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Beyond Meat fights for survival

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#481

Post by proee »

cj wrote: post #385
scythmic_waves wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for breaking that down. As someone doing weightlifting, this is the primary reason I don't bother with vegetarian meats. They actually taste pretty good IMO, but they don't offer nutritional benefits commensurate with animal meat. It's a shame, really. I'd gladly incorporate them if I could get a similar protein : calorie ratio.

I dunno. I track macros religiously with daily protein/fat/carb targets for weight lifting. I don't care much about the macros of each individual meal (or any individual ingredient). When dinner comes around, I'm cooking whatever meal will let me hit my targets for the day. If I already got most my protein in, I'll happily eat something with "bad" protein/calorie ratio. Granted, 99% of people don't track food intake,…

You are not a vegetarian

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#482

Post by zahlman »

ben_w wrote: post #224
bluescrn wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why do so many people ask this question about burgers ? It's a fried patty. Even for the meat kind, there's essentially no resemblance to the original animal.

> It's a fried patty. Even for the meat kind, there's essentially no resemblance to the original animal.

Sure, but I would say that means vegetarian cuisine has less reason to emulate the form. It's entirely arbitrary. The point of eating a burger is that it's yet another convenient way of getting meat on a bun. (cf. fast-food places describing them as "sandwiches".) The social ritual of eating burgers with friends isn't about seeing the patty extend past the edges of the bun and thinking about the cow. It's about everyone holding something they'll enjoy eating, conveniently wrapped and portable, and chowing down. The burger is recognizable as a "burger" (as distinct from a wrap or a traditional sandwich) from the bun before it's recognizable from the contents. (Which is part of why the marketplace had no problem accepting chicken burgers.)

So anything that holds the vegetables together and keeps them inside a bun ought to work just fine. If our prospective new vegetarian wants the burger filling to taste like (or match texture etc.) a beef patty, that's a personal issue.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#483

Post by coro_1 »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #362
makingstuffs wrote: post #129

The problem with Beyond Meat is that it is insanely expensive. I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the price of their ultra processed burger. Don’t get me wrong, as a vegetarian, I think they taste nice. They are just too damn expensive and not particularly healthy which goes against why I am a vegetarian. In Europe we have so many alternatives that are insanely cheaper and, as an Indian,…

The company's products in my and other people's views have caused a significant wane in vegetarian and vegan burger diversity. Gone are the chickpea and black bean burgers on menus—your only choice is Beyond Meat-esque burgers. As someone who doesn't actually really like how Beyond Meat tastes, it's unfortunate that it's the only option sometimes. As someone who likes food variety and practically needs it, eliminatin…

Aggressively marketing the imitation meat is what opened up market share for the products in the grocery marts and how they got on menus. Marketing up ramp for subpar products is too common.

The US is primed for this. Buy the market, invest a lot, then invest less in the product. Hate to say, RFK may be on to, some things. Plain Heinz catsup in Canada makes the US versions (plural) just seem sort of gross.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#484

Post by woodpanel »

The Beyond Meat story for me is a boon since its IPO. I made a good fortune betting against the post-IPO rally.

Let's not forget how, in the late 2010s, VC money successfully pushed the idea that Beyond Meat et al didn't just taste as good as what it mimmicks, but that it acutally tastes better.

Then-Celebrety Chef David Chang even said "it melted my brain" (Impossbile Foods). Chain stores around the world fell over each other to first announce stocking their shelves with it, then told their customers they had to wait due to too much demand in existing markets, and ultimately that they won't be selling any actual meat at all in in a couple of years.

It was the full display of top-to-bottom class-war, elitist groupthink drooling over the power to pull a staple of our cuisine, culture and life quality from us – exactly because we like it. And then shove super processed improvements into the mouths of the dull plebs. And make a killing with eyewatering stock prices of up to 190 USD.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#485

Post by PaulHoule »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #362
makingstuffs wrote: post #129

The problem with Beyond Meat is that it is insanely expensive. I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the price of their ultra processed burger. Don’t get me wrong, as a vegetarian, I think they taste nice. They are just too damn expensive and not particularly healthy which goes against why I am a vegetarian. In Europe we have so many alternatives that are insanely cheaper and, as an Indian,…

The company's products in my and other people's views have caused a significant wane in vegetarian and vegan burger diversity. Gone are the chickpea and black bean burgers on menus—your only choice is Beyond Meat-esque burgers. As someone who doesn't actually really like how Beyond Meat tastes, it's unfortunate that it's the only option sometimes. As someone who likes food variety and practically needs it, eliminatin…

I also don't see it as much better than Boca Burgers or Quorn or many other earlier generation products never mind tofu, tempeh, seitan all of which can be great on a bed of rice or as sandwich fillers.

