I always wondered who their demographic was. The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). Health-conscious folks would take one look at the ingredient list and bail because of the heavy processing and industrial fillers. You've got bodybuilders and athletes skipping it because it lacks the micronutrient density and bioavailability of real animal protein. Everyday folks aren't exactly lining up to pay a "green premium" for something that tastes almost like a burger but costs more and offers less. It feels like they built a product for a tiny, hyper-specific niche: people who desperately crave the experience of a fast-food patty but have an ideological dealbreaker with meat, while being well off enough that finances aren't carefully managed and loose enough in their convictions that a burger-joint is still ok. It always seemed like an odd propsition to me, even if cool in some ways.
Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste.
Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty. So from a health conscious point of view, it's a decent substitute.
Then there are the people who just want to reduce their meat consumption overall. Maybe they're not vegan or vegetarian, but they're trying to watch their saturated fat intake, or reduce their carbon impact, or they suffer from gout and are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat to ease that.
Sometimes you just want to go out with your friends for a burger, and the Beyond patty can make a better substitute than a black bean or mushroom patty that used to be common.
And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it, it usually costs the same as a beef patty; it just provides another option, for the days I want to skip meat. I have, for a long time, done a low meat diet; I don't avoid it entirely, but I try not to eat it at every meal. It provides a nice alternative for that.
Is it a bit of a niche market? Sure. But, not every product needs to be for everyone.
> lacks the [...] bioavailability of real animal protein
I never understood this argument: what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction?
I'm not rushing to demand IV tylenol because its oral bioavailability is only 80%-90%, which is around the "loss" we're talking for plant vs animal protein on average. And the ultraprocessing should improve plant's profile here.
> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver
Why not? I think there's a false conflation of veganism and health food (and gluten-free, though that's not relevant in this discussion). I love burgers, and fried chicken, and crappy chicken nuggets, but I don't want more animals to have to suffer for my sake than is necessary. I disagree on how hyper-specific that niche is.
IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
> IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
This is the real problem. Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now. $38 billion dollars in the US each year to subsidize meat and dairy, but only $17 million goes to fruit and vegetable farmers. It's completely backwards, especially considering the climate impact on meat and dairy farming.
>Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now
Source? That seems implausibly high.
Using your $38B/year subsidy figure gets us $112/year in subsidies per American. There's no way you can get $30 unsubsidized price from that unless you think the average American only eats beef once a week.
Im calling BS on the $30-$40 a pound beef because ive raised my own cows for personal consumption and even if I paid myself $20 an hour for every second I spent with my cows, and assumed my alfalfa field usage could produce an expensive cash crop without fertilizer, and completely ignored the opportunity loss of only caring for 1-2 cows instead of 30+, that is still a cost WAY above what my beef costs.
I believe it. Every summer we buy goat or lamb imported from Australia/New Zealand. It's usually less than $15/lb. Those two countries barely provide any subsidies for their farmers, and the meat is cheaper than my local farmers, even with their strict biosecurity regulations.
Without taking a side, you've skipped every step past the field here. Transportation, butchering, packaging, and grocery store shelves, with profit margins, health / sanitation checks, and shrinkage at every step
We do things at industrial scale because that saves money. If a local butcher could pay a relatively tiny amount for direct cow shipping, save multiple steps, and sell the meat for 60% of the grocery store price, they'd instantly be booming with business.
Don't forget the massive costs of lobbying governments to weaken regulations and reduce inspections and also the costs of bribing meat inspectors, and the legal expenses and lawyer fees required to defend themselves from lawsuits surrounding their illegal activities, then also the millions in fines they have to pay to settle lawsuits about their bribing of meat inspectors or colluding to drive wages down or whatever other illegal thing they got caught doing. You can bet all those costs increase the prices we pay.
not sure where the GP lives but in Canada even beef raised for personal consumption needs to meet most of those things you've listed, aside from grocery-related, and as someone who's bought directly from the producer (with 3rd party butchering) the price is not substantially lower than retail; scale likely makes up for a lot of the commercial supply chain costs.
Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. I'm paying $34/kg for direct-to-consumer beef in Australia, a country with some of the lowest agricultural subsidies in the world, including delivery and at a premium markup, during a time that beef prices have hit a historical high due to processor capacity, and I'm getting prime cuts and roasts too, not just mince.
The key difference between the old vegans and the new vegans is hiding in plain sight. It's the Internet. It used to be that vegans went to vegan restaurants and had their own particular tradition of vegan cookery. People didn't just become vegan in isolation like they do today. The acculturated vegans still exist and I think that's who gp is referring to in that statement. The Internet vegans are different but they aren't that numerous — few people even today would make such a change in their life based on something they read online.
Despite being a vegetarian and former vegan, this is not me wading into this debate to defend the figure provided by the OP of the original comment, but this is usually the source for the statistic AFAIK: https://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavi...
Regardless, it goes without saying (from other, more well-sourced research) that the disparity of subsidies and government assistance provided to industries that ultimately exist to produce meat compared to industries that produce fruit/vegetables is fucking absurd.
I'm struggling to understand the point you're trying to make well enough to know how to respond, other than to say vegan cooking traditions continue to exist and existed before the internet (though there were fewer vegans at the time)
People did indeed become vegan in isolation before the internet, just as they do today.
What exactly is the distinction you're trying to draw between "old vegans" and "new vegans", and how do you see it pertaining to this conversation (especially under a comment pointing out that plant-based burgers struggle to compete with traditional beef because of beef subsidies)?
Yeah, I generally think people make adult diet choices on their own.
People regularly cut out meat, alcohol, sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, fats, etc. based on things they’ve read, moral considerations, medical recommendations, and personal health observations, not because they’ve joined a community that eschews such things.
Based on my bubble, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters that do want to decrease their meat consumption.
At this point, in Germany at least, discounter brands like Lidl and Aldi have beaten Beyond Meat at their game though. They produce alternatives that taste as good or better, for significantly less money.
Yeah, I never understood what Beyond's core innovation was. Impossible had that whole synthetic heme thing going on. Beyond seemed almost like opportunistic mimicry. But Impossible turned out to be pretty expensive IIRC.
Beyond was available well before Impossible was. I used a combination of Beyond and Boca as my primary substitutes for ground beef, until Impossible came along, and now I use almost exclusively Impossible.
I don't feel like they have a niche anymore, but there was a time I considered them my top choice, before impossible dethroned them.
In my opinion as a mostly-vegetarian who used to adore burgers as a kid, the Impossible brand was by far the most realistic (and my beef-loving partner would agree, they made stroganoff with it and loved it)... but the price truly is ridiculous at this point. It started out just barely justifiable, and it's simply too high now.
I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
Aldi in Germany might be very different for all I know, but I've been vegan or vegetarian my entire adult life and I think every burger alternative besides Beyond/Impossible is quite awful, though I usually don't eat meat alternatives in the first place.
My vegetarian friends can now go to a restaurant (or better example yet, any event space like sports event or theme park, since having a veggie burger is pretty easy to check a box and satisfy dietary restrictions) and get any of the burger offerings on the menu with a beyond patty. Before that, the vegetarian option of only resort was often much more depressing and unsubstantial.
Reading this somewhat reminds me how the Gluten Free trend led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac.
Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option.
It is the latter. For a few of them they swear off impossible and tolerate beyond or vice versa. And of course some restaurants with their own bean burger formulations are sometimes whiffs but also other times completely blow any fake meat option out of the water.
i actually miss black bean burgers being more common. now it seems like all you can find are beyond/impossible burgers at restaurants. i don't mind em once or twice a year but they knock me out more than melatonin so i usually avoid them.
There's no reason ethical vegans wouldn't go for ultra-processed foods. Beyond Meat just isn't a great option, it's expensive and not good enough to justify it. The selling point for them seems to be that they taste more like meat than most meat substitutes but as someone who has been vegan for a while that doesn't matter to me (unless I'm trying to match a non-vegan recipe). I get Morningstar Farms products vastly more often than Beyond Meat ones. Beyond and Impossible are maybe like my 4th and 5th most bought meat imitation brands and it's not like those other brands are less salty or processed. Idk why I only ever hear non-vegans mention Beyond and Impossible.
