When All Hell Broke Loose At Hell Pizza...

Shoshin

The Ministry for Primary Industries is investigating Hell Pizza's fake meat "burger" pizza.

Hell left a bad taste in many mouths after revealing it had secretly used plant-based Beyond Meat burger patties on one of its pizzas last month.

Hell's decision not to alert customers to its use of the plant-based product was met with mixed reactions.

Some people were outraged at having been duped while many were concerned about the potential implications of ingesting Beyond Meat ingredients when they thought they were eating beef.

...........

Consumer behaviour expert Professor Malcolm Wright said the growing trend towards sustainably-produced foods may have contributed to that indifference.

Wright, from Massey University's School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, said reactions to the company's stunt would have been influenced by two factors.

"The first is the idea that the product has been adulterated or standards have dropped and you would expect people to react negatively to that," he said.

"But the other dimension is around sustainability, the environment and issues with eating meat. What Hell have done in this case could be seen as innovative and positive and pro-environmental."

MPI launches investigation into Hell's covert use of fake meat

Hell Pizza has over the years been involved in controversy, when they first opened up, some religious groups boycotting their shops because of its name ....and now it would seem, it's the turn of carnivore groups...Ah...the things some people do...

person

I've somewhat recently tried the beyond burger and the impossible burger. The beyond burger was meh and the impossible burger was pretty good, very meat like. Though it was $3 more for a single patty vs a regular burger double.

In general I think using faux meat as an ingredient substitute in larger dishes is a good idea and the products are sufficiently good enough to not really notice the difference, such as on a pizza.

I'm not really sure where I stand on Hell's stunt though, I have my own mixed reactions. I like the idea of people who think they need to have meat eating it and not even noticing the difference and I don't like giving people something they haven't consented to. It is possible that someone may have allergies to something in the impossible meat or that they medically need to eat meat.

I read comments from people that say even if faux meat or lab grown meat was indistinguishable in taste and price identical to real meat they would still choose the real stuff and it makes no sense to me.

Jeffrey

As a humorous response or thought it reminded me of the Chris Farley comedic sketch where he goes nuts about being duped with decaf coffee or the like:

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/schillervision-hidden-camera/n10139

My second thought is why is plant based meat expensive?

person

@Jeffrey said:
My second thought is why is plant based meat expensive?

Its about the quality. There are plenty of less expensive varieties, but a lot of tech goes into making the impossible "meat".