I used to get these at Walmart, but all of my local locations suddenly stopped selling this entire brand. I’ve checked every store local to me, including Food Lion and Target, and I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Does anyone know where to get these? If not, any recommendations for a substitution that I might like? Thanks!!
by ssl0th
28 Comments
I hope they didn’t go out of business. It’s been my go to for years. My local food lion carries it so idk why yours doesn’t.
Where do you live? I was at ShopRite yesterday and saw a bunch of them
I love these specific ones. They’re less “beefy” flavored than other brands. If you have a Walmart Neighborhood Market, check there. I can still find them at Publix but my Walmarts have seriously cut back on the amount of plant based meat products they sell, which is a shame! I’m a vegetarian for ethical reasons primarily, not because I hated chicken nuggets. They better not take my beyond nuggets or I’m going to have to completely rethink my strategy to lunch. 😬😂
The whole brand got a revamp. The products are slightly different and the packaging looks different (black instead of white and photos are different) and the price went up (used to be $8.99 for a bag and now it’s $12.99 where I live though this could be related to tarriffs idk)
My grocery story stopped carrying it for a couple weeks but then it all came back, in the new packaging. Your local stores might have cleared out the old stock and now waiting for it to come back. You can try emailing the store manager to ask if they plan on carrying it again.
My local Walmart still shows it as in stock on the app. Maybe they had low sales in your area and decided to remove? You can talk to a local grocery store about requesting stock. Not sure if Walmart would do that.
You can get through amazon if there is no other option.
I got some the other day but I have notices a huge cutback on many vegetarian items at Walmart and Food Lion. I have to go to Publix or Harris Teeter most of the time.
You can use their store finder to find some near you: https://www.gardein.com/where-to-buy
Used to buy these all the time.. The branding changed so did the pricing and a bit on the taste…wasn’t the same.. Sad
I was sad to see this brand start to be phased out, but have been picking up Textured Vegetable Protein at Bulk Barn (in Canada, unsure about where to get it outside of that sorry) and it’s been great! Really shelf stable and easy to cook. I usually boil double the amount of vegetable broth with a tsp of veggie bouillon in a pan and then add TVP and cook to my liking (So if using 1/2 cup of TVP, I use 1 cup of broth).
I tend to add spices depending on what kind of dish I’m going for, but honestly it’s been a great replacement for the be’f crumble.
Walmart redid their entire selection of frozen vegetarian products about two months ago. Clearanced out a lot of stuff, I stocked up cause it was like $2 a package. Now the frozen veggie section is a ghost of it former self and I swear they kept the most expensive things that most vegetarians never buy and got rid of the common stuff that were more affordable.
Morning star probably has something like this
Seeing a lot of posts about the enshitification of this product. I’m not sure what you use them for, OP, but I recently made taco “meat” with just walnuts, mushrooms, and some seasonings. It was a rousing success and enjoyed by my vegetarian family members, my meat-eating relatives, and my boyfriend’s “steak and potatoes” parents. I would think it could easily be seasoned differently and may scratch that itch while also being less processed.
I hope that if they come back, you still enjoy them and that they are reasonably priced! Seeing more and more alternatives to meat has really been a driver for my boyfriend and I to comfortably become vegetarians while still enjoying most everything we used to without the guilt or extra contribution to the destruction of the planet plus we get the added health benefits.
This is unrelated but I wanted to say that after I became a vegetarian, I had my urine checked for sodium to compare from just before the change. My sodium levels dropped from the American average to the low end of a very healthy amount. My nephrologist was floored and said he’d never seen such an improvement. I just wanted to say that somewhere too. 😅
I bought them at Walmart this weekend.
They might go away. However, they may also be cycling them out in favor of the rebranded items and have a temporary gap in stock.
I feel like these are pretty similar to much cheaper TVP. If you have a store nearby with a full Bob’s Red Mill display, they’re usually stocked. Soak the TVP in boiling hot bouillon and cook on the stovetop as you would crumbles or ground meat, plenty of seasoning and heat.
Just in case you hadn’t tried it yet, I’ve always found them consistently in the Whole Foods near me but I’m in New York.
If you can’t find it, Thee Burger Dude has a tofu ground beef recipe.
https://theeburgerdude.com/tofu-ground-beef/
Wegmans carries this in the northeast, but it sounds like that won’t help you, OP.
When yves left, I switched to tvp and it works great
if you’re real desperate/have the space you can order in bulk from the webstraunt store
bef always cracks me up
Have you tried the morning star brand? Thats my go to and my Walmart carries them more consistently than gardein products
Not the same brand but — If you live near a grocery outlet, they have 1lb frozen bags of Quorn (plant based ground meat) on sale for $1.99 a bag. I bought 5 lol. I’ll probably go back tomorrow to get more.
Fred Meyer in my area still has all the original Gardein products including this and my favorite the mandarin orange chickn. Right now they’re 5.49 and a dollar off of you buy 5 or more products included in the dollar off deal. So they do still exist! I’m in Washington State so that’s probably not helpful.
If you roadtrip to Texas, bring a cooler and stock up. It’s at HEB here.
My Food Lion still has them, but Walmart definitely doesn’t. These are the ones that I use in my spaghetti. I did notice that they were getting low when I grabbed them yesterday so I hope they stay!!
I noticed Walmarts near me cut down on the number of veggie meat options. They removed all Daring products which I’m salty about.
stop and shop and they’re on sale
I just bought this the other day at my local Kroger