I'm like technically the exact demographic they should be chasing. Plant based eater who loves the taste of meat and just stopped eating it for ethical reasons. But like, I'm not gonna eat a heavily processed food often for the reasons stated above, and also it's just not great nutritionally compared to Seitan, which also actually just tasted better when prepared right. And it also doesn't stack up compared to high protein / extra firm tofu, which is incredible for cooking when frozen and then defrosted and cooked. And also made of soybeans, one of the cheapest food commodities in the world. So why would I pay 2x or 3x the amount of money for a drastically inferior product? Just when I want an exact burger replica, and once you are plant based for 3 or more years, you just don't really crave that anymore except as maybe a guilty pleasure once or twice a year.
So like, sure it's fine, but it is already in a tough competition with other plant based foods.
I haven’t done a comparison of Beyond vs seitan for their nutritional value, but as someone who used to eat a lot more seitan I gleefully moved over to Beyond/Impossible. Seitan is packed full of gluten, which is much harder to digest. Seitan makes me uncomfortably bloated whereas Beyond/Impossible do not. And no, I don’t have a gluten “intolerance” or Celiac.
Beyond Meat aren't unique, there are dozens of brands offering the same product. Tens of millions of people eat these type of products. Any (or most) burger-serving restaurant in Europe will have a Beyond Meat or equivalent on the menu. They're not always advertised as vegan (because of preparation and extras) but these fake burgers are very popular, for many reasons.
That's a really good point. Maybe in part because Beyond had a highly visible IPO they became the poster child for the success or failure of meat alternatives but in reality their story is pretty much just their own story.
At the time it was a unique product. My alternatives reminded me more of basically black-bean patties than beef. Then impossible meat did it better, industry decided there was money in this direction, and now there’s “or equivalent” everywhere.
In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
being an ethical vegan does not mean you like the taste of plants (or, at least, that you don't miss the taste of meat). I'm veg and very much miss having access to meat.
I'm an occasional buyer of their product, but the issue for me is just the versatility. It's really only a replacement for the most generic ways to prepare a burger/sausage. The moment you try to use the ground beef in, say, a chili recipe, it's a totally mis-matched flavor
There’s plenty of vegetarians due to ethical or cultural reasons that never acquired the taste for traditional plant based foods and are looking for a more substantial, protein heavy alternative.
Is it niche? Yes, but vegetarians were always niche.
While the late 2010s fixated on “protein” and “macros” - allowing products like Beyond or Soylent to shine.
Much of the health discourse around the 2020s has focused on quality of the ingredients and “processed foods”. So naturally Beyond is caught on the crossfire.
Is there a future where this stuff is proven to be better for you in the short and long term? I sure hope so. But there’s way too many unknowns right now and it’s expensive to boot.
I guess for people like me. I eat meat, and I eat burgers. I can't speak for Beyond Meat, but when at restaurants, the Impossible Burger often tastes better than the real beef (likely because the former is pre-seasoned).
There are plenty of meat eaters who want to eat these as a way to cut down their meat consumption. They don't want to become vegetarians, though.
I feel like fast food is a pretty big market for stuff like this. Burger King in New Zealand has had plant based alternatives to the whopper and chicken burger on the menu for > 1 year now so it must be doing ok. I'm not even vegetarian and I get them sometimes, they're pretty good (especially the chicken one - they changed the recipe a while ago and it's now practically indistinguishable from the real chicken option, although that probably says more about their standard chicken than it does about the meat free option).
There's no premium for the plant based versions I don't think (or if there is it's small enough that I never noticed), and I think you're underestimating how many vegans/vegetarians still want junk food.
I actually like Beyond Meat patties, but I eat maybe a half-dozen "fake meat" burgers per year - that's not going to sustain a competitor when Americans eat an average of 3 beef burgers per week.
Thats the thing... Really really good vegetarian and vegan food tastes amazing and is filling. And unless you're intentionally picking around for meat or meat products, you're not going to notice.
A lot of Indian/Brahmin food is exactly that. Its insanely delicious.
And we have Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat(is that the name?). Both instead of going "vegetarian done well is superb" went to "sorry its a sad reminder of a hamburger". And thats a problem. Nobody wants to be reminded that this is $10/lb and real hamburger is $5/lb.
Ive also had problems with other 'meat substitues'. They're almost always plasticy or fake tasting, or chemically off.
Whereas my tofu saag is delicious. And no meet or cheese needed... Although my favorite is saag paneer (cheese). I stay away from the fake-almost-but-not-quite foods.
That's too bad. I don't expect fake-meats to be healthy, or cheap, but I like that they can be made without killing animals and without raising them in inhumane conditions.
I had really hoped that people would say, "Well, if it tastes close enough, then how about I go for the cruelty-free version." And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
Perhaps the cognitive dissonance is just too much. The world would be a better place if we ate less meat, even if we don't eliminate it entirely. But to acknowledge the cruelty by avoiding it sometimes means facing it when you do choose animal protein.
Maybe it's just me, but beyond has never tasted close to the original. Impossible does.
The fact that it doesn't taste close to the original and that it commands a price premium is why I ultimately gave up on it. Where I might use beyond, I can usually get a healthier option using ground turkey instead with a much more agreeable flavor and price.
But really, I've just focused on making more meatless dishes in general. Highlighting the flavor of legumes and mushrooms beats trying to fake the flavor of beef.
Impossible definitely has more of a "dead cow funk" taste to it. Which is why I actually prefer Beyond Meat, because it tastes better without "that taste".
I think it actually is "Beyond" meat, in that sense.
The issue I have is I can definitely taste ingredients and they don't really jive with me. Like, the pea and beat flavors come out pretty strongly to me and gives the patties a sort of funky smell.
IMO, this is a much better tasting burger that doesn't try to fake beef flavor (Not vegan) [1]
But at a much higher price? The value is not really there IMO.
From their performance it seems like the intersection of (cares about animals | methane emissions) & doesn't mind health effects & less price sensitive & must eat hamburger-likes is too small.
Interesting point on cognitive dissonance though. I think it's possible to draw a rational tradeoff between acceptable amount of (externalised) cruelty and personal benefits of eating meat - no cognitive dissonance needed.
Are you saying that opting for a beyond burger patty instead of a beef patty is going to "poison and destroy" your health? That's a bit of a stretch no? Are they really any worse for you than a regular burger from a fast food joint or something?
I disagree with the idea that it's "not the moment for plant-based meat". Beyond Meat has a fantastic product that does very well in lots of markets. The problem is that Beyond Meat the company was valued as some sort of once in a generation radical reimagining of the way we eat. Beyond Meat's product is not going to change the world, it's just a good product.
If Beyond Meat had grown organically, instead of raising hundreds of millions of dollars, it would be a great company doing great things today. Instead, it has failed to live up to the unrealistic expectations that were set for it. Beyond Meat is no different than any of the other zirpicorns.
Yup, the product is fine, but there's a reason all the other brands in the freezer aisle aren't raising hundreds of millions of dollars at 100x multiples. Burgers don't scale like smartphone apps.
Here's a comparison - Tyson Foods, best known for their frozen meat, had a revenue of $54.44 billion last year. Their current market cap is $21.77 billion.
Beyond Meat reported an annual revenue of $87.9 million in their 2018 S-1, and post-IPO reached a peak market cap of $14.1 billion.
I think that 'real product' (as opposed to software) companies would actually benefit more from raising capital from equity instead of 'bootstrapping', because of the taxes on retained earnings, which have a disproportionate impact on capital-intensive business. That said, I agree that the P/E multiple on Impossible and Beyond were best described by the descriptors in their respective names...
I know that there's a lot of reasons for this, but at least in my area, the Beyond Meat products are considerably more expensive than actual animal meat.
I'm sure that's due to depressing subsidies or economies of scale, but regardless of the reason it's kind of hard for me to justify buying something that will taste like a "not-quite-as-good-as-the-thing-half-the-price" burger.
They are pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's just something that I have trouble purchasing.
You know, I am actually having trouble substantiating that.
I was just parroting what I heard but doing a search I found a bunch of posts claiming that subsidies don’t actually affect the price that much, and I cannot find a primary source for the $30/pound figure I have always heard.
The way the market has moved away from valuing "just a good product" (and, by extension, "just a good service", "just a good business", and "just a good employee") is one of the factors destroying life as the developed world has known it for 80 years.
