7 ms·

Beyond Meat: Scaling ethical consumerism

60 points by latc 6y ago

mc32 6y ago
I would hesitate to call food consumption “consumerism” —save perhaps gluttony and fancy restaurants. Now, perhaps they mean that they productize something which is unachievable by most people at home (few would attempt to make homemade beyondmeat protein for food) and so they are facilitating the consumption of something that otherwise would not get consumed... Ethical excess clothes, unneeded cosmetics, frivolous throwaway home items, etc., yes sure, I’m sure there are ethical alternatives just as there are “organic” poisons too. A possible key alternative source of proteins I don’t think merits the label/adjective “consumerist”
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Hey HN: I’d like to read a compelling counter to the above versus seeing it turn grey without any meaningful discussion via drive by downvoting. That said, mc32, with regards to food and consumption as you’ve put it, and in this specific context-I wonder if “post-consumerism” is a turn of phrase that you would consider apt? Rather than being against the machinations of excess known to be associated with industrial meat production, it seems to be moved beyond, and dispassionate towards “fixing” these machinations in favor of entirely different ethical choices. Curious to hear your thoughts.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Post-consumer(ist) would reframe it such that we evaluate it as something existing after transcending consumerism. We may get there, some day. I’m against calling something that’s basic to human sustenance “consumerist”. We might disagree with peoples choices of food or the source of those foods or whether it’s a small farmer or BigAg. I remain opposed to calling basic foods (contrasted with luxury foods) part of consumerism. Meats and such have been part of human nutrition for quite some time. Unlike clothing (and other things) you don’t typically buy unnecessary excess for the sake of it or to fulfill some non essential need that’s already been met. As I admit we can reproach people for unwise choices in food but I can’t consider it consumerism (I would allow some narrow exceptions).
  - mping 6y ago
    I admit the tone is heavy, which makes introspection (reflecting about self consumerist tendencies) unpleasant. But as I understand it, consumerism is a spectrum, just like veganism.
- temp-dude-87844 6y ago
  The term "ethical consumerism" is unfortunate, because it contains the word "consumerism", whose meaning has gained negative connotations. A frequent alternate term for the concept is "ethical consumption", which sidesteps the unintended value judgments that some people hear in the other term.
  - mc32 6y ago
    That works for me. “Consumerism” is unfortunate in that it carries baggage, intended and maybe unintended because it’s used to describe people’s attitude towards their buying habits in a negative light. Often this is rightly pointed out —cheap disposable things which can have upstream and downstream impacts that often offer poor long-term value to the buyer.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    I like “ethical consumption” for the reasons given, had not yet been exposed to this particular framing. Thank you.
rch 6y ago
I've enjoyed the run up in stock price, but IIRC their products still aren't 'organic' or otherwise designated as being specifically environmentally conscious (e.g. 'regenerative'). Isn't the value prop mostly about offering vegetarians, whatever their personal motivations might be, something new on the menu?
- dashundchen 6y ago
  I am a vegetarian who eats almost entire vegan. I know a lot of other veg/an and plant based diet people. My experience for veg/ans matches the article. Substitutes like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are almost always a novelty or treat - something you would order out at an omni restaurant, or maybe bring to a cookout where meat eaters were also grilling. It's nice to have as an option but we're used to building our meals around staples like tofu, beans, tempeh, seitan etc. I hear way more about these newer processed products from meat eaters who think this is what we would eat regularly, or are excited to try them out themselves. After the recent meat shortages and the million pandemic articles about "how to cook beans" I am convinced the actual target market is meat eaters who are looking to build meals around something as close to meat as possible, rather than people who are plant based.
  - cheez 6y ago
    The plan, as far as I can tell, is to raise the price of meat so "sort of meat" has a place at the table for people who cannot afford real meat.
  - Animats 6y ago
    Impossible Burger is not aimed at vegans. It is aimed at carnivores. It's not particularly "organic" or healthy. It just tastes like a Burger King Whopper. It's selling fine, and it has to be very profitable, given the ingredients and the reasonably simple manufacturing process.
    - tiziniano 6y ago
      Now now, that is a very charitable comment about its taste. As usual in food, more processing -> cheaper and lower quality. Sure, it might have similar macronutrients but real health is in getting enough micros.
Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
Beyond Meat just arrived in our market a few months ago and while the product is fine, its price is absurdly expensive. To produce it's purported benefits, Beyond Meat needs to adopt the Coca-Cola / Mcdonalds approach - license the tech / brand to local franchisees for local expansion and utilize the local agri sector for raw materials.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  Or if we started paying the actual price for real beef beyond beef would be the cheaper option. Removed the subsidies and include a carbon and water tax on food.
  - siculars 6y ago
    >include a carbon and water tax on food. Um ok. People who subscribe to this theory can calculate the proper offset and donate to their cause of choice or, you know, moderate their food consumption to adequately reflect their opinions on food production.
    - vostok 6y ago
      The point of taxes is that they force people to pay for things whether they want to or not. This is nice because most people wouldn't want to voluntarily pay for negative externalities. I know that there's no way I would want to pay for the ecological effects caused by my lifestyle choices for example. A tax doesn't give me the option to not pay.
    - cochne 6y ago
      The point is that these taxes help offset costs that you pay for other people, not yourself. If there was a car factory spewing toxic waste into the local water supply, would you say to your neighbors just don't buy the car if you don't like it?
      - deathgrips 6y ago
        Clearly the solution is to make it more expensive because it's ok to buy from that factory if you're rich :)
frsandstone 6y ago
Archive.org cache: https://web.archive.org/web/20200610011002/http://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/beyond-meat-scaling-ethical-consumerism/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200610011002/http://4thquadran... Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vg6P9j7fRv8J:https://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/transformation/beyond-meat-scaling-ethical-consumerism/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vg6P9j... Looks like a classic HN hug took it down.
- latc 6y ago
  Thanks... Haha I've increased capacity and it should be back up now
Munky-Necan 6y ago
