> Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers.

I don't know man. I'm a health conscious person and I could just as easily choose normal chicken meat, or a beef steak that's not a hamburger, or fatty fish (omega-3!!). Why would I choose a hamburger substitute? I don't even particularly crave hamburgers.

I took a look at the ingredients list of the Dutch version, and it seems to be okay when it comes to amount of industrial fillers. It seems the preservative (potassium lactate) is the only problem, everything else seems acceptable. So I guess it's not that bad, but I still don't still really have a reason to choose it.

On days when I don't particularly want to eat a lot of meat, I just eat more rice, vegetables and beans. It's not that hard?

I think the OP is right: their niche seemed to be people who crave something like a hamburger or at least real meat while having an ideological opposition against meat and enough money.