I guess I think of the investors as more representative of "The Market" than the traditional entities (producers, consumers) - which is the whole problem.
I have the opposite reaction. Beyond Meat is not a good product. It tastes gross.
It's not as good as the meat it's comparing itself against, and it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store, and it's more expensive than either.
Anytime can "be the moment" for plant-based meat if the product technology was there, but it's not.
> it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store
I've tried the beyond burgers, they were alright taste wise, but yeah there's many other options for a protein source.
Beyond Meat was never going to convince people to eat less meat by substituting it for fake burgers and steaks. For people that already eat vegetarian there already tastier sources of protein. Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility with how you can incorporate them into dishes than a fake slab of "meat."
> more expensive than either.
This is a political problem. In the US animal agriculture receives far more funding than plant-based protein. Without government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would cost closer to $30-$40. We've historically defined food security int he US as "meat and dairy," two of the things we really need to consume less of because of environmental impacts.
But yeah, Beyond Meat wasn't going to get us there. We need real political changes, not fake meat.
I disagree, I enjoy beyond and impossible beef and their sausage. I'll often (though not always) opt for it while out because I think it tastes close enough to the real deal and doesn't have the ethical concerns of real meat. I am not vegetarian or vegan, though I do sympathize with their point of view. If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
I feel this way as well. There was a moment in time several years ago where I would see the alt-meat burgers in restaurants and so I would order them from time-to-time because they tasted fine and it didn't kill a cow. Now I hardly see it available, or, if I do, it costs extra.
> If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
Bean burgers are actually delicious depending on the brand and how you dress them up. It doesn't taste like a smash burger, but if you get a brand that grills up nice and crispy and pair it with a nice spicy mayo, it's legitimately a good burger.
Also, don't sleep on the humble Boca burger which has existed for decades. It's not as good looking as Beyond Beef but I would argue it's better tasting.
> Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility
With that flexibility comes inconvenience. With fake meat burgers or sausages I just have to whack the oven on and boil some veg to go alongside. That's family dinner. With lentils I have to s
think more about how to make it tasty for everyone.
I’m ~97% vegetarian but there are a few foods for which traditional vegetarian alternatives are rubbish. One of these is the burger: you either get some odd veg/potato base pattie, a large grilled mushroom, or halloumi. The meat substitute burgers aren’t close to real beef burgers, but they’re far tastier than other vegetarian options.
This is where beyond is doing so well because their burgers really are a lot closer to the real thing.
They're a lot better than a crappy low quality beef burger even, like a McDonald's patty. Not quite as good as a real steakhouse burger, but kinda in between. There's another brand that's about as good, impossible burger. Probably a bit better even but I've never tried them side by side.
The soy and potato varieties yes they're way worse than even McDonald's. They're not even trying to simulate a real burger, just the idea of 'some fried gunk on a bun'. But yeah no.
+1 Burger King has the impossible whopper and it's definitely better than the McDo smash patties (big mac, mcdouble, cheeseburger etc). Obviously different restaurants, so not really making the comparison at the store, but speaking to the levels of conparison.
I can think of reasons they would need to diversify or collapse that relate to regulatory capture of the FDA by the current U.S. administration. Better some business that maintains continuity through hostile times than to collapse and see their future evaporate.
As a vegetarian that regularly uses plant-based substitutes: I'm super reluctant to believe a market for a product like Beyond ever existed. Between Beyond and Impossible they've got this weird chimera market, especially the latter, with their too-realistic product. If meaters cared they'd switch, there wasn't really a whole lot of fence sitting I don't think—not in reality. I think people were pretty well committed. I also think the sympathetic market of vegetarians and vegans didn't find the premise of these too-realistic products especially thrilling. And I don't think that's a huge market in the first place, at least not in a large portion of the US.
Then you factor in the costs and it's Beyond insanity.
And frankly I don't know if Beyond was doing anything legitimately novel. Impossible was over-engineering their burger to the extent that I wouldn't eat one from any restaurant because I couldn't tell whether it was be'f or beef. Beyond just seemed to be nu-gardein which I'll grant you—it's a Monsanto subsidiary—but the product is palettable, consistent, and available almost universally and has been as long as I've been on the diet, 12 years.
100%, a product can't be just good and succeed now. Market's expect something to be "the next thing" or become a failure.
Also, price is always going to be an issue. The US spends billions and billions of dollars supporting the meat industry. The fact meat is cheap is a political choice, which makes direct plant based substitutes a tough financial proposition.
Maybe it wasn't cooked properly? I think they're delicious too. And they taste pretty genuine to me (I do eat meat too).
The first time I ordered one I honestly thought they got the order wrong and gave me a real burger.
Even the texture inside, a little but redder and more rough really felt like a fresh ground beef burger.
Impossible are really good too, I've had both and to be honest I have trouble remembering which was which but I enjoyed them both. I wish they were easier to get here.
High-protein everything is riding the wave of GLP-1 popularity right now. Doctors are begging people on that class of drugs to chase protein targets more similar to what might have previously been reserved for heavy weightlifters just to prevent muscle wasting.
As a result, the entire packaged food industry is pumping up protein numbers and marketing it as the primary attribute of the food (where they might have previously marketed low fat or low sugar or whatever else in the past).
So, saturated market... but certainly one people are investing in now.
I hear the most ironic stuff on glp from the people I know on it. So doctor is obviously a reasonable person with an interest in making people healthy, not trying to set up glp addicts, and are encouraging better diet and increased exercise while eventually tapering and getting them off the glp entirely as the final end goal.
The whole time they are telling me this I can't help but wonder what the hell is the point of the glp1 here? You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow. So its like there is no point. Might as well just rip the bandaid off, diet and exercise, get there 6 months slower, while not taking the glp. Like wouldn't you want to actually increase muscle mass while burning fat?
I lost weight the regular way. You don't understand how much will I expend to not continuously eat. The strategy I deploy: I never have ready-to-eat anything home, I cook everything just before I eat it, I chose ingredients based on their satiety index, I always have something to drink. I fast 5 days every year to 'reset' my grahlin levels (it still hurts, even if it's way less than it used to). I'm still at 26 BMI, so overweight (from 33 to 28 in 3 years, from 28 to 26 in 5).
I have a very good support system. Not to brag, but my parents are amazing, my family have a small amounts of doctors who helped me getting through it at first. My siblings are great too, and my SO support me despite my quirks. I love sailing, which is a great way to loose weight. And I'm a SWE, the easiest job there is when you're not bad at it, that makes good money without real responsibilities or stress. It was still fucking hard. If glp1 can help people less lucky than me, let them have it.
Costco and similar do have them at a decent price, currently see them 20$ for 10. I think most people just look at the 2 packs, which are more expensive.
A protein soda pop, as they're pivoting to, sounds like a gross version of Coca Cola.
The protein bar could work. I personally don't like them, because most of them are just candy bars with added protein.
Meat substitutes (e.g. fake turkey made of tofu) are generally an inferior good, in both the economic sense and the sense of taste. It's not surprising to me that they don't work. Maybe if they're made much cheaper.
As a rare non-ideological vegetarian (I just really don't like the taste) you've got the market for this completely backwards. Beyond meat is for ideological vegetarians and vegans who like the taste. Non-ideological ones who would really prefer not to have a meat substitute.
At something like 6% of the world the market the population of ideological vegetarians and vegans is huge. With another handful of percent who are ideologically opposed to eating meat on certain days but not entirely vegetarian.
PS. Your claim that "most people are not ideologic with their food"... Not all food ideology is related to vegetarianism so it's not terribly relevant but I think this claim is just wrong. Islam + Hinduisim + Buddhism make up nearly half the world and all have pretty strong religious ideological beliefs about food, and a non-trivial fraction of the quarter of the world that is christian has at least a few scruples like avoiding meat during lent. And that's just people preaching religious beliefs not less documented ideologies like believing real men eat their steak raw or whatever.
> Beyond meat is for ideological vegetarians and vegans who like the taste.
I must be in bubble or have a very different definition of "idiological": of the dozens of vegans/vegetarians I know none would actively seek the "taste" of industrialized "ready-made" "meat replacement". They may put up with it if must be, but seek it? Desire it?
Obviously Americans have no qualms about artificial foods or "inferior" substitutes, but it has to be cheaper. Paying a premium price for something that's even a decent facsimile guarantees that the product will remain niche.
