Your IKEA catalog doesn't have as many photos as you think.Follow

In the summer of 2004, IKEA decided to change the way they produced their product images. They made the first tentative moves toward CG rendered, rather than photographic, images. “We made 8 or 10 quite bad product visualisations by today’s standards,” says Martin, “but it sparked something and we continued to work at it. In the fall of 2006 we first showed a product in the catalogue. The first CG piece of furniture was a chair called “Bertil”.
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Today, around 75% of all IKEA’s product images are CG, and they have a ‘bank’ of about 25,000 model
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The first entire room image to be created in CG for one of IKEA’s catalogues was in 2010. “There were a LOT of people involved in that image,” says Martin. “As you can imagine, the first time you do something, everyone wants to have a look! But then the catalogue after that had four or five images and it really took off.”
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Now, about 35% of all of IKEA Communication’s non-product images are also fully CG (i.e not photographic composites).

Depends on which parts, the edible parts are still cheaper than cows given the use of them in various "beef" products

Well, obviously I meant horse meat. They're not converting Kentucky Derby winners into Swedish meatballs.

Dunno though. I suspect that when horse meet ends out in beef products, it's more likely to be an accident or one off event rather than some insidious cost saving measure.

And once again, I'll express my surprise that people shop at IKEA, much less actually eat food there. That always just struck me as strange.

But start selling rabbits in the grocer's freezer and people start to lose their minds.

Heard about it, then went "meh" it's horse meat, who cares? Then I remembered people are weird, and it all made sense.

Also, also, IKEA is for cheap stuff your kids are just going to destroy anyway.