I agree with you for the most part but a pound of ground beef for under 4 bucks?! Where I live it’s rarely less than $8 lb, but definitely a high cost area. Even chicken is usually more than $6 per lb now.
Even a damn tomato or onion is more than a dollar these days and bell peppers are $2 each!
It’s only really fair to compare when you consider the price at OPs store.
Myself, I’m looking at the cost of the burger patties and I know that in my region the price of 1 lb of ground beef relative to this convenient product would be 1/3rd
Yes, but also this isn’t strictly a case of “convenience food makes price go up.” OP is making veggie burgers, not beef burgers, so you really should be comparing “Gardein pre-packaged veggie patties” to “black beans + brown rice + bell pepper + onion + mushroom + eggs + chili powder + cumin + bread crumbs etc” that you’ll mash into your version of a DIY veggie patty. The pre-packaged ones will still probably be more expensive, but at least you’ll be comparing apples to apples.
Yes, it “is” a case of convenience foods make the price go up.
Obviously I was not comparing apples to apples because I chose beef as the comparison which is vastly more expensive than the constituent ingredients of the prepackaged food.
I can make those burgers myself for about 1 to 2 dollars of the veggie/legume/rice ingredients so let’s get real here.