I also am disappointed there was no iteration or improvement of the product over time. There was clearly room to innovate or make it taste better - it feels like the product hit, there was some excitement about the novelty... and then they didn't capitalize on it by pushing new variations and updates.
We bought and tried their products several times only to find they were no different than a basic veggie burger or whatever. We couldn’t figure out what the hype was even about. And then I started reading about how their ingredient list wasn’t the healthiest.
Just seemed like just another weird Silicon Valley money bubble built on hype and vc cash instead of any kind of meaningful product differentiation.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s our genuine experience.
This is the moment, but they refuse to market the product in a way that is acceptable, (and adds affordability) to consumers.
If they would do a 55/45 beef/plant-based meat blend and burgers, I think adoption rate would pick up significantly. Anybody who questions the taste is going to see that beef is the main ingredient. If the product comes in significantly cheaper than beef alone, more consumers will try it and look to it as an affordable way of eating beef.
For the bigger picture, 65 cows will stretch as far as 100 cows previously did, lowering suffering, environmental damage, inputs, etc.
For the people who like the 55/45 blend, it would open the door to an 80/20 blend plant vs. beef, and a 100% plant-based product.
I'm not sure how well it would integrate into a cohesive unit. Veggie meat is pretty weird stuff in terms of cooking with it. It doesn't really want to form cohesive paddies. It is almost like feta cheese where there is a tendency for it to break down into smaller and smaller pieces the more you work it.
Also really hard to cook with imo compared to meat. Meat is nice to cook with from all the fat in there. It just renders out perfectly and also separates it from the pan. You get some nice carmelization, maillard reactions, all the nice stuff going on.
The fake meat is like a sponge for grease on the other hand. Nothing renders out. Stuff gets sucked in. It is like being on the opposite side of the osmosis reaction going on here. And boy do you need grease to cook with this stuff. Otherwise it just fuses to the pan like nothing, and again crumbles apart getting it off. It pretty much needs to be pan fried and soaks up a ton of grease after. You therefore can't trust nutrition guidelines because of the grease requirement to get anything out of this stuff. I bet if you air fried it, it would be absurdly dry.
I mean if we were really concerned with lowering animal suffering we would be changing farming practices. Factory farming is only saving a small amount of the cost of beef over more traditional style cattle farming.
Nothing against mixing beef with plants and the like, but there are far easier ways to improve the welfare of cattle that only costs pennies.
I never understood these engineered ultra processed meat imitation products, they are not healthy - period. There's already healthy and delicious cuisines that have developed over thousands of years (Indian, Nepalese, I'm sure many others). This desire to just recreate the SAD (standard American diet) with goo is beyond strange...
> I never understood these engineered ultra processed meat imitation products, they are not healthy - period.
People don't eat burgers for health reasons.
> There's already healthy and delicious cuisines that have developed over thousands of years (Indian, Nepalese, I'm sure many others).
Why eat ice cream when chicken is healthier?
You're comparing apples and oranges. Yes, there are plenty of delicious vegetarian foods, but you can't just substitute one for the other. If you're craving eggplants, replacing it with lentils will not satisfy you.
Is animal meat healthy? In small amounts (10% less caloric intake) disease correlation does not increase, but higher then 10%, disease rates see a direct correlatory increase.
The plant meats are healthier than the animal meats.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that. I think for them they want something that has the "utility" of a burger, as in here is some easy protein plus some sundry stuff packaged into a hand holdable unit that is pretty filling on its own and cost like $12 at a restaurant.
The reason is for a lot of them is that they become repulsed by the smell of meat after not eating it for a long time. So they would very much not want something that tastes like meat. They just want the function of the burger really. And to be fair there isn't a lot of good options otherwise for vegetarians that are truly comperable to a burger in terms of it as a product. Veggie lunch meat is even sadder state of affairs than the burger meat so sandwiches are out. Then you have bean burritos I guess, falafel wrap. All stuff that tends to be found solely in ethnic specific restaurants than democratized across the entire globe like the burger is, which you can probably find anywhere you find reliable electricity in 2026.
You can make thousands of absolutely delicious vegetable dishes. You can adapt another few thousands by replacing the meat with veggies. Why the obsession about ultraprocessed "meat substitutes"?
Low-protein Indian diets are not healthy. The food certainly tastes good, but let's be real, there's a reason heart disease and diabetes in the subcontinent are stratospheric.
Maybe I've missed it but I see a much more palatable market in "light" meats. It has great flavor and texture but it needs to be part of a composition even if it is just salt and pepper. I've seen really great tasting meatballs in the wild that had less than 4% meat in them, say 5% for lazy calculations. You can feed it to 20 people and get the same results as 19 vegetarians + one meat eater.
Some are so much into meat the vegetarian evangelism has about as much chance as trying to convince them cannibalism is the solution to all world problems.
If you sell them something cheap that tastes great and tell them it has meat in it there is no need for all that tiresome talking about saving the world on an empty stomach. They become easy to catch and kill.
I don't think it was ever the moment, even though there has always been a market for plant-based foods, the company assumed that market was far larger than it ever was or will be.
So true. All protein on the planet, was made from sunlight and photosynthesis. You can eat the animal that ate the plants, but then you lose out on tons of micronutrients and fiber.
Proprietary food.. that you can only buy from a single company are all doomed? Might I offer an example that, under some definitions, has not failed despite that strategy. The McRib.
I was going to offer the twinkie but I guess hostess declared bankruptcy, so maybe you're right.
It's not an unreasonable statement though that for the concept to work it has to "jellybean" though: many manufacturers, many variations, same basic product, ubiquitous availability.
Where it sits as a "premium" good doesn't really work as a value proposition.
Nevermind all of the specialty foods across the globe. Products made from basic ingredients and labeled to sell are everywhere. What exactly are you referring to?
I’m curious about how much money was taken out by insiders who must have known what their costs were internally and how little advancement was made on making the same product at a lower cost.
I always wondered who their demographic was. The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). Health-conscious folks would take one look at the ingredient list and bail because of the heavy processing and industrial fillers. You've got bodybuilders and athletes skipping it because it lacks the micronutrient density and bioavailability of real animal protein. Everyday folks aren't exactly lining up to pay a "green premium" for something that tastes almost like a burger but costs more and offers less. It feels like they built a product for a tiny, hyper-specific niche: people who desperately crave the experience of a fast-food patty but have an ideological dealbreaker with meat, while being well off enough that finances aren't carefully managed and loose enough in their convictions that a burger-joint is still ok. It always seemed like an odd propsition to me, even if cool in some ways.
This is such a weird comment.
Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste.
Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty. So from a health conscious point of view, it's a decent substitute.
Then there are the people who just want to reduce their meat consumption overall. Maybe they're not vegan or vegetarian, but they're trying to watch their saturated fat intake, or reduce their carbon impact, or they suffer from gout and are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat to ease that.
Sometimes you just want to go out with your friends for a burger, and the Beyond patty can make a better substitute than a black bean or mushroom patty that used to be common.
And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it, it usually costs the same as a beef patty; it just provides another option, for the days I want to skip meat. I have, for a long time, done a low meat diet; I don't avoid it entirely, but I try not to eat it at every meal. It provides a nice alternative for that.
Is it a bit of a niche market? Sure. But, not every product needs to be for everyone.
Nah, it definitely costs extra at restaurants.
> lacks the [...] bioavailability of real animal protein
I never understood this argument: what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction?
I'm not rushing to demand IV tylenol because its oral bioavailability is only 80%-90%, which is around the "loss" we're talking for plant vs animal protein on average. And the ultraprocessing should improve plant's profile here.
> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver
Why not? I think there's a false conflation of veganism and health food (and gluten-free, though that's not relevant in this discussion). I love burgers, and fried chicken, and crappy chicken nuggets, but I don't want more animals to have to suffer for my sake than is necessary. I disagree on how hyper-specific that niche is.
IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
> IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
This is the real problem. Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now. $38 billion dollars in the US each year to subsidize meat and dairy, but only $17 million goes to fruit and vegetable farmers. It's completely backwards, especially considering the climate impact on meat and dairy farming.
>Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now
Source? That seems implausibly high.
Using your $38B/year subsidy figure gets us $112/year in subsidies per American. There's no way you can get $30 unsubsidized price from that unless you think the average American only eats beef once a week.