I'm hoping that lab grown meat takes off. I believe that this is on par with expanding solar power and electric cars in terms of combating global warming.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  I hope so too. This seems like one of the most important things to tackle, but how safe is it? What's the chance that 50 years down the line we figure out that this has some damaging effect on the human body?
  - asdff 6y ago
    It would have a similar composition as ground beef. I guess refrain from excess like any red meat.
jojobas 6y ago
The implication is that eating meat is not ethical, something most don't agree with.
- jrvarela56 6y ago
  Like many other things in our economy, you're not paying for externalities. Others bear the cost. This is not ethical.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    If you mean carbon footprint, Beyond Meat appears to be on par with chicken and not much better than pork. Beef and lamb are worse, but I don't think this is the main ethics angle they're on.
  - mikeg8 6y ago
    Others bear the cost, only if the meat consumption supports the producers of externalities aka factory farms and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). If the meat you consume comes from small-scale, grass fed, local producers, there are no externalities (or fewer than cultured meat could produce) and thus eating meat can still be ethical.
    - shlant 6y ago
      "thus eating meat can still be ethical" Most people who choose not to eat meat for the ethical reasons do so based on the foundational belief that killing another conscious animal for food is unethical. "small-scale, grass fed, local producers" do not negate that belief.
  - foolfoolz 6y ago
    - driving a car 1 mile to school is not ethical: who mined that ore? drilled for that oil? - buying mass produced clothes is not ethical: who slaved for pennies to make that shirt? - having a smart phone is unethical: cheap laborers build the components in arrangements they can’t exit living in the 1st world is a world of hypocrisy. everything we do is possible because we have built on the backs of those less developed and outsource our costs so our living standard is high. i accept this, do all the things above, and eat meat
WhompingWindows 6y ago
Forget ethics, think of taste vs value vs health: can they make meatless burgers taste as good as regular burgers, while being cheaper or healthier? Or can they taste BETTER than regular burgers, while being equally expensive or equally unhealthy?
- Balgair 6y ago
  Long term (10+ years?), I think these plant-based meats are the future. These early/middle stages are important, just like any product, and they'll find their fit in a crowded grocery store. They are likely to be much healthier than meat (barring some real fun CRISPR gymnastics). They can taste however you'd want them to taste. Think, Captain America 5 burgers, exclusively at Burger King. It'll taste like the best beefiest burger more so than real beef can. Sauces can help, but the underlying burger still has to hold up. They're likely to be much cheaper as patents expire and 'store brand' burgers get out there. The competition will drive the price to near the cost of the ingredients, which I think are much cheaper than feeding the animal the ingredients for a few years and then eating the animal. They're more resilient to shocks in the supply chain compared to animals (mad cow, hurricanes, climate change, etc). They have a much broader market base than animals due to ethical and religious restrictions. Barring some medical report that says they give you super-cancer, I think the product is just better suited to the marketplace.
- asdff 6y ago
  I don't think it's possible nor prioritized. Decades of artificial flavoring pale in comparison to the real thing, and mass produced cultivars are preferred over odd looking yet tastier heirlooms. The food industry knows they only need to hit close enough because the vast majority of consumers buy the cheapest version possible at the grocery store. As for the physics of a good burger, a lot of that comes from animal fat, blood, sinew, firm and tender tissues. There are some plant based options that are attempting to replicate the blood component, and ground meat is certaintly a more forgiving medium as far as texture. Even with the existing meatless market, however, the economics are a tough bet for a lot of people. I tried out a vegan clone of In n out that opened in the neighborhood. At $12, it's 3x the price of a double double, and patty was ok but mostly just tasted like something deep fried. The real sting, and this goes for most vegan and vegetarian food I eat beyond ethnic food, $12 left me feeling hungry. The portions, the taste, and the price all combine into this perfect storm that puts off a lot of meat-eating consumers from taking up vegetarian food more regularly.
rglover 6y ago
Does anybody know of a good comparison of the nutrition profile of Beyond Meat vs. natural beef?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CivBase 6y ago
I am very happy that plant-based meat substitutes have come so far and are able to provide competition to the meat industry. Many parts of the meat industry have cited high demand as justification for unethical practices and this new competition should help do away with that. However, I think the "meat is bad" sentiment bandied about by this article and Beyond Meat is painfully reductive. It's great for their marketing... for now, at least... but it is also a very divisive statement that will probably end up creating as much opposition as support. Can't we just let both options exist? Margarine doesn't need a "butter is bad" campaign to stay relevant.
- dig6x 6y ago
  Think this is contingent on what “bad” means, how extensive are the negative externalities of something like meat farming versus the creation of butter or margarine. In that sense, they’re not comparable examples.
- shlant 6y ago
  I can empathize with that perspective. I personally find the "guilt and shame" tactic less effective and more divisive which is why I tend to avoid going that route. However, there also is truth to the statement "meat is bad" if "bad" means "has negative consequences" and I think those negatives definitely need to be talked about, but I do think it is hard to strike a good balance between effectively and honestly stating the position while also not turning more people off in the long term vs. how many are convinced.
- theabsurdman 6y ago
  If we can eat foods that don't cause the death and suffering of other creatures, then that is objectively better than eating foods that DO cause the death and suffering of others. Death and suffering are bad, although meat eaters will tie themselves in knots to try and pretend it isn't.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    The meat industry does not inherently cause suffering, but the death part is certainly unavoidable. It's not a question of whether or not death is "bad". It is a question of whether or not death is "worth it". In my experience, most people put a relatively high value on life (especially human), but not an infinite one. Most societies agree that human life must be highly valued; however, I think you will find that many people do not value the lives of livestock so highly. For many, even human life can be traded for something of great enough value. Ultimately, the value of a life is a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to challenge your opinion here. I just want to remind you that not everyone shares that opinion, and you'll have to convince them before you can use it as justification for declaring "meat is bad".

