BM is getting rarer on the shelves in Austria. When it first showed up, it was something special, but now there are heaps of great other alternative meats, often cheaper and made here. I guess BM is struggling because of increased competition. During my 20 years of plant based dieat it has never been easier to find fancy plant based things.
dmazin · 1h ago
It’s interesting that alternative meat consumption in the U.S. is struggling but taking off in Europe.
One thing I noticed after moving to the UK: alternative milk is normalized here. Like, it’s so common to avoid milk that if you order coffee without specifying, you will be asked what kind of milk you want.
burnt-resistor · 44m ago
Here in hill country Texas, even Walmart sells MorningStar corn dogs. H-E-B carries most of the Impossible line including meatballs. I made some dirty rice with the IF ground "beef" and it was awesome. There's almost no oil in it, browning onions and peppers required adding some avocado oil (never use olive oil for high temperature cooking).
PS: I'm a lazy vegetarian who will eat a real burger every few months. When vegan parm and swiss cheese get as good as the real stuff, then I'd go vegan.
JoshTriplett · 43m ago
> There's almost no oil in the ground beef, so adding some avocado oil while browning onions and peppers was required.
Their sausage works well for that, no added oil needed.
cortesoft · 31m ago
I feel like most coffee shops here in California always ask what type of milk you want, too.
karahime · 1h ago
Having lived in both the US and Europe, I have to imagine at least some of that comes down to cost. In Europe, the plant based alternatives (at least where I lived) were actually cheaper, and meaningfully so.
danieldk · 37m ago
Also, they taste better? I have been a vegetarian since 1999. Even in the small village I lived with my parents, the local supermarket had a meat replacement section. Later I moved to a larger city and the product selection at supermarkets is very large and nice. A few years ago, supermarkets also started carrying Beyond Meat products. We tried them a few times, but they taste absolutely horrible compared to local offerings that have been developed for decades now.
dmazin · 43m ago
Interesting, in Britain it's completely the opposite. Alternative milk is way more expensive.
ffsm8 · 9m ago
Same in Germany (~1€/l for milk, 2€/l for pretty much all milk replacements.
You can obviously buy more expensive milk to, which would give it price parity... But there are also more expensive replacement products. On average, the replacement products cost about 50-100% more.
The only way to save money via vegetarian meals is by making everything yourself and not the finished products from the supermarkets (at that point the relationship reverses - making meat meals about twice as expensive)
And I feel the urge to point out the obvious: the reason why the vegetarian replacement products get ever more space in supermarkets is precisely because they've got a gigantic profit margin, whereas the "traditional" milk/meat products have razor thin margins
account-5 · 1h ago
What part of the UK does this happen in? I've never been asked this. I can only assume you're in London?
dmazin · 56m ago
Woops, sorry, yes, this is in London.
According to Good Food Institute (which is a plant-based food lobbying group), 35% of UK households purchased plant-based milk at least once during 2023 and 33% of UK households bought plant-based meat alternatives at least once during 2023.
For a less biased source, a 2022 ipsos poll found that 48% of the UK uses alternative milk and 58% " use at least one plant-based meat alternative in their diet".
I think things dropped a bit since then due to cost of living crisis.
I've tried the thick cut filet and just like you're not going to mistake Impossible for actual burger, so too with the filet but it's a good texture and does help fill the longing for steak for me
submeta · 30m ago
The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don’t believe that. I rather see more and more friends and people avoid eating meat or reduce their consumption drastically. Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when ordering a coffee. But these days many do.
I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four years now, and I am never going to go back to eating meat. Yes, these products may be ultra processed food, but I cannot justify the ecological consequences and the suffering brought upon the animals just so I can eat a piece of their muscle tissue.
Our lifestyle is not sustainable, we have to look for alternatives. And young folks already grow up with a very critical attitude towards meat consumption.
armchairhacker · 5h ago
I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar macro-nutrient ratios and whatever micro-nutrients are rare outside of meat.
I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd buy it for the environment.
randycupertino · 5h ago
I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.