Im calling BS on the $30-$40 a pound beef because ive raised my own cows for personal consumption and even if I paid myself $20 an hour for every second I spent with my cows, and assumed my alfalfa field usage could produce an expensive cash crop without fertilizer, and completely ignored the opportunity loss of only caring for 1-2 cows instead of 30+, that is still a cost WAY above what my beef costs.
I believe it. Every summer we buy goat or lamb imported from Australia/New Zealand. It's usually less than $15/lb. Those two countries barely provide any subsidies for their farmers, and the meat is cheaper than my local farmers, even with their strict biosecurity regulations.
Without taking a side, you've skipped every step past the field here. Transportation, butchering, packaging, and grocery store shelves, with profit margins, health / sanitation checks, and shrinkage at every step
We do things at industrial scale because that saves money. If a local butcher could pay a relatively tiny amount for direct cow shipping, save multiple steps, and sell the meat for 60% of the grocery store price, they'd instantly be booming with business.
Don't forget the massive costs of lobbying governments to weaken regulations and reduce inspections and also the costs of bribing meat inspectors, and the legal expenses and lawyer fees required to defend themselves from lawsuits surrounding their illegal activities, then also the millions in fines they have to pay to settle lawsuits about their bribing of meat inspectors or colluding to drive wages down or whatever other illegal thing they got caught doing. You can bet all those costs increase the prices we pay.
not sure where the GP lives but in Canada even beef raised for personal consumption needs to meet most of those things you've listed, aside from grocery-related, and as someone who's bought directly from the producer (with 3rd party butchering) the price is not substantially lower than retail; scale likely makes up for a lot of the commercial supply chain costs.
How much did your beef end up costing?
Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. I'm paying $34/kg for direct-to-consumer beef in Australia, a country with some of the lowest agricultural subsidies in the world, including delivery and at a premium markup, during a time that beef prices have hit a historical high due to processor capacity, and I'm getting prime cuts and roasts too, not just mince.
The key difference between the old vegans and the new vegans is hiding in plain sight. It's the Internet. It used to be that vegans went to vegan restaurants and had their own particular tradition of vegan cookery. People didn't just become vegan in isolation like they do today. The acculturated vegans still exist and I think that's who gp is referring to in that statement. The Internet vegans are different but they aren't that numerous — few people even today would make such a change in their life based on something they read online.
Despite being a vegetarian and former vegan, this is not me wading into this debate to defend the figure provided by the OP of the original comment, but this is usually the source for the statistic AFAIK: https://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavi...
Regardless, it goes without saying (from other, more well-sourced research) that the disparity of subsidies and government assistance provided to industries that ultimately exist to produce meat compared to industries that produce fruit/vegetables is fucking absurd.
I'm struggling to understand the point you're trying to make well enough to know how to respond, other than to say vegan cooking traditions continue to exist and existed before the internet (though there were fewer vegans at the time)
People did indeed become vegan in isolation before the internet, just as they do today.
What exactly is the distinction you're trying to draw between "old vegans" and "new vegans", and how do you see it pertaining to this conversation (especially under a comment pointing out that plant-based burgers struggle to compete with traditional beef because of beef subsidies)?
Yeah, I generally think people make adult diet choices on their own.
People regularly cut out meat, alcohol, sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, fats, etc. based on things they’ve read, moral considerations, medical recommendations, and personal health observations, not because they’ve joined a community that eschews such things.
Based on my bubble, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters that do want to decrease their meat consumption.
At this point, in Germany at least, discounter brands like Lidl and Aldi have beaten Beyond Meat at their game though. They produce alternatives that taste as good or better, for significantly less money.
Yeah, I never understood what Beyond's core innovation was. Impossible had that whole synthetic heme thing going on. Beyond seemed almost like opportunistic mimicry. But Impossible turned out to be pretty expensive IIRC.
Beyond was available well before Impossible was. I used a combination of Beyond and Boca as my primary substitutes for ground beef, until Impossible came along, and now I use almost exclusively Impossible.
I don't feel like they have a niche anymore, but there was a time I considered them my top choice, before impossible dethroned them.
In my opinion as a mostly-vegetarian who used to adore burgers as a kid, the Impossible brand was by far the most realistic (and my beef-loving partner would agree, they made stroganoff with it and loved it)... but the price truly is ridiculous at this point. It started out just barely justifiable, and it's simply too high now.
I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
Aldi in Germany might be very different for all I know, but I've been vegan or vegetarian my entire adult life and I think every burger alternative besides Beyond/Impossible is quite awful, though I usually don't eat meat alternatives in the first place.
My vegetarian friends can now go to a restaurant (or better example yet, any event space like sports event or theme park, since having a veggie burger is pretty easy to check a box and satisfy dietary restrictions) and get any of the burger offerings on the menu with a beyond patty. Before that, the vegetarian option of only resort was often much more depressing and unsubstantial.
Reading this somewhat reminds me how the Gluten Free trend led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac.
Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option.
The impression I’ve gotten is for the latter.
It is the latter. For a few of them they swear off impossible and tolerate beyond or vice versa. And of course some restaurants with their own bean burger formulations are sometimes whiffs but also other times completely blow any fake meat option out of the water.
i actually miss black bean burgers being more common. now it seems like all you can find are beyond/impossible burgers at restaurants. i don't mind em once or twice a year but they knock me out more than melatonin so i usually avoid them.
> but they knock me out more than melatonin
for a lot of people that could be a selling point
(not you, themselves!)
There's no reason ethical vegans wouldn't go for ultra-processed foods. Beyond Meat just isn't a great option, it's expensive and not good enough to justify it. The selling point for them seems to be that they taste more like meat than most meat substitutes but as someone who has been vegan for a while that doesn't matter to me (unless I'm trying to match a non-vegan recipe). I get Morningstar Farms products vastly more often than Beyond Meat ones. Beyond and Impossible are maybe like my 4th and 5th most bought meat imitation brands and it's not like those other brands are less salty or processed. Idk why I only ever hear non-vegans mention Beyond and Impossible.
I'm like technically the exact demographic they should be chasing. Plant based eater who loves the taste of meat and just stopped eating it for ethical reasons. But like, I'm not gonna eat a heavily processed food often for the reasons stated above, and also it's just not great nutritionally compared to Seitan, which also actually just tasted better when prepared right. And it also doesn't stack up compared to high protein / extra firm tofu, which is incredible for cooking when frozen and then defrosted and cooked. And also made of soybeans, one of the cheapest food commodities in the world. So why would I pay 2x or 3x the amount of money for a drastically inferior product? Just when I want an exact burger replica, and once you are plant based for 3 or more years, you just don't really crave that anymore except as maybe a guilty pleasure once or twice a year.
So like, sure it's fine, but it is already in a tough competition with other plant based foods.
I haven’t done a comparison of Beyond vs seitan for their nutritional value, but as someone who used to eat a lot more seitan I gleefully moved over to Beyond/Impossible. Seitan is packed full of gluten, which is much harder to digest. Seitan makes me uncomfortably bloated whereas Beyond/Impossible do not. And no, I don’t have a gluten “intolerance” or Celiac.
Personally I really fucking like meat but having done a couple of weeks in a slaughterhouse, I don't want to eat it. Gives me nightmares. Seriously.
This is a good filler product.
Beyond Meat aren't unique, there are dozens of brands offering the same product. Tens of millions of people eat these type of products. Any (or most) burger-serving restaurant in Europe will have a Beyond Meat or equivalent on the menu. They're not always advertised as vegan (because of preparation and extras) but these fake burgers are very popular, for many reasons.
That's a really good point. Maybe in part because Beyond had a highly visible IPO they became the poster child for the success or failure of meat alternatives but in reality their story is pretty much just their own story.
At the time it was a unique product. My alternatives reminded me more of basically black-bean patties than beef. Then impossible meat did it better, industry decided there was money in this direction, and now there’s “or equivalent” everywhere.
Fake?
In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
being an ethical vegan does not mean you like the taste of plants (or, at least, that you don't miss the taste of meat). I'm veg and very much miss having access to meat.
