How much more expensive is eating plant-based?

I hear all the time from non-vegans and vegans alike that eating plant-based is more expensive. While there is certainly some truth to this statement, what are they referring to in particular? Eating out? Groceries? Everything?

In some ways, the statement is wrong, but mostly it is context-dependent. For instance, you could eat rice, beans, and tofu for pretty cheap. However I think what people are usually referring to are the plant-based alternatives/substitutes/replacements.

Looking at Beef & Cheese Against Their Substitutes

Price is hard because grocery stores can have their own brands of things that they charge less for but also depends on the region and also there are sales for products all the time.

• The prices I have are for Harris Teeter in Northern Virginia.

In terms of cheese, you are paying about anywhere from 3/4 to two dollars more.

• Violife Cheddar: $5.39 / 8 oz
  • Harris Teeter
• Harris Teeter: $3.49 / 8oz
  • Harris Teeter
• Kraft Cheddar: $4.69 / 8 oz
  • Harris Teeter
• Tillamook: $5.69 / 8 oz
  • Harris Teeter

In terms of Beyond Beef, you are paying half a dollar more for one less serving.

• This results in 41% more cost / oz, but only 22% more cost / g Protein.
  • Plant-Based Ground Beef is most like 85% lean Ground Beef, but can only compare to 80/20 because Harris Teeter sells that
    • Impossible and Beyond: How healthy are these meatless burgers?
  • Beyond Beef: $6.99 / 12 oz (.58/oz) or $6.99 / 63g Protein (.11/g Protein)
    • Harris Teeter
  • 80/20 Ground Beef: $6.49 / 16 oz (.41/oz) or $6.49 / 76g Protein (.09/g Protein)
    • Harris Teeter
  • Wagyu Ground Beef: $10.99 / 16 oz
    • Harris Teeter
    • What is the point of ground wagyu beef? on Reddit

They’re more expensive than the cheaper non-name brand stuff, but they’re not the most expensive option available!

• Plant-based companies want to be price competitive because they know that is how they will make more sales.
• This means that plant-based in cost-competitive but not at the lower ends of food product offerings.

Percentages definitely sound scary, but if you look at the actual values it’s not really all that bad.

• If we did 16 oz at .58/oz Beyond would be $9.28, which would be $2.79 more than the animal-based beef.
  • For a single person/couple, this honestly isn’t too bad, but it would certainly quickly add up for someone feeding a family.

How can we justify this cost increase?

• Each serving is more healthy, better for the environment, and less cruel.
• You’re paying for small portions in a way (bulk is cheaper and who needs that much meat).
• You are paying for a more premium product?

What happens if we take into account the externalities into the price? Then the picture becomes quite different.

• There are a large number of impacts caused by animal agriculture/factory farming, but of them the one that is mostly easily measurable is environmental impact.
  • Animal Welfare, Human Impact, Health
• We can calculate for environmental impact.
  • Wren
    • Individual Carbon Offset: $25/tonne
    • Carbon Removal: $400/tonne

If you buy Violife instead of Kraft, you offset 6.28kg of CO2 emissions. You could offset that for 16 cents or remove it from the atmosphere for $2.51.

• Cheese Carbon Footprint

If you buy Beyond Beef instead of Ground Beef, you offset 62kg of CO2 emissions. Via Wren, you could offset that for $1.55. You could remove it from the atmosphere for $24.80.

• Beef Carbon Footprint
• There is still a carbon impact of the production of Beyond Meat which is not accounted for.
  • Beyond Meat | Our Impact “90% less GHG”

For the cheaper option if you just do a carbon offset and technically still be under the plant-based alternative, but carbon offsets don’t always do what we want.

• 3 Reasons Why Forest Carbon Offsets Don’t Always Work

If you took into account the carbon removal then it just becomes cheaper to buy the plant-based alternative. And no extra work or transactions required on your part to help the environment!

Restaurants

This is a very small sample size, but I am not trying to cherry pick.

Comparing across restaurants is kind of a bad idea

• Like Monster Vegan doesn’t really have an analogue as an all vegan New American ish establishment
• Pricing is a quality/branding thing that has lots of variation because of target markets
• We should compare taco places of similar ish caliber

Comparing within the same restaurant’s menu helps reduce variation/control variables

• Especially with places that offer plant-based or animal-based options of the same thing

Pizza Plus (Philadelphia, PA)

• $1-2 more for a vegan version of their pizza offering

Triangle Tavern (Philadelphia, PA)

• $0-1 more for a vegan version of their wings, caesar salad, pizza, sandwich

Ballston Local (Arlington, VA)

• +$5 for impossible burger is preposterous

While it sucks that there is a surcharge for the kinder option, I do think that we should do it within reasonable bounds.

Why do restaurants charge more for plant-based options?

• Plant-based stuff is usually more expensive and sometimes not offered in bulk. Or you’re at the mercy of whatever distributor you are with, and maybe you don’t want to/can’t work with another distributor that have more/better plant-based options.
• Pricing can be because less people order it so they need to make up for the cost on a lower number of sales.
  • This means that as adoption increases prices should decrease but of course prices rarely decrease.
  • Prices could increase slower though.

This could change, but we don’t really know.

• Non-Dairy Alternative Surcharge Class Action
  • This could have ripple effect across industries or cause them to just not carry it anymore.