No but like seriously, why are vegan and vegetarian options always MORE expensive at restaurants. Whenever I cook my self, the meat is BY FAR the most expensive part of any meal. Meanwhile stuff like soy strips are DIRT CHEAP, not to mention they last basically forever!
The canteen I go to for lunch actually sells the meatless meals for 2/3 of the price, always a taunting reminder. Like hell yea, that’s how ya convert me!
As generally used, “overhead” doesn’t address the topic with a degree of granularity that takes the difficulty of preparation into account. It simply means the operating expenses associated with the business - wages, facilities and utilities are by far the three largest aspects, raw materials, consumables and related equipment costs are (depending on the industry) anywhere from a minor line item to little more than a rounding error. This is true for essentially every industry you care to name (I actually can’t think of an exception. Maybe NFTs or some related crypto nonsense? Though even those famously have to factor in utilities).
TL;GTTP: The type of food you’re preparing matters comically less than where your restaurant is located and the size of your staff.
Yea I get that, and my question is, why is the vegan or even just vegetarian option at the same restaurant more expensive? And like up to 50% more so? I’d argue it doesn’t take any longer to make a meatless dish, nor does it require any unique equipment/procedure. The only logical explanation I can see, is if you intentionally use some super expensive replacement lab meat or demand is soo low that the allocated storage would be better served with something more popular, at which point why even sell it? Prep is basically non-existant compared to meat, so extraordinary work can’t be it. The only realistic things I can think of is a lack of demand. Hmmm, in the context of America that seems a lot more likely actually…