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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

#101

Post by TaylorAlexander »

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’m vegan, converted about four years ago so I ate meat for decades. I ate impossible burgers for a while after Burger King got them, because there is some nostalgia/novelty in going to a fast food joint.

But I’ve realized that this weird food product leaves some kind of odd taste in my stomach, and not just from Burger King. I’m pretty over these fake beef burgers now, and would way rather have a black bean burger or a garden burger. Those taste light and yummy and don’t leave a weird feeling in my stomach.

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

#102

Post by ncallaway »

bena wrote: post #37
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.

I mean, I think there’s room for both.

I eat meat, but I’d replace all my meat consumption with plant based options if it was a similar substitute and matched the price.

But I also want the black-bean burger option, because, as you said, it’s a different taste.

So I think (I hope anyway) that there’s room for both the vegetarian options that are their own thing, and vegetarian options that aim to be a 1:1 replacement.

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

#103

Post by bombcar »

shalmanese wrote: post #38
dayvid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody likes actually looking at the numbers whenever they cry “subsidy!”

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

#104

Post by jsemrau »

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.

Is there really a market for that product? I tried their burger patty and couldn't finish. Might be personal taste, but it just didn't work for me.

https://app.finclout.io/t/kRPQyAo

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

#105

Post by Gare »

sokoloff wrote: post #87
freitasm wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same experience as you. Quite tasty for a burger, but not affordable at 3x the price of a beef burger patty.

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

#106

Post by kjkjadksj »

jitl wrote: post #65
tjpnz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. This upsets me because as a vegetarian the last thing I want is to be reminded of what meat tastes like. Who exactly is this for? Because the last I heard it was being marketed primarily at meat eaters.

I’m a meat eater and I would love to find a faux ground beef or faux ground pork that I can use in the kitchen exactly the way I use beef/pork in my recipes. I would prefer such a food if it was similarly priced to animal, but more sustainable, because I would rather be vegetarian but not to the degree that I need to give up my favorite recipes. I need it to provide essential umami, salt, fat, flavor. Often vegetaria…

They make fake ground beef in a number of brands now and they all taste pretty similar once you season it to what the dish would be with meat. Imo the hard part is actually cooking the stuff. Theres no fat to render out to keep it from sticking to the pan really so you have to add your own, which it absorbs like a sponge because its so dry. In the end theres no way the nutrition facts are reflecting the final meal with it taking on so much oil in the pan.

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

#107

Post by bombcar »

ac29 wrote: post #53
jmclnx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when I go to the supermarket these are still too expensive compared to regular meat I never looked, but if the above is true, then that is the issue. People will always buy cheap. And to many people, if more expensive than 'real' meat, then they will not buy "beyond meat". Why, real meat in people's mind will always equate to higher quality.

For reference: I looked up prices at a local grocery store just now and Beyond products are in the $12-16/lb range. I've never understood how something that is almost entirely pea/rice protein + vegetable oil can be so expensive.

That is top-shelf filet minion around here; even the fanciest hamburger meat doesn’t hit that price.

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

#108

Post by bombcar »

dagw wrote: post #56
caddemon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burger King uses Impossible. You could be right about the business side, but I point this out because I think Impossible is substantially better than Beyond. Like I don't think Beyond could fool a meat eater for a second (and it's not as explicitly their intention), whereas Impossible is pretty damn convincing in certain contexts. Also, Impossible started out strongly focused on the restaurant industry, and AFAIK sti…

Like I don't think Beyond could fool a meat eater for a second Eaten 'naked', no. Cover it with cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, onions, tomatoes etc. and I think it can easily compare to a Burger King pr McDonald Burger.

Covered with all that and you could probably serve it with no patty at all and half wouldn’t notice.

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

#109

Post by zamalek »

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 or [...]

I'm 90% plant-based (I occasionally eat meat). I love beyond meat and prefer it to real meat, but it's more expensive than real meat. One of the more significant egoistic advantages of a plant-based diet is the cost, which generally means it tends not to end up on the shopping list.

Their target market is all wrong. They need to drop the cost below "luxury food" and cater to the crowd who are scraping together cash for a McDonalds.

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

#110

Post by techno_tsar »

sokoloff wrote: post #87
freitasm wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Economies of scale will push the cost down over time. Meanwhile, meat continues to receive significant government subsidies. If we had to pay the actual cost of meat (not even including a tax on the externalities from its environmental costs), it would be a lot less affordable to regular people.
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