I'm an occasional buyer of their product, but the issue for me is just the versatility. It's really only a replacement for the most generic ways to prepare a burger/sausage. The moment you try to use the ground beef in, say, a chili recipe, it's a totally mis-matched flavor
There’s plenty of vegetarians due to ethical or cultural reasons that never acquired the taste for traditional plant based foods and are looking for a more substantial, protein heavy alternative.
Is it niche? Yes, but vegetarians were always niche.
While the late 2010s fixated on “protein” and “macros” - allowing products like Beyond or Soylent to shine.
Much of the health discourse around the 2020s has focused on quality of the ingredients and “processed foods”. So naturally Beyond is caught on the crossfire.
Is there a future where this stuff is proven to be better for you in the short and long term? I sure hope so. But there’s way too many unknowns right now and it’s expensive to boot.
I guess for people like me. I eat meat, and I eat burgers. I can't speak for Beyond Meat, but when at restaurants, the Impossible Burger often tastes better than the real beef (likely because the former is pre-seasoned).
There are plenty of meat eaters who want to eat these as a way to cut down their meat consumption. They don't want to become vegetarians, though.
I feel like fast food is a pretty big market for stuff like this. Burger King in New Zealand has had plant based alternatives to the whopper and chicken burger on the menu for > 1 year now so it must be doing ok. I'm not even vegetarian and I get them sometimes, they're pretty good (especially the chicken one - they changed the recipe a while ago and it's now practically indistinguishable from the real chicken option, although that probably says more about their standard chicken than it does about the meat free option).
There's no premium for the plant based versions I don't think (or if there is it's small enough that I never noticed), and I think you're underestimating how many vegans/vegetarians still want junk food.
>I always wondered who their demographic was.
Wealthy hippies, vegans, and yuppies.
I agree with this. As a veggie, the texture, taste, smell, color of meat grosses me out. I don't want not-meat that appears to be meat.
I want not-meat that is definitely not meat.
I actually like Beyond Meat patties, but I eat maybe a half-dozen "fake meat" burgers per year - that's not going to sustain a competitor when Americans eat an average of 3 beef burgers per week.
Thats the thing... Really really good vegetarian and vegan food tastes amazing and is filling. And unless you're intentionally picking around for meat or meat products, you're not going to notice.
A lot of Indian/Brahmin food is exactly that. Its insanely delicious.
And we have Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat(is that the name?). Both instead of going "vegetarian done well is superb" went to "sorry its a sad reminder of a hamburger". And thats a problem. Nobody wants to be reminded that this is $10/lb and real hamburger is $5/lb.
Ive also had problems with other 'meat substitues'. They're almost always plasticy or fake tasting, or chemically off.
Whereas my tofu saag is delicious. And no meet or cheese needed... Although my favorite is saag paneer (cheese). I stay away from the fake-almost-but-not-quite foods.
That's too bad. I don't expect fake-meats to be healthy, or cheap, but I like that they can be made without killing animals and without raising them in inhumane conditions.
I had really hoped that people would say, "Well, if it tastes close enough, then how about I go for the cruelty-free version." And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
Perhaps the cognitive dissonance is just too much. The world would be a better place if we ate less meat, even if we don't eliminate it entirely. But to acknowledge the cruelty by avoiding it sometimes means facing it when you do choose animal protein.
Maybe it's just me, but beyond has never tasted close to the original. Impossible does.
The fact that it doesn't taste close to the original and that it commands a price premium is why I ultimately gave up on it. Where I might use beyond, I can usually get a healthier option using ground turkey instead with a much more agreeable flavor and price.
But really, I've just focused on making more meatless dishes in general. Highlighting the flavor of legumes and mushrooms beats trying to fake the flavor of beef.
Impossible definitely has more of a "dead cow funk" taste to it. Which is why I actually prefer Beyond Meat, because it tastes better without "that taste".
I think it actually is "Beyond" meat, in that sense.
The issue I have is I can definitely taste ingredients and they don't really jive with me. Like, the pea and beat flavors come out pretty strongly to me and gives the patties a sort of funky smell.
IMO, this is a much better tasting burger that doesn't try to fake beef flavor (Not vegan) [1]
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-black-bean-burger-recip...
Not just you. To me Beyond tastes barely better than the classic fake meat products. Whereas I find impossible actually tastes good.
> as good as a fast-food hamburger
But at a much higher price? The value is not really there IMO.
From their performance it seems like the intersection of (cares about animals | methane emissions) & doesn't mind health effects & less price sensitive & must eat hamburger-likes is too small.
Interesting point on cognitive dissonance though. I think it's possible to draw a rational tradeoff between acceptable amount of (externalised) cruelty and personal benefits of eating meat - no cognitive dissonance needed.
I never found it close enough, and it's expensive, and it's bad for you. So no thanks.
>And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
It's not, though. Vegans that I know always proselytize about how "you can't even tell the difference" but I can tell the difference.
I don't understand the weird vegan obsession with eating fake food. Edible oil product "vegan cheese" and other junk.
If you want to eat meat, eat it. If you don't, don't. You do you, but don't try to sell me on disgusting fake food.
So you'd rather people poison and destroy their own health just so that animals would not need to be killed?
Imagine telling a parent "yeah, it's ok if your kid gets very ill and has chronic diseases, but hey, the chickens will live!"
Are you saying that opting for a beyond burger patty instead of a beef patty is going to "poison and destroy" your health? That's a bit of a stretch no? Are they really any worse for you than a regular burger from a fast food joint or something?
I bought shares after the IPO but sold them all after trying their patty and then forgetting the rest in the freezer for 6 months.
I disagree with the idea that it's "not the moment for plant-based meat". Beyond Meat has a fantastic product that does very well in lots of markets. The problem is that Beyond Meat the company was valued as some sort of once in a generation radical reimagining of the way we eat. Beyond Meat's product is not going to change the world, it's just a good product.
If Beyond Meat had grown organically, instead of raising hundreds of millions of dollars, it would be a great company doing great things today. Instead, it has failed to live up to the unrealistic expectations that were set for it. Beyond Meat is no different than any of the other zirpicorns.
Yup, the product is fine, but there's a reason all the other brands in the freezer aisle aren't raising hundreds of millions of dollars at 100x multiples. Burgers don't scale like smartphone apps.
Here's a comparison - Tyson Foods, best known for their frozen meat, had a revenue of $54.44 billion last year. Their current market cap is $21.77 billion.
Beyond Meat reported an annual revenue of $87.9 million in their 2018 S-1, and post-IPO reached a peak market cap of $14.1 billion.
See the issue with these numbers?
I was having trouble understanding the issue then I realized 87.9 MILLion with an M. Ok I see lol.
I think that 'real product' (as opposed to software) companies would actually benefit more from raising capital from equity instead of 'bootstrapping', because of the taxes on retained earnings, which have a disproportionate impact on capital-intensive business. That said, I agree that the P/E multiple on Impossible and Beyond were best described by the descriptors in their respective names...
I know that there's a lot of reasons for this, but at least in my area, the Beyond Meat products are considerably more expensive than actual animal meat.
I'm sure that's due to depressing subsidies or economies of scale, but regardless of the reason it's kind of hard for me to justify buying something that will taste like a "not-quite-as-good-as-the-thing-half-the-price" burger.
They are pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's just something that I have trouble purchasing.
> I'm sure that's due to depressing subsidies
Based on what data do you make such unsubstantiatable statements?
It’s not exactly a secret that farmers are highly subsidized and without it beef would be extremely expensive. Same in every country, pretty much.
You know, I am actually having trouble substantiating that.
I was just parroting what I heard but doing a search I found a bunch of posts claiming that subsidies don’t actually affect the price that much, and I cannot find a primary source for the $30/pound figure I have always heard.
The way the market has moved away from valuing "just a good product" (and, by extension, "just a good service", "just a good business", and "just a good employee") is one of the factors destroying life as the developed world has known it for 80 years.
the market didn't. The investors did
I guess I think of the investors as more representative of "The Market" than the traditional entities (producers, consumers) - which is the whole problem.
Investors are not part of the market?
The investors? They were part of the market. But after the front fell off they’ve been towed outside the market.
And it’s perfectly safe out there. There’s nothing out there but mission statements and TAM slides and pea-protein slurry.
And $1.8 billion of burned cash.
I have the opposite reaction. Beyond Meat is not a good product. It tastes gross.
It's not as good as the meat it's comparing itself against, and it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store, and it's more expensive than either.
