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Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

nytimes.com

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Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#31

Post by nicpottier »

gpderetta wrote: post #14
sho_hn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole I think this is wrong, and you're missing where the market is. From what I've read, the meat alternatives actually sell primarily to meat eaters who feel like they should occasionally substitute meat for health reasons or variety. Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested.

But if you are a meat eater that want to eat healthier, you'll be very suspicious of what appear very heavily processed food and just eat actual vegetable-looking food. That's at least the case for me. Note I'm not saying that these meat substitutes are actually unhealthy, they just look very suspicious to me.

I mostly avoid meat for environmental reasons rather than health reasons. So Impossible and Beyond are nice alternatives. you shouldn't be eating hamburgers super regularly either way so the healthiness of alternatives really doesn't matter to me.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#32

Post by gwbas1c »

I married a vegan, and I eat a lot of vegetarian food. (I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day.)

One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty."

The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. When I've had these products, I've always walked away feeling like they taste inferior to traditional vegetarian burgers / sausages that don't try to taste like meat.

> Some say the slowdown in sales is a product of food inflation, as consumers trade pricier plant-based meat for less-expensive animal meat.

Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat. It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! When you eat the vegetables directly instead of having the animal eat the vegetable for your, it's cheaper.

IMO, I think the "meat in a vat" system where animal tissue is grown in some kind of factory setting is a much better approach. When I want to eat meat, I want to eat meat.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#33

Post by AlexandrB »

lm28469 wrote: post #7

It really is not that complex to understand: You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole or you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes. The market really isn't that big imho, there are already plenty of alternative to meat for most applications, which are cheaper, less…

I'm a meat-eater who is aware of the negative health consequences of excess meat consumption and Beyond Meat has been a great gateway/transition food for me. It tastes great, I'm not too worried about how processed it is because it's still better than how meat is processed (e.g. nitrates), and I hope it sticks around. The biggest downside to Beyond Meat for me is the cost.

I've tried many of the traditional alternatives. Tofu can be great, but getting it there is a lot of effort. Tempeh is ok but only works with some dishes. For me there's nothing quite as easy as throwing a Beyond Meat sausage or patty on the barbecue in the summer.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#34

Post by geodel »

lm28469 wrote: post #7

It really is not that complex to understand: You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole or you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes. The market really isn't that big imho, there are already plenty of alternative to meat for most applications, which are cheaper, less…

Agree. I grew up vegetarian and nowadays (sometimes) eat meat. So vegetarian food for me is not some make believe meat substitutes. And when I do feel craving I would eat normal burger, chicken or lamb curry. It is just eating less meat not looking for daily substitute for meat.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#35

Post by juujian »

georgefrick wrote: post #13

"Its stock has slumped nearly 83 percent in the past year. Sales, which the company had expected to rise as much as 33 percent this year, are now likely to show only minor growth." So they still showed growth, the stock just crashed; and the others in the segment who don't have to report numbers are doing better. Just sounds like a discounted stock to me.

That, or it had previously been overvalued. The company was very hyped for a while.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#36

Post by linsomniac »

jerojero wrote: post #4

I think this shows us that "technological innovation" solutions are not always the right answer to our problems. I've had these fake-patties and they're good, I've gone to burger king and it's more than good enough. But then again, when I go to the supermarket these are still too expensive compared to regular meat and the flavor profile is not as good. So I they would have to come up with a really killer product, but…

They are, currently, expensive for sure. This is largely because of lower demand than beef. The longer term plan is that with increased demand they will be significantly less expensive than beef, because they have lower input costs: instead of processing plants through cows, you remove the middle-man-cow.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#37

Post by bena »

gwbas1c wrote: post #32

I married a vegan, and I eat a lot of vegetarian food. (I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day.) One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty.…

Yeah, I'm not a vegetarian, but I've ordered black-bean burgers and the like from restaurants, just because it's different.

And it is. I think these things work better when they aren't trying to be meat.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#38

Post by shalmanese »

dayvid wrote: post #15
jerojero wrote: post #4

I think this shows us that "technological innovation" solutions are not always the right answer to our problems. I've had these fake-patties and they're good, I've gone to burger king and it's more than good enough. But then again, when I go to the supermarket these are still too expensive compared to regular meat and the flavor profile is not as good. So I they would have to come up with a really killer product, but…

Isn't the reduced cost of regular meat due to subsidies? https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/

No, the impact of subsidies is always heavily exaggerated by those who want to promote an agenda, as evidenced by the relatively small differences in prices between countries that subsidize and don't subsidize various things.

$38B is only $100 per person. Even if it all went towards ground meat, it could only subsidize 4 lbs at a $30 -> $5 cost reduction.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#39

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

lm28469 wrote: post #7

It really is not that complex to understand: You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole or you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes. The market really isn't that big imho, there are already plenty of alternative to meat for most applications, which are cheaper, less…

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole

Assuming you can afford to eat meat, which many meat eaters might find themselves less able to do if prices continue to climb and/or beef subsidies end.

Ground beef could easily cost $15+ per pound without subsidizes: https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#40

Post by AlexandrB »

ok123456 wrote: post #27
wishinghand wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're processed, but not soy. Mostly pea protein.

Pea protein is a garbage incomplete protein too.

What is an "incomplete" protein? I'm aware that the human body needs certain fatty acids that it can't produce. But protein?
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