The vegan meat market is booming. As consumer attitudes change, supermarkets, fast-food chains, pubs, restaurants, and even fish and chip shops are jumping on the vegan wagon. But there seems to be a catch that comes with eating vegan meat products — especially if you buy them straight from the store — in many instances, they’re more expensive.

It’s a fact that cannot (and should not) be ignored, but is it one that is going to change anytime soon? Many think it is. According to Liz Specht Ph.D., a senior scientist at the Good Food Institute (GFI), price parity with vegan meat and its animal-based counterpart is just around the corner.

“Industrial animal agriculture has been operating and optimizing at a global scale for decades,” she explained in a post on GFI’s website. “Yet it is still inherently more efficient to make meat directly from plants rather than feeding our crops to animals and then eating a part of the animal.” She added, “It’s all but inevitable that the plant-based meat industry will eventually be cost-competitive with conventional meat.”

Why is Vegan Meat Currently More Expensive?

According to Specht, vegan meat is currently more expensive for a number of reasons. It’s partly due to the fact that brands are operating in a “free market.” They must maximize their profit, and this means charging consumers more.

“Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are currently producing as much as they can and are still unable to meet demand,” writes Specht. “There is no reason for them to charge less than consumers will pay at this time — moving down the supply/demand curve would not allow them to sell more products.”

She continues, “Lowering prices would just lower their revenue, which would, in turn, hurt their ability to scale and meet demand.”

Another reason is that while the vegan meat market is growing at a rapid rate, currently, it remains small. This means that brands have a harder time negotiating prices for their ingredients — such as soybeans or peas. The market is also currently at a place where it lacks the same infrastructure as animal agriculture. “The current scale of plant-based meat companies also limits their manufacturing facility design, equipment, and other technologies,” notes Specht.

“Even the largest plant-based meat production facilities look like boutique operations compared to the scale of manufacturing facilities for conventional meat products and other common food products,” she adds.