JoshTriplett · 41m ago
I'm glad that people have the option of those if they like them. Personally, I find the veggie patties to be awful in both taste and especially texture. I was thrilled when there started being options other than the pervasive gardenburgers.
bryanlarsen · 4h ago
Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.
haiku2077 · 33m ago
I remember the veggie burgers they're talking about and they weren't black bean patties. The one I remember had potato with peas in it... god, it was delicious
burnt-resistor · 47m ago
Both exist. Portabello burgers are great too. There's nothing wrong with choice.
iknowstuff · 5h ago
hmm.. you would buy it but aren't?
4 oz raw/patty:
Impossible → 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol
Beyond → 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol
80/20 beef → 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol (high)
Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.
bluefirebrand · 5h ago
I thought sodium was really bad for you though
TimorousBestie · 4h ago
The beef patty numbers are solely raw beef, they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger.
The McDonald’s quarter pounder patty (just the cooked patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is comparable, comes with 210mg of salt.
Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren’t as significant as they appear.
eximius · 5h ago
Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
teekert · 45m ago
It actually nearly killed my wife’s grandmother. Until some doctor realized she avoided salt like the plague, gave her some and she made a miraculous discovery.
o11c · 5h ago
Salt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
deanc · 1h ago
These meat substitutes are UPF and that’s what you should care about more than nutritional content.
PaulRobinson · 34s ago
OK, we need to pick something apart here, because I see this a lot and it's annoying.
UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you.
The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing tricks with the brain's response to it.
There are food labs where people are having their brain scanned while they sip different soda formulations, tobacco companies buying food companies to apply their research methodologies, and people figuring out packaging noises and shapes in order to make your old/slow brain excited at the crap you're about to eat (the pringles can is hard to use on purpose, for example). This is all symptomatic of a global food industry that needs you to buy more food, so needs you to consume more food, regardless of nutritional impact.
I recommend reading Chris van Tulleken's book and watching (if you can) the documentaries he made on the subject.
Yes, the Brazilian paper that started all this said "UPF is harming the health of the nation", but the root cause was not UPF processes, it was food industry processes that often require them to produce UPF.
It isn't the UP that makes the F bad, it's that some profitable but bad F needs UP to be viable.
It is therefore perfectly possible for meat substitutes to be UPF and healthy, just as some other UPFs are healthy. In fact, arguably they need to be both to survive.
Snild · 1h ago
"UPF"?
RealityVoid · 1h ago
"Ultra Processed Food" - I suspect? I disagree, IMO. It feels like a oversimplification, it's a sometimes useful rule of thumb that works in some cases, but not in others. Definitely not the end all be all of nutrition.
hellcow · 5h ago
This is too bad. Beyond and Impossible opened up the door to me gradually becoming vegan. It was similar enough to real meat that I didn’t miss meat anymore, and from there I found other substitutions which were healthier. Without them I’m sure I never would have started a plant-based diet.
gonzalohm · 5h ago
What have you substituted cheese with? It's one of my favorite foods but no substitute has come close to it
Damn shame about the corporate drama, so it's possible the formula could/might change but the products were outstanding for the problem they're trying to solve the last time I tried them
socalgal2 · 1h ago
What kind of cheese? If you want something strong like blue cheese you can try fermented tofu
I haven't tried it as a blue cheese sub dressing but if I just taste it on my chop sticks I feel it's at least in the same general direction. I'm pretty confident I could blend it into a a dressing or put it on a burger as a blue-cheese substitute.
hellcow · 2h ago
Sad truth is there isn’t a real substitute. You just eat it less and desire it less over time.
Unrelated to cheese but MyBacon is fantastic if you can get it near you.
angry_moose · 5h ago
Violife is probably the best for shredded (mozzarella/cheddar) but its still not great.
I really like Field Roast Chao slices for things like burgers or sandwiches.
im_down_w_otp · 5h ago
I replaced it with insatiable yearning. It's not as good, but it's all I've got.
Vegan cheese is made from cashews. If you’re in the Bay Area try Arizmendi’s vegan pizza. Surprisingly good.
angry_moose · 5h ago
I've been vegetarian for about 8 years and won't buy them and try to avoid them in restaurants because they're too meat-like. Unfortunately they've made good non-fake meat vegetarian burgers (black bean, wild rice, etc) harder to find.
