A customer picks up a factory-based meat package from Impossible Burger during the product launch at Impossible Foods Inc. grocery store at Gelson’s Markets in Los Angeles, California, USA, on Friday, September 20, 2019
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Impossible Foods is slashing suggested US supermarket prices by 20%, bringing it closer to achieving price parity with the meat it is trying to replace.
The recommended retail prices for Impossible meatless burgers are now $ 5.49 for hamburgers and $ 6.99 for a 12-ounce package. Price cuts make alternatives to meat cheaper than ever, but consumers will still pay more than twice as much for Impossible Burger, based on the US Department of Agriculture’s national beef retail report for the week ended in February 4th.
Outside the United States, double-digit price cuts for Impossible products are also being implemented in supermarkets.
This marks the first time that a privately held start-up has reduced its retail prices, but the third time last year that the company offers permanent discounts on products. Restaurant distributors received price cuts in 2020 and again in January.
Last year, the number of supermarkets selling Impossible Foods meat substitutes increased 113 times. It is also in a test of 47 locations at Costco Wholesale, which could result in even more retail stores selling its products.
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a new interest in meat substitutes, as more consumers turned to supermarkets for their food supply and Covid-19 outbreaks in refrigerators have resulted in some stocks of meat products.
“Our plan was not to move so fast in retail last year until Covid arrived,” said President Dennis Woodside in an interview.
Impossible’s production capacity has increased sixfold since 2019, helping to meet all of this new demand. Woodside said the company’s manufacturing has become more efficient as it operates its production lines more frequently and adds more shifts to the schedule. He also said that as Impossible Foods grows, so do its suppliers.
“They can pass the savings on to us,” he said.
Rival Beyond Meat has also been working to reduce its prices as more competition enters the market. Last summer, she sold frozen packages worth of her meatless hamburgers. Beyond’s shares rose 61% last year, giving the company a market value of $ 11.1 billion.
In addition to facing competition from other companies selling realistic meat alternatives, Impossible and Beyond may soon face price pressure from cell-based meat manufacturers. Future Meat Technologies, an Israeli company, said on Monday that it had reduced the cost of producing a grown chicken breast to $ 7.50. Singapore is so far the only country to approve the sale of laboratory-grown meat after granting permission to Eat Just in December.
“Ultimately, we are all competing against the 1 trillion pound industry, which is the current animal protein industry,” said Woodside.