> I don’t know who the market for it is

People who think their is a demographic for only binary choices when it comes to diet it seems; I'm convinced the SV bubble thinking applies here. I highly recommend the series 'What you will eat next' [0] wherein they actually visit and prepare the meats, to their satisfaction.

But honestly I grew up eating tofu (it's delicious when prepared correctly as it will take the flavour of anything you make) and if you think using small amounts of animal protein (pork in this case) alongside with tofu to make Mapo Tofu isn't a better solution than these absurdly wasteful proposed solutions: I'm talking about you.

The degree they go to over-complicate and recreate a poor solution that we've been using for 10,000+ years (Agriculture) but have only recently fucked up--conventional chemical, and feed lot, factory based farming--is the epitome of clutching at straws to find a solution to a problem.

People bemoan things like Bitcoins POW energy intensity when plant based meats have probably have a larger carbon footprint than that and they were started around the same time simply because of the need for so many inputs and the likely chance they are derived from those very same sources the decry.

In short, I think renewable Ag is quite honestly the most effective solution to climate change and restoring balance to the damage we have collectively done the Earth by a significant margin--but by no means should be the only one--because of the scale and scope of it's immense size: it's the largest Industry, the FOREX is only larger because it includes commodity trading from Ag and currency exchange from within it.

Food education is perhaps the most vital thing we can do when trying to confront this solution with any sanity, something I think is entirely lost when what is required comes up because it's so visceral: we've spent most of our time as a species just trying to have enough calories to survive, we've gone to war for salt to preserve what little food we had so it's an expected response. But if we do not make progress in this domain and create solutions I sincerely think it will lead to the dystopia we've heard from water wars (the more serious issue in my view).

> Who buys this? People that don’t like meat but want to feel good about eating junk food that’s vegan and is a poor imitation of it?

Sadly, yes, I cooked professionally and my career took me to kitchens in the US and in Europe (alongside my horticulture apprenticeship in Biodynamic Ag) and I even spent time at a renown Vegetarian and Vegan restaurant in the US, and the lengths we went to make 'hamburgers' or 'crab cakes' that were kind of like them but not really was absurd! The amount of oils and other inputs you need for this to be even remotely resemble the texture of the real thing is so absurd, they act as binders or fillers to satiate what is otherwise a starving person.

There isn't enough time to discuss this topic in it's entirety, but yes... this was my conclusion and while I've worked in more acclaimed and busier kitchens since then I was outright shocked at was at best misguided idealism, or more often, outright blatant self-righteous ignorance from the end consumer: and this was from someone who dedicated a significant portion of my adult life to finding viable ways to lower meat consumption add increase vegetable consumption.

Everything changed when one of regulars had a stroke in the dining room one day during service and I simply could not participate in the operation any longer--a cause I'd later find out after I left was unrelated as he was an older professor from the nearby university but he ate most of his meals at our restaurant for years. He and an older couple (who ordered the same meal everyday) came for dinner service 5-6 days a week at the same time.

I think this is simply chemical corps doing the VC model of diversifying their portfolio to fund things that may have a slight chance at playing a part in the inevitable decoupling from this model. They're flush with cash from subsidies, bailouts, corporate welfare and have the media channels and access to influencers: so what are a few billions in R/D that are using their pre-existing reagents, proteins or binders if they can shoe-horn their products into fastfood chains and tell everyone they are saving the World doing it?

If they're successful they'll make their margins competitive from IP after creating the demand and make it up over a few years (decades?) with 'strategic' dividends as leaders in the newly established plant-based meat Industry.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbyoZ2KetYo