It's a situation of "You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have cravings for anymore? We made something that tastes exactly like it. You're going to love it!"
I'm glad they existed when I first went vegetarian as they made the transition easier, but its a tough market when people will go off them in a couple years.
subscribed · 5h ago
I'm not a vegetarian and I buy them exactly because they're meat-like.
You're literally not supporting a company which, as you admit, made your life more pleasant. And might potentially do so for others.
I'm confused.
angry_moose · 5h ago
Because after 8 years the idea of eating meat has no remaining appeal and is switching more to mild revulsion. Why would I order a substitute that is a close copy of that?
I'll still get them if there's literally no other vegetarian option on the menu, but that's rare.
ignormies · 4h ago
I'll echo what some of the other commenters have stated:
I'm not vegan nor vegetarian, but I definitely align with many of the reasons that one would choose to be so. There are environmental and animal welfare concerns with the meat industry that simply cannot be ignored.
With that in mind, I try _choose_ a non-meat-based option when it's feasible. I do my best to vote with my dollar. Beyond Meat and Impossible have made this option available significantly more often in the past couple years.
When I shop for meat at the grocery store to cook at home, I've effectively stopped buying "real" meat for my standard meals. Unless I'm cooking some special or something specific, I simply buy Beyond Meat/Impossible for my standard meals. The same applies when eating out -- if there's a meat alternative, I will go for it (even absorbing the $2-3 upcharge).*
This is not to say that I _only_ go for the meat-alternative-based non-meat dishes. I often go for a tofu or mushroom alternative too. I don't even think Beyond Meat/Impossible taste _like_ the meat they're trying to substitute -- they're just simply good, meat-y, protein-y, umami-y flavors that I simply can't get enough of.
The more options there are for people like me the better. My diet has been able to shift closer and closer to removing meat entirely, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing battle. I just want to eat _less_ meat, not _no_ meat.
* One thing that's frustrating to me as someone that's not _actually_ a vegetarian/vegan is that restaurants often make the assumption that if I'm choosing the meat-alternative, then I must be vegetarian or vegan. No, I still want the cheese or the dairy, or even the meat (e.g.: an Impossible Cheeseburger with real bacon is still delicious). I'm trying to reduce, not _eliminate_, meat from my diet.
joelrunyon · 1h ago
If you care about the ethical reasons for plant-based meat, you should look at the companies business practices behind the scenes when they think no one is paying attention - https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1927531529883762920
People seem inclined to buy hybrids over full EVs which is a comparable situation.
JoshTriplett · 37m ago
> You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have cravings for anymore?
That is not everyone's experience with being vegetarian.
transcriptase · 5h ago
There’s no way to say this without sounding like an asshole but perhaps in 8 years your memory of what meat is like has drifted. I only say that because the rest of us wish the fake stuff was remotely comparable in taste and texture.
jahsome · 5h ago
Both can be true. I think they try desperately to be meat, and they fail miserably.
DangitBobby · 5h ago
I both remember the taste of meat and wish meat alternatives would taste like it, and I think Impossible and Beyond are both very successful at that.
jahsome · 4h ago
For me, it's an uncanny valley thing. It's close, but missing something small and intangible which leaves me ruminating on the "fakeness."
leguminous · 4h ago
I've been vegetarian for a long time and I still think Beyond burgers are great. I have a pack of them from Costco in the freezer. I like black bean burgers, too, but Beyond burgers taste like my (distant) memory of a "normal" burger.
In any case, I assume Beyond was relying on getting more market penetration past just vegetarians and vegans. There just aren't enough of us to get to the revenue they seem to be targeting. Personally, I'll be disappointed if they end up disappearing.
jsbisviewtiful · 2h ago
Was a vegetarian for about 8 years and now a pescatarian. We practically always have some Beyond products in our house and will order them at restaurants. Losing Beyond products would be a huge bummer.
gonzalohm · 5h ago
Why do you assume people will stop consuming them after a few years? I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are concerned about the environmental implications of consuming meat.
