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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

#81

Post by ok123456 »

linsomniac wrote: post #80
ok123456 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's what they're designed to do. Make you "feel" like you can contribute to meaningful solution not by pressuring large industrial polluters to do something but rather just make minor changes in your personal consumption habits.

I'm not sure why you're putting "feel" in quotes, voting with your pocketbook is a legitimate way of signalling to large industrial polluters to do something, right?

Not in the least. Consumerism is not a substitute for real policy.

Imagine if instead of freeing the slaves, Abraham Lincoln just instead made "Freedom Credits" that were issued to businesses that didn't use slave labor, but it allowed companies that used slave labor to purchase surplus "Freedom Credits" as offsets so they could claim they're making progress towards their ESG goals. Maybe it would become part of these companies advertising like "Fairtrade" has. The net result is that we would still have some kind of chattel slavery.

As ridiculous as this sounds, this is what we are doing when we defer to market based solutions to help nibble away at real policy issues. Also, consumer choices are already highly constrained by what the market bares.

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

#82

Post by bryanlarsen »

gwbas1c wrote: post #79
bryanlarsen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what does your spouse think? I'm an omnivore and agree with you. But if I went a year without eating a real burger I'm sure I'd prefer a Beyond Meat burger over the nice black bean burger I'd currently prefer.

Pretty much what I and the other vegetarians in this thread said. She doesn't like eating things that taste like meat.

We're not going to have many vegetarians if only people who don't like meat become vegetarian.

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

#83

Post by nathansherburn »

brettermeier wrote: post #60
nicpottier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I much prefer a Beyond pattie to more traditional veggie options. It is quite literally a matter of taste though, so you aren't wrong, but your perspective is just your own.

I agree with OP. Fake patties taste like... erm... But a nice veggie patty with peas, corn and stuff is great. Maybe I agree, that this modern crappy fake food is make by meat eaters for people who try to not eat so much meat, but they forgot that a normal veggie patty doesn't need to taste like meat.

I think I'm probably the target market. I don't want to eat meat but I also love cheese burgers, sausages and other processesed meats.

Beyond is amazing for me because I get to enjoy something that's close enough to the food I love without eating any meat.

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

#84

Post by notfromhere »

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…

Its even less complex than this: its more expensive than its meat or vegetable equivalent, so you're either eating meat or you're eating vegetables and there's no point to sub in plant-based meat.

If you're doing it for cost reasons you'll eat cheaper meat or vegetarian, or if you're doing it ideologically you're eating vegetarian.

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

#85

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #73
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.…

I can't understand why some entrepreneur saw vegetarian food existing, and decided to make a startup about ultraprocessed vegetarian food. It's as if they thought ideology was more important than health or environmental benefits.

> can't understand why some entrepreneur saw vegetarian food existing, and decided to make a startup about ultraprocessed vegetarian food

I'm a fan of real meat. But isn't the environmental impact of Beyond Meat lower than that of meat meat? Sure, a vegetarian meal would be even lower. But that's not the competition. Those folks are already eating vegetarian, or so the thinking goes.

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

#87

Post by sokoloff »

freitasm wrote: post #77
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.…

The thing is BM (and others) aren't trying to create vega/vegetarian meat. They are trying to make meat in a sustainable way, so it has to taste more like beef/pork than chickpeas or tofu if they want to get the main market. They are still not there.

As a pretty hardcore meat-lover (we had sous-vide filets tonight at home), I think Impossible is close enough on the taste and feel side for a lot of dishes that use beef (including hamburgers).

They're comically far off on the price side, but if they could get price-competitive with bulk 80% ground beef, they would capture a large amount of that market, I think.

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

#88

Post by linsomniac »

ok123456 wrote: post #81
linsomniac wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're putting "feel" in quotes, voting with your pocketbook is a legitimate way of signalling to large industrial polluters to do something, right?

Not in the least. Consumerism is not a substitute for real policy. Imagine if instead of freeing the slaves, Abraham Lincoln just instead made "Freedom Credits" that were issued to businesses that didn't use slave labor, but it allowed companies that used slave labor to purchase surplus "Freedom Credits" as offsets so they could claim they're making progress towards their ESG goals. Maybe it would become part of thes…

I think you're mistaking me for Abraham Lincoln... I can't impose policy on the beef industry. Comparing the actions I took to the actions a historic US president took is not really appropriate commentary.

Millions voting with their pocket books can have the same impact; causing the industry to change because of reduced revenue. Especially if we can reach the tipping point where beyond/impossible becomes less expensive than beef.

In this analogy, Mark Rober would be your Abraham Lincoln, his video helped tip me towards eating more plant-based burgers, and has been seen 54M times.

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

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

linsomniac wrote: post #80
ok123456 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's what they're designed to do. Make you "feel" like you can contribute to meaningful solution not by pressuring large industrial polluters to do something but rather just make minor changes in your personal consumption habits.

I'm not sure why you're putting "feel" in quotes, voting with your pocketbook is a legitimate way of signalling to large industrial polluters to do something, right?

I used to think so too but have long ceased to believe in its effectiveness. Industries love saying they need consumers to lead though.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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