block in comparison. Also, I think Vegans tend to think more about their environment and what they are eating i.e. since I've become Vegan I'm looking more and more into Organic foods which are so much more expensive yet the growers could do so much more i.e. not use the awful pesticides and there are natural products you can put on the ground to ward off insects etc.
Fortunately I don't have to worry about gluten free but in answer to Kitten-whiskers below I have found this link:
99% of the time I make my own nut butter and much prefer the taste and it's very easy to make although you do have to have a fairly good food processor, I have the Cuisinart FP8U Easy Prep Pro Food Processor which I am more than happy with and it's doing well making nut butters and the raw fruit bars I make.
All in all I am spending more since becoming a Vegan but know that I'll never turn back.
I love Katsu curry, thanks for the tip about the harvester, I'll have to try it
Regarding the price of main meals, I think the point isn't necessarily that they are more expensive, but that they are not significantly less - which they perhaps should be given that the ingredients cost loss. But it is complicated as some of the costs are things like staff and buildings which are fixed regardless of the food.
I suspect that vegan cheese costs more because the market is much smaller right now so the economics of scale haven't kicked in.
Hopefully that will change. Great that you are making your own nut butters.
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