I would replace all animal products if they tasted like the real thing. I'm sorry but tofu is not cheese
joelrunyon · 48m ago
Do you care about the ethical implications of the business practices of the brands you're supporting?
> I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are concerned about the environmental implications of consuming meat.
I don't think most people think about the environmental implications of consuming meat even remotely
drewg123 · 5h ago
Indeed. I've been vegan for nearly 5 years, and I still miss meat. Beyond and Impossible make being vegan tolerable for me.
drewg123 · 5h ago
I'm just the opposite.
I'm a vegan who loves & misses the taste of meat. Without Beyond (and Impossible), it would have been way harder for me to have become vegan. I think black bean burgers are disgusting. When picking a restaraunt for a team dinner with non vegans, I specifically look for menus that offer Impossible or Beyond, and I avoid restaurants that offer homemade bean/pea/etc burgers.
da-x · 1h ago
Boy, the C-suite that sold in the 2019-2021 peak at $150 a share knew what they were doing.
socalgal2 · 1h ago
My experience with Beyond (~4 years ago), was that it wasn't as good as Impossible. Impossible seemed like meat, Beyond seemed like nuts mashed into paste.
8f2ab37a-ed6c · 5h ago
Wish their products had less fat in them. They're tasty, but nutritionally they're a whole lot of canola oil.
Not a customer but it’s a shame it’s not working out for them. I’m sure they have people who would enjoy it but the feedback I’ve heard was mostly negative with respect to quality of ingredients and the like.
At this stage if they scaled back would they stand a chance to survive? Or do they owe too much money?
dgrin91 · 5h ago
They owe way too much. The article actually touches on this - they have such little hope of paying back their debt that they are leaning into this so that they can get better renegotiation terms with bond holders
sampo · 1h ago
How is their competitor Impossible Foods doing? It's a private company, so we can't as easily look at stock prices.
You seem to be single-purpose posting to promote your legal case.
SoftTalker · 5h ago
It’s always been awful IMO. Tastes like sawdust with a congealed vegetable oil binder and chemical flavorings that approximate meat. A straight up bean burger is better and far less processed.
drewg123 · 5h ago
Its way better than a bean burger IMHO. As a vegan, what I like most about Beyond burgers are that they are consistent, and pretty amazing at not being awful. If I'm in a random restaurant with a few token vegan options, the last thing I want to do is take a chance on some potentially terrible homemade bean or chickpea burger. If they have Beyond or Impossible, I know exactly what I'm getting.
DangitBobby · 5h ago
Absolutely better than the crappy black bean or chickpea patties you'd get at most burger joints. I'd much rather have Beyond or Impossible at a cookout as well.
linsomniac · 4h ago
Our local drive in movie theater (remember those) offers various meal options including burgers, and I've taken to ordering the Impossible there because somehow several times in their beef burgers I've gotten significant bone chunks, to the extent that I was surprised I didn't break a tooth on them.
fnordlord · 4h ago
It could have to do with how they're prepped. Even the real thing can taste like sawdust and grill marks if done incorrectly. I'm personally biased towards veggie burgers and prefer them over the real thing but in the last year, I've been to multiple cookouts where both "burger dudes" and kids have chosen beyond over meat.
I agree that the level of process is questionable but, if done well, I don't think it lacks in flavor.
msgodel · 1h ago
I bought one of these by mistake during the pandemic and immediately gagged trying to eat it. Then checked the label and realized what I had bought wasn't what I thought it was.
octo888 · 5h ago
Right! Beyond awful
beej71 · 5h ago
Last I looked, there was an awful lot of saturated fat in their burgers. I tended to order something other than a veggie burger when their was the only one on the menu.
davidw · 5h ago
One of the things I've noticed about shopping carefully at the local supermarket (Albertsons, in Oregon) is that they very often use beef as a 'loss leader' to get people to shop there, so beef is often cheaper than it 'should' be, and especially so if more of the externalities involved in the production of beef were included in the price.
