I swear there used to be so much more premade things like desserts, frozen meals and so on. Over the years the amount lessened but the past few months have been particularly bad.
I am currently unemployed (waiting on police vetting to be able to start) and theoretically homeless (I crash on people’s floors) and I absolutely obviously cannot cook. I’ve lost housing recently but now that I don’t have it the loss is very blatant and hard.
I avoid eating stuff which may make me need to use a bathroom because accessing one can be hard depending on the time of the day and sometimes they’re broken, no toilet paper and so on. Raw stuff sadly agitated my stomach.
I don’t get why the premade vegan stuff has been disappearing. I remember seeing people other than me buying it all the time. More often than not it’s been sold out. Why did they choose not to reorder? Or discontinue? I don’t know which it is. A few years back Aldi had some really AMAZING vegan pizzas and then they disappeared after customers kept buying them out. This is so weird to me. I also haven’t seen any vegan premade non frozen stuff and I used to always see at least one wrap per store. :(
The businesses that make products are facing high interest rates world wide and aren’t able to continue production so they shut down and stop selling. Products are created by taking out a lot of debt to cover capital costs like manufacturing, advertising and payroll and when you start to make sales you can pay off the debt and start to stack the marginal profits going forward. Most business still use debt to meet payroll obligations though, since the owners take out money from the business as profits on recurring basis and that is an easy margin for a business owner to skim.
Since businesses operate this way and debt became far more expensive all of a sudden the profit margins of producing these things has evaporated and while the products would probably pay enough to keep workers employed if it were designed as some kind of cooperative, it isn’t making enough money to also enrich the capitalist class who demand recurring returns from that same labor in increasing amounts. In the EU the squeeze is higher than in the US because the war with Russia has essentially also driven up energy and raw material input costs. Since the US is an energy producer, reduced reliance on Russian gas means that the EU will buy gas and oil from the US and its allies using US currency which subsidizes the US economy.
The vegan food market was doomed to fail the moment it was created because of the mode of production we are forced to live under. Had these businesses been worker cooperatives and business was regulated for common good instead of private profit they’d probably still be around.
That makes sense. :(
yeah I’m sorry to be a bummer and that you are experiencing this kind of uncertainty and difficulty.
You’re not a bummer at all! I love knowing and you gifted me the gift of knowledge. :)
I don’t know how the situation is EU-wide, but in Germany I do not see a vast reduction. Maybe I am fortunate and Mainstream enough when it comes to dietary choices, who knows.
Basing my comment solely on observations from Germany
there used to be so much more premade things like desserts, frozen meals and so on.
If we are only talking about the pure quantity produced, this is increasing year on year.
I don’t get why the premade vegan stuff has been disappearing.
We are still in a phase in which a lot is being tried out, refined and discarded
More often than not it’s been sold out. Why did they choose not to reorder? Or discontinue? I don’t know which it is.
There is no single reason.
Space on the food retail shelf is limited, and even if the vegan product sells well, it may be replaced by an even better-selling ( non-vegan or vegan) product.
Demand is just one factor, and it remains unbroken. However, the market is still relatively small and competitive, which is why new developments are constantly appearing that may not last long. This is actually advantageous for vegans, because the mass of consumers is now large enough that new developments are worthwhile and we can expect (and already have on the shelves) ever nicer products due to this refinement process.
Example: I know of two German supermarket chains (Penny and Rewe) that have removed vegan pizza from their range, but are planning to introduce new pizza products (changed recipe, different production, different marketing) to put themselves ahead of the competition again.
