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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

#841

Post by sweetheart »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #746
sweetheart wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too/re...

I am aware of the objections coming from vegans, I really have nothing to say to them other than I am in favour of freedom of worship, but I am also an atheist who tries to stand on the side of the scientific method as much as my abilities allow me, so I think National Geographic and PNAS are a more reliable source of information. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/insec... https://www.pnas.org/do…

I don't think any of the sources you mentioned here actually justify animal agriculture on the grounds of causing less death, though. The first two sources aren't specific to agriculture specific to human consumption, just agriculture in general. Also, whether or not global livestock is primarily fed on human consumable crops isn't the issue. For example, a very large portion of the feed mentioned in one of your sources (the third one) is still coming from farmed crops, so even if it isn't human consumable that doesn't mean we don't consider deaths coming from it. The last source is just unrelated, as you acknowledge.

I think you'd need to have sources that prove that specifically crops grown for human consumption result in more deaths, or that we'd have to grow more of those crops to feed humans compared to the crops grown to feed animals.

Again, just to clarify, the third source you mention has categories for things like "by-products", "Other non-edible", "Oil seed cakes", etc. Whether or not humans can eat those is irrelevant. The point is that all those things could still be coming from crops grown in the same general way as the crops grown for human consumption. Does that make sense, or am I being too religious for your logical atheistic brain?

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

#842

Post by Loughla »

unethical_ban wrote: post #804
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically a sugar mixture then? We already get enough unintended sugars.

So you eat your burgers dry?

Pickles, lettuce, tomato, a whole fried egg. All of these are options that don't include sugar. There are options outside of ketchup (corn syrup) and mayo (probably corn syrup). Except the pickles. I bet those have sugar.

But I'll fight anyone who eats hamburgers without pickles.

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

#843

Post by ilyt »

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.…

Same. I ate plenty of vegetarian or vegan stuff that's just tasty food.

I'm already picky for burger meat, I'd rather have plain sandwich than burger with mediocre meat, and at best those emulate that, mediocre burger meat, at cost of way more processing.

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

#844

Post by dragonwriter »

Loughla wrote: post #842
unethical_ban wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you eat your burgers dry?

Pickles, lettuce, tomato, a whole fried egg. All of these are options that don't include sugar. There are options outside of ketchup (corn syrup) and mayo (probably corn syrup). Except the pickles. I bet those have sugar. But I'll fight anyone who eats hamburgers without pickles.

> Pickles, lettuce, tomato, a whole fried egg. All of these are options that don't include sugar.

All of those except for the egg have sugars as a major source of calories, they just aren't, except for the egg, particularly calorie dense.

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

#845

Post by dack »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #805
Firstmate wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are not the target group for these products! It's not a choice for me. When I go to _restaurants_, they are replacing their only vegetarian options with these impossible/beyond meats, and they're charging $2 more while they're at it. These goals and target markets sound great on paper, but feels like the exact opposite in practice. The goal for reducing waste is great, but why are vegetarians paying that cost w…

Probably because the beyond/impossible offerings sell more and they're only willing to put a limited number of vegetarian items on the menu so the others are crowded out.

yeah, it's purely a business decision, but it sucks.

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

#846

Post by ilyt »

SoftTalker wrote: post #298
colordrops wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you are being downvoted, but I know exactly what you mean. When I eat Impossible and especially Beyond burgers, my stomach feels slightly off. A bit of indigestion. I don't get this with typical veggie patties.

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.

That's really anything highly processed. Soo much easier to control eating habits once I limited the highly processed, fast metabolizing stuff.

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

#847

Post by kuschku »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #840
kuschku wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Rügenwalder, one of Germany's largest meat processing companies, managed to pivot to primarily selling veggie meat replacements, and grow their business at that, your conclusion is wrong. There's definitely a niche for this, and it's large enough to build a multi billion dollar company. And if it can work in the country that's home to the Currywurst, then it can work everywhere.

There is a niche for it, I'm not saying there's not. All I'm saying is they went about marketing it wrong because they misread the market and targeted the wrong demographic. Meat eaters dont want it, vegetarians don't want it, it's a novelty item, that's your niche.

> Meat eaters dont want it, vegetarians don't want it

But that's obviously wrong, vegetarians and meat eaters are buying it én masse, the product is clearly a success, at least in Germany. And not just once, but repeatedly, again and again.

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

#848

Post by 1024core »

I am a former meat-eater. I became vegetarian for ethical reasons, and I don't really miss meat much (except for the very occasional chicken wings craving).

A couple of years ago I was at a restaurant (Beach Chalet in GGP in SF) and ordered their "veggie burger". It was one of those Beyond Meat/Impossible burgers. One bite and I recoiled in horror: did they give me real meat instead of the veggie option? Now, it has happened in the past that I have been given meat when I specifically ordered something vegetarian. For example: "beef burrito" at a taco place when I wanted a "bean burrito". It brought back those bad memories and I could not take another bite.

The problem here is a marketing one. Beyond and Impossible have a market, but it's those people who would just like to lower their meat consumption. _It is not the veggie burger eating hippie!_ By forcing us vegetarians to consume these fake burgers, the industry is embracing a lose-lose proposition: most vegetarians want nothing to do with these because of the taste, and most meat eaters would rather just eat the real thing.

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

#849

Post by quirk »

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.…

> It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables!

Not exactly. In pastoral agriculture, animals eat grasses that humans cannot, on land that is not easily farmable (infertile, rocky, hilly, etc). A nice side effect of this is that the animals make the land more farmable by fertilizing it with their poops.

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

#850

Post by JeremyNT »

SilverBirch wrote: post #539

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here. Beyond Meat had a mad run up in the same way that loads of companies had a mad run up in the ZIRP environment, and now the real questions are being asked: What's the actual TAM, what's the long term margins, what are the competitors in this space. Their market cap was like $7Bn, compared to Kraft Heinz at 45Bn. In the long term, do plant based meat alternative…

I think you are on the money. Despite the article's headline (and anecdotes) implying a broader downturn in the sector, I'm inclined to write this off to Beyond expectations being completely out of touch with reality, and possibly some mismanagement / marketing problems specific to Beyond.

This statement from Impossible (which is included in the article) directly contradicts the "plant based meats are failing" subtext the article seems to want to push otherwise:

> “We’re not experiencing anything like what Beyond Meat has reported or some of the other brands in the space,” Keely Sulprizio, a spokeswoman for Impossible Foods, said in an email. “Quite the opposite: We’re seeing hypergrowth, with over 60 percent year-over-year dollar sales growth in retail alone.”

> The IRI data show that while volume sales of Impossible ground meat and faux burger patties were down slightly, volumes of other categories, including frozen faux meat and chicken, soared.

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