I like beef, but the price probably makes it harder to compete with.
toast0 · 4h ago
Ground beef needs to move quickly, and you've got to sell some to go with the nicer cuts of meat, so it makes sense to sell at low or negative margins.
ivraatiems · 5h ago
Other faux-meat companies like Impossible seem to be doing better. Maybe Beyond's product is inferior? Personally, I don't choose it over Impossible.
gonzalohm · 5h ago
The article says that impossible food has gone down 50% (the stock price)
ameliaquining · 5h ago
Note that Impossible, unlike Beyond, isn't publicly traded, so the only time anyone knows for sure what it's worth is right after it raises capital. It sounded like the 50% thing was some kind of internal projection.
gonzalohm · 5h ago
I think the problem is that crappy supermarket meat is really cheap, and most people don't seem to care about the quality of the meat. For those people, it's hard to justify buying a more expensive product that's not even meat.
I wonder if reducing the price (without selling at a loss) would increase sales enough to offset the lower revenue
anoncow · 5h ago
What makes supermarket meat crappy?
jabjq · 20m ago
Bad cuts, like pork loins that are not fatty.
xedrac · 4h ago
There is no crappy meat, just meat that isn't prepared well.
sandspar · 15m ago
There's crappy meat. Have you ever had cheap salmon sashimi? It's completely flavorless, with a rubbery, watery mouthfeel. Conversely have you had expensive salmon sashimi? A delicate umami flavor with a mouthfeel of liquified butter. It's not preparation. They're not the same fish.
Different subspecies of plant and animal taste different. Farmers have learned to charge more for the ones that taste better.
You wouldn't say "there's no crappy tomatoes, only crappy preparation." Nah, some tomatoes are simply junk.
Some of the best food cultures in the world - Italy, France, Japanese - lean much more heavily on ingredient quality than on preparation. Fine dining as a whole revolves around ingredients.
scythe · 5h ago
Part of the reason that cheap meat is cheap is because it's a byproduct of producing nice meat. Chicken thighs are cheap because the chicken seller makes money on breasts. Round is cheap because the cow is paid for with the revenue from brisket and ribeye etc.
The meat alternatives are a product by itself, and they have to justify their whole supply chain. That's tough.
ipnon · 5h ago
The crappy supermarket meat is actually incredibly nutritious it just has dubious ethics for an apparently vanishingly small market segment.
gonzalohm · 5h ago
But it tastes disgusting, it's one of those things where you actually get what you pay
Barbing · 5h ago
Any employees here, sorry what morale must be like at work (I’d guess) & hope you get great offers elsewhere!
bastawhiz · 5h ago
I feel like I'm the ideal customer for Beyond Meat and its competitors. I am not price sensitive, I don't mind the idea of plant based meat products, and I am willing to try new things. My biggest reasons for not buying Beyond Meat are that I:
1. Would rather not cook, and eating Beyond Meat in a way that's financially meaningful for them as a company means me cooking
2. If I'm going to put in the effort to cook, I want the result to be something that I have outsized enjoyment for. If I get a middling burger for my trouble, I'm simply not going to care enough to do it.
The chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken sound the closest to something I can casually heat up, but neither of those are things that would replace something in my existing diet. They have beef and chicken and sausage and all sorts of other stuff, but they're just the meat. They replace an ingredient.
I buy Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls. I'd happily get ones that used Beyond Meat. I buy frozen noodle and pasta meals: same deal. Sandwiches. Chicken salad. Soup. I'm struggling to think of a single product that I can swap out for a Beyond Meat alternative.
I don't need every bit of meat that I consume to even be especially good. But if it's only just fine and it's not convenient, I'm just not going to get it. If it was cheaper, I might consider. Or if it was more nutritious. Or if it was more filling than regular meat (or less filling, even). Or if I felt strongly about the plant based products that I buy being a somewhat compelling meat facsimile. But there's just nothing that inspires me to pick up any of their products.
For your own health, I implore you to explore even the most basic of cooking.