Ecologist Howard Odum developed a system of environmental accounting based on tracing energy back to the sun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergy

a calorie of vegetarian food is estimated to require 200,000 calories worth of sunlight when you factor in energy to drive the wind, make rain, all of that.

Invariably there is part of a product or service that you can't account for in detail so you take the remaining dollar cost and multiply it by the emergy/$ ratio for the economy as a whole.

Although you can argue a "cheap" product has a price that is subsidized or doesn't represent externalities, this leads to the corollary that an outrageously expensive product is not green because the money is a license for somebody to do things that impact the environment be it the employees driving around in a big-ass pickup truck or the executives or investors flying in private jets.

There's that and there's also the fact that most people's main objection to meat substitutes is high cost.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#486

Post by PaulHoule »

redwall_hp wrote: post #422
null0ranje wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive never understood the drive to make meat substitutes instead of celebrating vegetarian cuisine. I’m not a vegetarian, but if I eat some dish that is vegetarian, why wouldn’t I want to celebrate the vegetable itself made from instead of trying to make some fake meat that never quite hits the mark?

As a non vegetarian, I also hate how tofu gets treated as solely a vegetarian meat substitute in the US. I have no interest in having a poor substitution in a meat dish, but tofu itself is a core component of great foods that it belongs in...such as miso soup or mapo tofu.

Diced, fried in cubes, and served on a bed of cous-cous with soy sauce. Might not be traditional in any culture but it is cheap and fast to cook with minimal skill.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#487

Post by gamblor956 »

druskacik wrote: post #321
square_usual wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But try to make protein powder 80% of your protein intake and see how you'll feel in a week. What? I've had >100g of protein from whey protein shakes every day for months now. I don't know what you're trying to imply.

Okay, I genuinely thought that consuming as much protein powder as you describe would make person feel sick, you surprised me. To each his own. The fact remains, research suggests overdosing on protein supplements has potential health hazards. "According to international consensus, the daily reference intake of protein for the healthy adult population is 0.8 g/kg body weight. However, individuals who engage in physic…

Doctors actually believe most people aren't getting sufficient protein these days, especially people 50+.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#488

Post by zahlman »

bartread wrote: post #221
cloudbonsai wrote: post #132

So the biggest problem here is that Beyond Meat has a huge debt due in just 2 years: That’s a problem given that $1 billion in convertible bonds come due in March 2027. Beyond Meat has no way to repay that debt, and the credit markets know it: The bonds currently trade at about 17 cents on the dollar. To put the "$1B" number into the context, Beyond Meat sold $300M worth of plant-based meats last year, and made a net…

And this as well: > The company expects the figure to reach about $330 million in 2025, roughly 10% higher than it was six years earlier despite a huge increase in the number of products offered. It’s not like they have any growth potential to speak of that would enable them to service that debt. It’s a bit hard to see who their target market is or, rather, it’s a bit hard to see that the market segment they’re aimin…

> Vegetarians and vegans I know want protein sources in their diets but they don’t necessarily want meat substitutes, so perhaps BM’s products aren’t that appealing to them.

When Beyond Meat announced their IPO, I can recall thinking quite distinctly: "wait, this isn't the Impossible Burger. They aren't even making any kind of breakthrough in the 'convincing meat substitute' department in the first place. And this stuff is expensive. Who tf is this for?"

> Moreover, people I know who are trying to cut down on meat, like their veggie and vegan counterparts, mostly aren’t looking for meat substitutes in their meat-free meals either.

It's true. I eat probably considerably less meat than I did many years ago. Which is to say, still in generous portions, but not every day (I still freely eat dairy). When I supplement with vegetable sources of protein, I'm just preparing legumes (and grains) normally, without even the slightest desire to make them "meat-like".

I've had "ordinary" vegetarian burgers before. I don't even evaluate them as a substitute, but as their own thing.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#489

Post by zahlman »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #226
cloudbonsai wrote: post #132

So the biggest problem here is that Beyond Meat has a huge debt due in just 2 years: That’s a problem given that $1 billion in convertible bonds come due in March 2027. Beyond Meat has no way to repay that debt, and the credit markets know it: The bonds currently trade at about 17 cents on the dollar. To put the "$1B" number into the context, Beyond Meat sold $300M worth of plant-based meats last year, and made a net…

[flagged]

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

It seems clear that the purpose of your comment is to "drag" an unrelated company.

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