Anytime can "be the moment" for plant-based meat if the product technology was there, but it's not.
> it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store
I've tried the beyond burgers, they were alright taste wise, but yeah there's many other options for a protein source.
Beyond Meat was never going to convince people to eat less meat by substituting it for fake burgers and steaks. For people that already eat vegetarian there already tastier sources of protein. Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility with how you can incorporate them into dishes than a fake slab of "meat."
> more expensive than either.
This is a political problem. In the US animal agriculture receives far more funding than plant-based protein. Without government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would cost closer to $30-$40. We've historically defined food security int he US as "meat and dairy," two of the things we really need to consume less of because of environmental impacts.
But yeah, Beyond Meat wasn't going to get us there. We need real political changes, not fake meat.
I disagree, I enjoy beyond and impossible beef and their sausage. I'll often (though not always) opt for it while out because I think it tastes close enough to the real deal and doesn't have the ethical concerns of real meat. I am not vegetarian or vegan, though I do sympathize with their point of view. If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
I feel this way as well. There was a moment in time several years ago where I would see the alt-meat burgers in restaurants and so I would order them from time-to-time because they tasted fine and it didn't kill a cow. Now I hardly see it available, or, if I do, it costs extra.
> If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
Bean burgers are actually delicious depending on the brand and how you dress them up. It doesn't taste like a smash burger, but if you get a brand that grills up nice and crispy and pair it with a nice spicy mayo, it's legitimately a good burger.
Also, don't sleep on the humble Boca burger which has existed for decades. It's not as good looking as Beyond Beef but I would argue it's better tasting.
I happily eat real meat, I'm not vegetarian or vegan and I think Beyond burgers are pretty darn good. I'm just cheap and Beyond isn't.
> Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility
With that flexibility comes inconvenience. With fake meat burgers or sausages I just have to whack the oven on and boil some veg to go alongside. That's family dinner. With lentils I have to s think more about how to make it tasty for everyone.
I disagree.
I’m ~97% vegetarian but there are a few foods for which traditional vegetarian alternatives are rubbish. One of these is the burger: you either get some odd veg/potato base pattie, a large grilled mushroom, or halloumi. The meat substitute burgers aren’t close to real beef burgers, but they’re far tastier than other vegetarian options.
This is where beyond is doing so well because their burgers really are a lot closer to the real thing.
They're a lot better than a crappy low quality beef burger even, like a McDonald's patty. Not quite as good as a real steakhouse burger, but kinda in between. There's another brand that's about as good, impossible burger. Probably a bit better even but I've never tried them side by side.
The soy and potato varieties yes they're way worse than even McDonald's. They're not even trying to simulate a real burger, just the idea of 'some fried gunk on a bun'. But yeah no.
+1 Burger King has the impossible whopper and it's definitely better than the McDo smash patties (big mac, mcdouble, cheeseburger etc). Obviously different restaurants, so not really making the comparison at the store, but speaking to the levels of conparison.
> Without government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would cost closer to $30-$40.
This is absolute nonsense, but I’m curious why you believe this to be the case?
I can think of reasons they would need to diversify or collapse that relate to regulatory capture of the FDA by the current U.S. administration. Better some business that maintains continuity through hostile times than to collapse and see their future evaporate.
As a vegetarian that regularly uses plant-based substitutes: I'm super reluctant to believe a market for a product like Beyond ever existed. Between Beyond and Impossible they've got this weird chimera market, especially the latter, with their too-realistic product. If meaters cared they'd switch, there wasn't really a whole lot of fence sitting I don't think—not in reality. I think people were pretty well committed. I also think the sympathetic market of vegetarians and vegans didn't find the premise of these too-realistic products especially thrilling. And I don't think that's a huge market in the first place, at least not in a large portion of the US.
Then you factor in the costs and it's Beyond insanity.
And frankly I don't know if Beyond was doing anything legitimately novel. Impossible was over-engineering their burger to the extent that I wouldn't eat one from any restaurant because I couldn't tell whether it was be'f or beef. Beyond just seemed to be nu-gardein which I'll grant you—it's a Monsanto subsidiary—but the product is palettable, consistent, and available almost universally and has been as long as I've been on the diet, 12 years.
100%, a product can't be just good and succeed now. Market's expect something to be "the next thing" or become a failure.
Also, price is always going to be an issue. The US spends billions and billions of dollars supporting the meat industry. The fact meat is cheap is a political choice, which makes direct plant based substitutes a tough financial proposition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgfTarNxdY
Yeah exactly that. It's just pretty damn good. It's just not universe changing.
Hope this doesn't kill them.
> Beyond Meat has a fantastic product
It's the most disgusting thing I've ever ate. I don't get it.
Maybe it wasn't cooked properly? I think they're delicious too. And they taste pretty genuine to me (I do eat meat too).
The first time I ordered one I honestly thought they got the order wrong and gave me a real burger.
Even the texture inside, a little but redder and more rough really felt like a fresh ground beef burger.
Impossible are really good too, I've had both and to be honest I have trouble remembering which was which but I enjoyed them both. I wish they were easier to get here.
I've tried both, few times. All were terrible, I think once I threw them away.
Curious if this has anything to do with Silicon Valley types getting into carnivore diets (though it's been happening for years so maybe not)
> high-protein fizzy drink line
That is the plan?
High-protein everything is riding the wave of GLP-1 popularity right now. Doctors are begging people on that class of drugs to chase protein targets more similar to what might have previously been reserved for heavy weightlifters just to prevent muscle wasting.
As a result, the entire packaged food industry is pumping up protein numbers and marketing it as the primary attribute of the food (where they might have previously marketed low fat or low sugar or whatever else in the past).
So, saturated market... but certainly one people are investing in now.
Can verify. Am on a GLP-1 drug and I eat seek much more protein and fiber than before.
I hear the most ironic stuff on glp from the people I know on it. So doctor is obviously a reasonable person with an interest in making people healthy, not trying to set up glp addicts, and are encouraging better diet and increased exercise while eventually tapering and getting them off the glp entirely as the final end goal.
The whole time they are telling me this I can't help but wonder what the hell is the point of the glp1 here? You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow. So its like there is no point. Might as well just rip the bandaid off, diet and exercise, get there 6 months slower, while not taking the glp. Like wouldn't you want to actually increase muscle mass while burning fat?
I lost weight the regular way. You don't understand how much will I expend to not continuously eat. The strategy I deploy: I never have ready-to-eat anything home, I cook everything just before I eat it, I chose ingredients based on their satiety index, I always have something to drink. I fast 5 days every year to 'reset' my grahlin levels (it still hurts, even if it's way less than it used to). I'm still at 26 BMI, so overweight (from 33 to 28 in 3 years, from 28 to 26 in 5).
I have a very good support system. Not to brag, but my parents are amazing, my family have a small amounts of doctors who helped me getting through it at first. My siblings are great too, and my SO support me despite my quirks. I love sailing, which is a great way to loose weight. And I'm a SWE, the easiest job there is when you're not bad at it, that makes good money without real responsibilities or stress. It was still fucking hard. If glp1 can help people less lucky than me, let them have it.
The beyond patties at Costco are a decent price. Standard retail prices are not so great.
I like em but I think the idea of them being somehow premium doesn’t translate.
Costco and similar do have them at a decent price, currently see them 20$ for 10. I think most people just look at the 2 packs, which are more expensive.
They only seem expensive, since the meaty alternatives are higly subsidized.
A protein soda pop, as they're pivoting to, sounds like a gross version of Coca Cola.
The protein bar could work. I personally don't like them, because most of them are just candy bars with added protein.
Meat substitutes (e.g. fake turkey made of tofu) are generally an inferior good, in both the economic sense and the sense of taste. It's not surprising to me that they don't work. Maybe if they're made much cheaper.
Lets be real: unless fake-meat products become at least the same price as equivalent meat options whats the point?
How big is the market for non-ideological vegans/vegetarians that are shopping for meat alternatives?
Most people are not ideological with their food. Most people will only stop eating meat when it becomes too expensive to afford. Simple as that.
What is the status you gain for being seen eating a beyond burger in 2026?
As a rare non-ideological vegetarian (I just really don't like the taste) you've got the market for this completely backwards. Beyond meat is for ideological vegetarians and vegans who like the taste. Non-ideological ones who would really prefer not to have a meat substitute.