No comments yet
xedrac · 4h ago
I absolutely love beef. A good ribeye steak, or some smoked brisket are two of my favorite foods. I was intrigued by the claims these meat alternative companies were making, so naturally I tried them all. It's not surprising to me that they are struggling. I could barely swallow their products. I think it was a mistake to compare these to one of the greatest foods on the planet. It set the expectation was too high.
unsnap_biceps · 4h ago
They work well enough as a replacement in a fast food burger or in a dish where the meat itself isn't really the star player. Using their ground meat alternatives in a hamburger helper is totally fine.
We're not at the point where high quality meat can be replaced, but that doesn't mean the product is worthless.
oezi · 1h ago
> one of the greatest foods on the planet
Given the amount of animal suffering and environmental destruction involved in beef, this great taste shouldn't be taken so lightly. Everyone should make some effort to reduce its consumption.
trhway · 4h ago
everybody mostly discusses real vs. imitation/vegan, yet i think it has nothing to do with the current BYND situation.
"on an operating basis Beyond Meat lost 45 cents from every dollar of sales."
that is a culprit. Bad management. How else can your plant based product at comparable to meat prices be a loss instead of great profit. Even pure avocados are cheaper than meat. What is better and pricier than avocados do you put into your product? Then it should taste much better than avocados and meat. Yet there is no avocados, it is more like low quality cat/dog food:
"Key components include pea protein, rice protein, and lentil protein, alongside avocado oil, refined coconut oil, and canola oil. Other notable additions include methylcellulose, potato starch, and apple extract.
"
That stuff at their prices should be super-profitable.
phyrex · 5h ago
That's disappointing, they've done a great job making plant meat ubiquitous and took away some of the hippy aura that has kept many people from trying plant-based meat alternatives. I really hope they can turn it around, both selfishly as a happy customer, as well as for the planet.
paulcole · 5h ago
I don’t eat meat but enjoy their products at least once a week, sometimes more. Very tasty, available nearly everywhere.
I don’t care about the nutrition/health of it at all.
Hope they can turn things around!
pengaru · 1h ago
Just another processed food product, good riddance.
They're also spending enormous amounts of time & money suing creators for their trademarks (sort of a bad-look if your stated mission is to "save the planet")
ggm · 1h ago
Vegetarians and Vegans turn out to prefer less UPF dominant protein in their diet?
Plus, they apparently lost 45c in every $1 of sold product.
Quorn, allergy issue noted, continues. Growing edible fungi in tanks using classic bioreactor methods works, is economically sustainable. TVP likewise. 1960s tech which works at scale.
Me? I liked eating it a bit. I like eating flesh and organ meat, fowl and fish a lot. A lot beats a bit. I like inari sushi too. So it's not I dislike the veg alternatives.
One thing I noticed after moving to the UK: alternative milk is normalized here. Like, it’s so common to avoid milk that if you order coffee without specifying, you will be asked what kind of milk you want.
PS: I'm a lazy vegetarian who will eat a real burger every few months. When vegan parm and swiss cheese get as good as the real stuff, then I'd go vegan.
Their sausage works well for that, no added oil needed.
You can obviously buy more expensive milk to, which would give it price parity... But there are also more expensive replacement products. On average, the replacement products cost about 50-100% more.
The only way to save money via vegetarian meals is by making everything yourself and not the finished products from the supermarkets (at that point the relationship reverses - making meat meals about twice as expensive)
And I feel the urge to point out the obvious: the reason why the vegetarian replacement products get ever more space in supermarkets is precisely because they've got a gigantic profit margin, whereas the "traditional" milk/meat products have razor thin margins
According to Good Food Institute (which is a plant-based food lobbying group), 35% of UK households purchased plant-based milk at least once during 2023 and 33% of UK households bought plant-based meat alternatives at least once during 2023.
https://gfieurope.org/blog/plant-based-meat-and-milk-are-now...
For a less biased source, a 2022 ipsos poll found that 48% of the UK uses alternative milk and 58% " use at least one plant-based meat alternative in their diet".
I think things dropped a bit since then due to cost of living crisis.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/almost-half-uk-adults-set-cut-in...
