Review: Another Tasty but Imperfect Meat Alternative

Prime Roots deli-style meat alternatives are made of koji, the fungi that make soy sauce delicious.

Sales of meat alternatives dropped between 2021 and 2023, according to the Good Food Institute. A big problem is price. The closer companies get to mimicking meat, the more obvious the stubbornly high premium becomes. Prime Roots hopes to escape this trap with their alternatives to deli turkey, ham, and salami, since sandwich fillings already command relatively high prices.

Prime Roots products are made of koji, the fungi that make soy sauce delicious. Koji is eerily fast-growing, which means a smaller carbon footprint, if you care about that sort of thing. The deli meats are tasty, though not perfect copies of their animal counterparts. Their flavors are actually a little amped up in a way that is pleasing in a sandwich, though possibly overwhelming in more unadulterated presentations.

Prime Roots isn't available everywhere, but quite a few New York delis carry it. If you can make it there, I hear you can make it anywhere.

Comments

[MasterThief]

"Tasty."
Doubt it. I've tried plenty of vegan substitutes and even lab grown meat. Most are inedible and only a few vaguely resemble actual meat.

[mad.casual]

I actually go forage around for fungus... that tastes like fungus... and consume it as such. Morels, chantrelles, truffles... as both an avid consumer of meat and an avid consumer of fungus, the idea sounds stupid.

The fact that they press it into the shape of a ham when even baloney, head cheese, spam, etc. doesn't (necessarily) look like that is... interesting.

[Don’t get eliminated]

No.

[mad.casual]

Sales of meat alternatives dropped between 2021 and 2023, according to the Good Food Institute. A big problem is price.

I blame The Jones Act.

[Cyto]

Where is the rest of the article?

"I tried the salami and it was...."

"Premium honey ham costs x per pound, while the fungus costs Y. More generic honey ham can be found even cheaper at Z and still tastes..."

"They don't have analogs of meats like..."
"The nutritional value is netter/worse.."
"The texture is comparable in cuts like.... but was significantly different in ....."

[mad.casual]

It's so good/successful they have to keep their advertising costs down.

I've never heard of the product before. Knowing what I know about plant biology and other fungus as food, my off the cuff guess to the "nutritional value" question is "Worse. Less sustainable of human life than crickets worse."

[Cyto]

Is this just an interesting "look what I found at my local deli" article... or is this a paid placement? It feels very thin for an authentic "we felt this was important to cover" treatment.

[SIV]

I have a vague memory of when reason, and a wide variety of "libertarian-adjacent" sites/persons, used near identical language, to tout Shake Shack stock on the eve of their IPO.

[SIV]

What does reason receive in exchange for endorsing ersatz animal products?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

They just want to live out their weird science fiction fantasy.

[AT]

They're softening you up for the bugs.

[SIV]

I was working near Fayetteville, NC and staying in a Hindu hotel with complimentary breakfast that, in addition to the thin rubbery gray sausage patties, had an excellent vegetarian/vegan alternative that tasted like spicy falafel that perfectly imitated real sausage in texture and appearance.

[Paul Sand]

"Prime Roots isn't available everywhere,..."
"They never come up into the hills!"

[Rick James]

Sales of meat alternatives dropped between 2021 and 2023, according to the Good Food Institute. A big problem is price. The closer companies get to mimicking meat, the more obvious the stubbornly high premium becomes.

That's because the energy inputs to "alternative meat" are bigger than just growing a fucking cow.

[mad.casual]

A la stripper = sex worker; a mushroom pressed into the shape of a pressed ham isn't exactly a "meat alternative" the way a cell culture pressed into the shape of a ham is a "meat alternative". The former product can and will absolutely grow faster and cheaper, but efficiency vs. efficacy will be nowhere near as nutritious for humans, as a cow (or even a judicious combination of plant products) and generally fail to compete with its "unprocessed" precursor.

The dates are interesting. I noted during the pandemic that, when beef and bacon and even toilet paper were sparse on the shelves, meat alternatives were fully-stocked. The fact that sales dropped after 2021 (when several restaurants and grocery stores bailed on the 'Beyond' brand), must have something to do with the falling crime rate and nothing to do with the fact that the only way you can generally get people to eat more veggie meat is to fire them from their jobs, lock them in their homes, and issue them stipends for rations.

[AT]

Why tout it as a "meat alternative" in the first place? Why call them "animal counterparts?" Why put in the effort to try and shape it like meat? Are lettuce and tomato "animal counterparts?" Is bread? No. They're vegetables and grains. They are decidedly not meat.

You know you're not selling meat. You know nobody's fooled by the fact that it's not meat. You openly admit that you're looking for something that's NOT meat. Why all the double-talk?

Why not just say, "Have a fungus sandwich at twice the price, it's the same stuff that makes soy sauce, you might like it?"

[Eeyore]

I think if you think eating animals is wrong then eating food shaped like food made from animals should also be wrong. It's a slippery slope. Next thing you know you are back to eating meat.

[Eeyore]

I know they are trying to make it sound more appetizing by calling it a fungus, because it technically is a fungus. It is also a mold, not quite as appetizing sounding.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's a mold which has been molded into the shape of a molded fungus.

[GroundTruth]

Very interesting.

You go first.

[Use the Schwartz]

"Cheese is a kind of meat
A tasty yellow beef
I milk it from my teat
But I try to be discreet.."

A marketing rule is that when you are very, very, very, very, late to an existing market you must be in lower in price, and equal or better than the competition.

Otherwise you are doomed.

[mad.casual]

A marketing rule is that when you are very, very, very, very, late to an existing market you must be in lower in price, and equal or better than the competition.

The marketing guy that told it like it is/was to us green lab-types fresh out of school in a biotech startup; "First, best, cheapest. If you aren't at least two of the three, someone else (your competition) is."

[Harry Jones]

If it's good they don't have to pretend and form it into things that look like their "evil" meat.