At something like 6% of the world the market the population of ideological vegetarians and vegans is huge. With another handful of percent who are ideologically opposed to eating meat on certain days but not entirely vegetarian.
PS. Your claim that "most people are not ideologic with their food"... Not all food ideology is related to vegetarianism so it's not terribly relevant but I think this claim is just wrong. Islam + Hinduisim + Buddhism make up nearly half the world and all have pretty strong religious ideological beliefs about food, and a non-trivial fraction of the quarter of the world that is christian has at least a few scruples like avoiding meat during lent. And that's just people preaching religious beliefs not less documented ideologies like believing real men eat their steak raw or whatever.
> Beyond meat is for ideological vegetarians and vegans who like the taste.
I must be in bubble or have a very different definition of "idiological": of the dozens of vegans/vegetarians I know none would actively seek the "taste" of industrialized "ready-made" "meat replacement". They may put up with it if must be, but seek it? Desire it?
100% a better move for the company. expansion into more sectors isn't always a good idea but totally works in this case
Obviously Americans have no qualms about artificial foods or "inferior" substitutes, but it has to be cheaper. Paying a premium price for something that's even a decent facsimile guarantees that the product will remain niche.
I also am disappointed there was no iteration or improvement of the product over time. There was clearly room to innovate or make it taste better - it feels like the product hit, there was some excitement about the novelty... and then they didn't capitalize on it by pushing new variations and updates.
We bought and tried their products several times only to find they were no different than a basic veggie burger or whatever. We couldn’t figure out what the hype was even about. And then I started reading about how their ingredient list wasn’t the healthiest.
Just seemed like just another weird Silicon Valley money bubble built on hype and vc cash instead of any kind of meaningful product differentiation.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s our genuine experience.
They could have differentiated on quality instead of serving lower grade proteins and lipids
This is the moment, but they refuse to market the product in a way that is acceptable, (and adds affordability) to consumers.
If they would do a 55/45 beef/plant-based meat blend and burgers, I think adoption rate would pick up significantly. Anybody who questions the taste is going to see that beef is the main ingredient. If the product comes in significantly cheaper than beef alone, more consumers will try it and look to it as an affordable way of eating beef.
For the bigger picture, 65 cows will stretch as far as 100 cows previously did, lowering suffering, environmental damage, inputs, etc.
For the people who like the 55/45 blend, it would open the door to an 80/20 blend plant vs. beef, and a 100% plant-based product.
I'm not sure how well it would integrate into a cohesive unit. Veggie meat is pretty weird stuff in terms of cooking with it. It doesn't really want to form cohesive paddies. It is almost like feta cheese where there is a tendency for it to break down into smaller and smaller pieces the more you work it.
Also really hard to cook with imo compared to meat. Meat is nice to cook with from all the fat in there. It just renders out perfectly and also separates it from the pan. You get some nice carmelization, maillard reactions, all the nice stuff going on.
The fake meat is like a sponge for grease on the other hand. Nothing renders out. Stuff gets sucked in. It is like being on the opposite side of the osmosis reaction going on here. And boy do you need grease to cook with this stuff. Otherwise it just fuses to the pan like nothing, and again crumbles apart getting it off. It pretty much needs to be pan fried and soaks up a ton of grease after. You therefore can't trust nutrition guidelines because of the grease requirement to get anything out of this stuff. I bet if you air fried it, it would be absurdly dry.
I mean if we were really concerned with lowering animal suffering we would be changing farming practices. Factory farming is only saving a small amount of the cost of beef over more traditional style cattle farming.
Nothing against mixing beef with plants and the like, but there are far easier ways to improve the welfare of cattle that only costs pennies.
I never understood these engineered ultra processed meat imitation products, they are not healthy - period. There's already healthy and delicious cuisines that have developed over thousands of years (Indian, Nepalese, I'm sure many others). This desire to just recreate the SAD (standard American diet) with goo is beyond strange...
> I never understood these engineered ultra processed meat imitation products, they are not healthy - period.
People don't eat burgers for health reasons.
> There's already healthy and delicious cuisines that have developed over thousands of years (Indian, Nepalese, I'm sure many others).
Why eat ice cream when chicken is healthier?
You're comparing apples and oranges. Yes, there are plenty of delicious vegetarian foods, but you can't just substitute one for the other. If you're craving eggplants, replacing it with lentils will not satisfy you.
Is animal meat healthy? In small amounts (10% less caloric intake) disease correlation does not increase, but higher then 10%, disease rates see a direct correlatory increase.
The plant meats are healthier than the animal meats.
They are for vegetarians who want something that tastes similar to a burger.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that. I think for them they want something that has the "utility" of a burger, as in here is some easy protein plus some sundry stuff packaged into a hand holdable unit that is pretty filling on its own and cost like $12 at a restaurant.
The reason is for a lot of them is that they become repulsed by the smell of meat after not eating it for a long time. So they would very much not want something that tastes like meat. They just want the function of the burger really. And to be fair there isn't a lot of good options otherwise for vegetarians that are truly comperable to a burger in terms of it as a product. Veggie lunch meat is even sadder state of affairs than the burger meat so sandwiches are out. Then you have bean burritos I guess, falafel wrap. All stuff that tends to be found solely in ethnic specific restaurants than democratized across the entire globe like the burger is, which you can probably find anywhere you find reliable electricity in 2026.
You can make thousands of absolutely delicious vegetable dishes. You can adapt another few thousands by replacing the meat with veggies. Why the obsession about ultraprocessed "meat substitutes"?
Low-protein Indian diets are not healthy. The food certainly tastes good, but let's be real, there's a reason heart disease and diabetes in the subcontinent are stratospheric.
I really like a good burger, but am somewhat sympathetic to the arguments put forwards about the meat industry and it's impacts.
What's to not understand?
High-protein fizzy drinks. Barf-o-Rama.
Maybe I've missed it but I see a much more palatable market in "light" meats. It has great flavor and texture but it needs to be part of a composition even if it is just salt and pepper. I've seen really great tasting meatballs in the wild that had less than 4% meat in them, say 5% for lazy calculations. You can feed it to 20 people and get the same results as 19 vegetarians + one meat eater.
Some are so much into meat the vegetarian evangelism has about as much chance as trying to convince them cannibalism is the solution to all world problems.
If you sell them something cheap that tastes great and tell them it has meat in it there is no need for all that tiresome talking about saving the world on an empty stomach. They become easy to catch and kill.
I don't think it was ever the moment, even though there has always been a market for plant-based foods, the company assumed that market was far larger than it ever was or will be.
100% of all people alive right now eat plant based food every day.
So true. All protein on the planet, was made from sunlight and photosynthesis. You can eat the animal that ate the plants, but then you lose out on tons of micronutrients and fiber.
Aren't some amino acids synthesized in animals?
The market is clearly differentiated by animal tissue, specific ones in fact.
It would seem the company, and the market disagrees with you
What did you eat today?
What a bs. It still grows. Beyond meet was just not unique enough to justify the valuation
> not the moment for plant-based meat
It will never be the right moment for plant-based meat. It is ultra processed unhealthy garbage.
The length of the ingredient list tells you everything you need to know. The longer it is, the more processed and unhealthy the "food" is.
It was never going to work.
Proprietary food, that you can only buy from one company?
Of course it was doomed to fail. It’s not even about veganism, it’s a cancerous idea.
Proprietary food.. that you can only buy from a single company are all doomed? Might I offer an example that, under some definitions, has not failed despite that strategy. The McRib.
I was going to offer the twinkie but I guess hostess declared bankruptcy, so maybe you're right.
It's not an unreasonable statement though that for the concept to work it has to "jellybean" though: many manufacturers, many variations, same basic product, ubiquitous availability.
Where it sits as a "premium" good doesn't really work as a value proposition.
> Proprietary food, that you can only buy from one company
Huh? Isn't that most of it, except for basic grocery ingredients?
> Isn't that most of it, except for basic grocery ingredients?
Only if you live in the us.
Nevermind all of the specialty foods across the globe. Products made from basic ingredients and labeled to sell are everywhere. What exactly are you referring to?
I’m curious about how much money was taken out by insiders who must have known what their costs were internally and how little advancement was made on making the same product at a lower cost.