I've tried the thick cut filet and just like you're not going to mistake Impossible for actual burger, so too with the filet but it's a good texture and does help fill the longing for steak for me
I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four years now, and I am never going to go back to eating meat. Yes, these products may be ultra processed food, but I cannot justify the ecological consequences and the suffering brought upon the animals just so I can eat a piece of their muscle tissue.
Our lifestyle is not sustainable, we have to look for alternatives. And young folks already grow up with a very critical attitude towards meat consumption.
I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd buy it for the environment.
4 oz raw/patty:
Impossible → 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol
Beyond → 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol
80/20 beef → 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol (high)
Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.
The McDonald’s quarter pounder patty (just the cooked patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is comparable, comes with 210mg of salt.
Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren’t as significant as they appear.
UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you.
The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing tricks with the brain's response to it.
There are food labs where people are having their brain scanned while they sip different soda formulations, tobacco companies buying food companies to apply their research methodologies, and people figuring out packaging noises and shapes in order to make your old/slow brain excited at the crap you're about to eat (the pringles can is hard to use on purpose, for example). This is all symptomatic of a global food industry that needs you to buy more food, so needs you to consume more food, regardless of nutritional impact.
I recommend reading Chris van Tulleken's book and watching (if you can) the documentaries he made on the subject.
Yes, the Brazilian paper that started all this said "UPF is harming the health of the nation", but the root cause was not UPF processes, it was food industry processes that often require them to produce UPF.
It isn't the UP that makes the F bad, it's that some profitable but bad F needs UP to be viable.
It is therefore perfectly possible for meat substitutes to be UPF and healthy, just as some other UPFs are healthy. In fact, arguably they need to be both to survive.
Damn shame about the corporate drama, so it's possible the formula could/might change but the products were outstanding for the problem they're trying to solve the last time I tried them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_bean_curd#/media/Fil...
I haven't tried it as a blue cheese sub dressing but if I just taste it on my chop sticks I feel it's at least in the same general direction. I'm pretty confident I could blend it into a a dressing or put it on a burger as a blue-cheese substitute.
Unrelated to cheese but MyBacon is fantastic if you can get it near you.
I really like Field Roast Chao slices for things like burgers or sandwiches.
It's a situation of "You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have cravings for anymore? We made something that tastes exactly like it. You're going to love it!"
I'm glad they existed when I first went vegetarian as they made the transition easier, but its a tough market when people will go off them in a couple years.
You're literally not supporting a company which, as you admit, made your life more pleasant. And might potentially do so for others.
I'm confused.
I'll still get them if there's literally no other vegetarian option on the menu, but that's rare.
I'm not vegan nor vegetarian, but I definitely align with many of the reasons that one would choose to be so. There are environmental and animal welfare concerns with the meat industry that simply cannot be ignored.
With that in mind, I try _choose_ a non-meat-based option when it's feasible. I do my best to vote with my dollar. Beyond Meat and Impossible have made this option available significantly more often in the past couple years.
When I shop for meat at the grocery store to cook at home, I've effectively stopped buying "real" meat for my standard meals. Unless I'm cooking some special or something specific, I simply buy Beyond Meat/Impossible for my standard meals. The same applies when eating out -- if there's a meat alternative, I will go for it (even absorbing the $2-3 upcharge).*
This is not to say that I _only_ go for the meat-alternative-based non-meat dishes. I often go for a tofu or mushroom alternative too. I don't even think Beyond Meat/Impossible taste _like_ the meat they're trying to substitute -- they're just simply good, meat-y, protein-y, umami-y flavors that I simply can't get enough of.
The more options there are for people like me the better. My diet has been able to shift closer and closer to removing meat entirely, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing battle. I just want to eat _less_ meat, not _no_ meat.
* One thing that's frustrating to me as someone that's not _actually_ a vegetarian/vegan is that restaurants often make the assumption that if I'm choosing the meat-alternative, then I must be vegetarian or vegan. No, I still want the cheese or the dairy, or even the meat (e.g.: an Impossible Cheeseburger with real bacon is still delicious). I'm trying to reduce, not _eliminate_, meat from my diet.
Kind of wild how they're treating creators.
https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/impossible-foods-growth-...
