15% is not a small price reduction in the world of food products. It’s, however, the slash that Impossible Foods has decided to apply to its foodservice distributors. The startup was known for having higher prices than its main competitor Beyond Meat (which aims to have “at least one product” at price parity before 2024) and both are still more expensive than “conventional” meat. With this price reduction, the startup intends to recuse both gaps and to make the transition from meat to plant-based alternatives easier.
Why does it matter?
More than one conclusion can be made of the announcement, here are a few possibilities:
- After one year of “war” to get either Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat in QSR (fast-foods), big and small chains may get weary to pay more and make less margin on burgers made from these plant-based alternatives patties
- If it’s not the restaurants that want to make more margin, it can also be that clients are finding the prices of such burgers a bit too high for their taste
- Simple competition between two big players (Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat) with pockets deep enough to lower their prices and try to beat each other and avoid new competition. Indeed, as we have seen here, new private label players are getting into foodservice with attractive pricing.
We will see in a couple of months how this price reduction will adjust on the consumer price of the products in foodservice and that will tell us which of these explanations (if not a combination) was the right one.
