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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

#771

Post by goda90 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #367
SoftTalker wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond/Incredible meat is awful. There's no other description for it. This highly processed fake meat is not healthy. Just eat meat, or don't if you don't want to. There's no need for this fake garbage.

To each their own. I greatly enjoy the flavor of meat, but feel like a serial killer when I think about the animal suffering and to a lesser extend carbon emissions. While I also get a slightly odd feeling in my stomach from Impossible beef (doesn't happen with their cyber chicken), it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger without feeling like I just tortured a puppy.

If you have the money, buy meat directly from a regenerative ag farm you can go visit personally. You'll see animals with plenty of space, given healthcare and protection from predators, and contributing to soil growth and biodiversity.

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

#772

Post by tlb »

lupire wrote: post #763
phpisthebest wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see alot of Vegans / vegetarians responding in support but let me say as a carnivore that will never go Vegan / vegetarian I agree 100%, I have eaten vegan dishes that were excellent, I am not opposed to them at all. One of the best Tikka Masla's I have ever had was vegan. However I can not stand when they attempt to make be believe X is Y meat, no, it is not and no amount of marketing will get me to believe they t…

What does "meat" taste like? Do beef, chicken, pork, and salmon taste the same?

Not the same obviously, but they have a lot in common. It's not accidental, as those meats are all the muscles of vertebrates.

Other organs like livers, brain, or lung from various vertebrates also taste similar, but different from muscle meats.

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

#773

Post by loeg »

dsabanin wrote: post #717
loeg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, price is the problem. If it costs more than ground beef, what's the point?

The point was always to cause less death and suffering, these days for many it’s also about ecology, but it was never about saving a buck.

You’re not going to get meat eaters to eat your plant burger with that attitude alone.

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

#774

Post by m000 »

randomdata wrote: post #307
henrikschroder wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. You are not the target group for these products! The whole point of these products is to replace meat for habitual meat eaters. If the companies can get their products to taste about the same as meat, and have about the same nutritional value, while being cheaper , we can eliminate enormous amounts of habitual meat consumption. That's t…

Cheaper doesn't seem feasible, at least not without essentially duplicating the meat production process (maybe lab grown meat will get us there someday). Human grade food is more expensive, often considerably so. Animals essentially get the leftovers that we can't eat so they are afforded a huge price advantage and it is not clear how that is to be overcome sustainably. Circumstances – widespread disease, for example…

> Cheaper doesn't seem feasible, at least not without essentially duplicating the meat production process

I'd say cheaper doesn't seem feasible without duplicating the subsidies received by the meat industry (including farming of animal feed). Give similar subsidies to the plant-based-meat industry, and I'd bet that meat replacements will be much cheaper than meat.

But there's a political risk at that: Meat industry has huge political influence. If their profits are hurt, they would probably demand even more subsidies for covering their "loss". Or you can expect farmers on the streets, and your political oposition taking advantage of the situation.

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

#775

Post by talldan »

syzygyhack wrote: post #519

Lot of nonsense in the comments, absolutely nothing wrong with the taste of Beyond. Problem is that it is outrageously expensive and the market has become saturated with plenty of more cost-effective alternatives, many of which taste even better. There was a time when Beyond was the only really "good" option, that is simply not the case anymore. When I see those 2-packs of Beyond Burgers on the shelves in the superma…

I agree. I'd also add the fact that much of the world is experiencing a cost of living crisis, and luxury products are often the first to be cut in difficult times.

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

#776

Post by [deleted] »

zmgsabst wrote: post #729
corobo wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like meat is free from controversy, to play devil's advocate a little. We had beef that turned out to be horse for a moment in the UK. Not to mention mad cow disease and similar issues. What risks are you thinking of with plant based or lab grown? If anything it seems the lab environment would catch anything significant before it got out of the building. I'm not arguing with you, honestly curious. I've not t…

The concern is that lab grown food will have similar health risks to ultra processed foods — which are correlated with a number of illnesses. You’re asking people to trust a process (food science) that we’ve spent the last decade finding out has poisoned us for generations.

[deleted]

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

#777

Post by m000 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #656
oblio wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic: https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo?t=26 "Ten pounds of grass make a pound of steak. And ten pounds of steak make a pound of tiger. But these have the same number of calories - so you might as well just eat the cow and save yourself a lot of work."

Might as well eat the tiger and save yourself even more work.

Or, let the tiger eat you, and never have to worry about food again.

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

#778

Post by partiallypro »

The major problem is that they lose money on every burger sold. They have negative net margins. That was never sustainable. It's not quite like a scaling business ala Amazon where you can eventually stop expanding and collect profits. Their entire production process is cost intensive, even if the marginal cost shrinks over time, it is still a loss. So, this was/is no surprise.

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

#779

Post by bl0rg »

jimt1234 wrote: post #418
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.…

This. I've been asking myself ever since this beyond/incredible/whatever fad got started: Why spend all the time and energy trying to make something taste like beef that isn't beef? Why not spend that same time and energy creating a new, appealing of its own (and then market that)?

Perhaps to cater to people who love meat but won't eat it? What's hard to understand about that? There are plenty of great tasting vegetarian options, now there are plenty of faux meat options as well. The more the merrier in my opinion.

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

#780

Post by Pxtl »

skerit wrote: post #633
Willish42 wrote: post #347

This post is crowded with responses from people explaining why they hate Beyond meat FWIW, I've always liked Beyond Meat as a "good enough" substitution for a beef burger that's easy to prepare that is close in texture to a real burger - if you use a burger sauce and cheese like most recipes for non-vegans do, it tastes pretty close. I even liked it so much I'd order it at restaurants wherever available and bought a…

> What _did_ eventually get me to stop making Beyond Burgers is that the fat and sodium content is as bad or worse than just plain regular beef Exactly. As a vegetarian, I do choose a Beyond burger when I go to a burger restaurant, but I never buy it to make at home. There are healthier alternatives that are also delicious.

For me it's the exact opposite. I'm a vegetarian for ideological reasons, not health ones. I'm not the healthy kind of vegetarian at all. For me the only flaw of Beyond Meat is that it's a bit too salty and it sits a bit funny (weird-flavored burps after you eat it).

They have a solidly good product, it's a shame they can't make it work.

As a parent one big problem I had with them was that for home use they only sell the huge quarter pound patties (while they do shrink when you cook them, they do so less than beef) which were too much for my kid. I had to thaw them, slice them down the middle (which is tricky) and cook the two halves separately. They're much too big for a standard burger bun. It seems obvious they're going for a prestigious form-factor but missing out on being able to sell something more universal.

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