People seem inclined to buy hybrids over full EVs which is a comparable situation.
That is not everyone's experience with being vegetarian.
In any case, I assume Beyond was relying on getting more market penetration past just vegetarians and vegans. There just aren't enough of us to get to the revenue they seem to be targeting. Personally, I'll be disappointed if they end up disappearing.
I would replace all animal products if they tasted like the real thing. I'm sorry but tofu is not cheese
https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1927531529883762920
I don't think most people think about the environmental implications of consuming meat even remotely
I'm a vegan who loves & misses the taste of meat. Without Beyond (and Impossible), it would have been way harder for me to have become vegan. I think black bean burgers are disgusting. When picking a restaraunt for a team dinner with non vegans, I specifically look for menus that offer Impossible or Beyond, and I avoid restaurants that offer homemade bean/pea/etc burgers.
At this stage if they scaled back would they stand a chance to survive? Or do they owe too much money?
I agree that the level of process is questionable but, if done well, I don't think it lacks in flavor.
I like beef, but the price probably makes it harder to compete with.
I wonder if reducing the price (without selling at a loss) would increase sales enough to offset the lower revenue
Different subspecies of plant and animal taste different. Farmers have learned to charge more for the ones that taste better.
You wouldn't say "there's no crappy tomatoes, only crappy preparation." Nah, some tomatoes are simply junk.
Some of the best food cultures in the world - Italy, France, Japanese - lean much more heavily on ingredient quality than on preparation. Fine dining as a whole revolves around ingredients.
The meat alternatives are a product by itself, and they have to justify their whole supply chain. That's tough.
1. Would rather not cook, and eating Beyond Meat in a way that's financially meaningful for them as a company means me cooking
2. If I'm going to put in the effort to cook, I want the result to be something that I have outsized enjoyment for. If I get a middling burger for my trouble, I'm simply not going to care enough to do it.
The chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken sound the closest to something I can casually heat up, but neither of those are things that would replace something in my existing diet. They have beef and chicken and sausage and all sorts of other stuff, but they're just the meat. They replace an ingredient.
I buy Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls. I'd happily get ones that used Beyond Meat. I buy frozen noodle and pasta meals: same deal. Sandwiches. Chicken salad. Soup. I'm struggling to think of a single product that I can swap out for a Beyond Meat alternative.
I don't need every bit of meat that I consume to even be especially good. But if it's only just fine and it's not convenient, I'm just not going to get it. If it was cheaper, I might consider. Or if it was more nutritious. Or if it was more filling than regular meat (or less filling, even). Or if I felt strongly about the plant based products that I buy being a somewhat compelling meat facsimile. But there's just nothing that inspires me to pick up any of their products.
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We're not at the point where high quality meat can be replaced, but that doesn't mean the product is worthless.
Given the amount of animal suffering and environmental destruction involved in beef, this great taste shouldn't be taken so lightly. Everyone should make some effort to reduce its consumption.
"on an operating basis Beyond Meat lost 45 cents from every dollar of sales."
that is a culprit. Bad management. How else can your plant based product at comparable to meat prices be a loss instead of great profit. Even pure avocados are cheaper than meat. What is better and pricier than avocados do you put into your product? Then it should taste much better than avocados and meat. Yet there is no avocados, it is more like low quality cat/dog food:
"Key components include pea protein, rice protein, and lentil protein, alongside avocado oil, refined coconut oil, and canola oil. Other notable additions include methylcellulose, potato starch, and apple extract. "
That stuff at their prices should be super-profitable.
I don’t care about the nutrition/health of it at all.
Hope they can turn things around!
They're also spending enormous amounts of time & money suing creators for their trademarks (sort of a bad-look if your stated mission is to "save the planet")
Plus, they apparently lost 45c in every $1 of sold product.
Quorn, allergy issue noted, continues. Growing edible fungi in tanks using classic bioreactor methods works, is economically sustainable. TVP likewise. 1960s tech which works at scale.
Me? I liked eating it a bit. I like eating flesh and organ meat, fowl and fish a lot. A lot beats a bit. I like inari sushi too. So it's not I dislike the veg alternatives.