60 points by latc 6y ago

mc32 6y ago

I would hesitate to call food consumption “consumerism” —save perhaps gluttony and fancy restaurants. Now, perhaps they mean that they productize something which is unachievable by most people at home (few would attempt to make homemade beyondmeat protein for food) and so they are facilitating the consumption of something that otherwise would not get consumed... Ethical excess clothes, unneeded cosmetics, frivolous throwaway home items, etc., yes sure, I’m sure there are ethical alternatives just as there are “organic” poisons too. A possible key alternative source of proteins I don’t think merits the label/adjective “consumerist”

dvtrn 6y ago
Hey HN: I’d like to read a compelling counter to the above versus seeing it turn grey without any meaningful discussion via drive by downvoting. That said, mc32, with regards to food and consumption as you’ve put it, and in this specific context-I wonder if “post-consumerism” is a turn of phrase that you would consider apt? Rather than being against the machinations of excess known to be associated with industrial meat production, it seems to be moved beyond, and dispassionate towards “fixing” these machinations in favor of entirely different ethical choices. Curious to hear your thoughts.
- mc32 6y ago
  Post-consumer(ist) would reframe it such that we evaluate it as something existing after transcending consumerism. We may get there, some day. I’m against calling something that’s basic to human sustenance “consumerist”. We might disagree with peoples choices of food or the source of those foods or whether it’s a small farmer or BigAg. I remain opposed to calling basic foods (contrasted with luxury foods) part of consumerism. Meats and such have been part of human nutrition for quite some time. Unlike clothing (and other things) you don’t typically buy unnecessary excess for the sake of it or to fulfill some non essential need that’s already been met. As I admit we can reproach people for unwise choices in food but I can’t consider it consumerism (I would allow some narrow exceptions).
- mping 6y ago
  I admit the tone is heavy, which makes introspection (reflecting about self consumerist tendencies) unpleasant. But as I understand it, consumerism is a spectrum, just like veganism.
temp-dude-87844 6y ago
The term "ethical consumerism" is unfortunate, because it contains the word "consumerism", whose meaning has gained negative connotations. A frequent alternate term for the concept is "ethical consumption", which sidesteps the unintended value judgments that some people hear in the other term.
- mc32 6y ago
  That works for me. “Consumerism” is unfortunate in that it carries baggage, intended and maybe unintended because it’s used to describe people’s attitude towards their buying habits in a negative light. Often this is rightly pointed out —cheap disposable things which can have upstream and downstream impacts that often offer poor long-term value to the buyer.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  I like “ethical consumption” for the reasons given, had not yet been exposed to this particular framing. Thank you.

rch 6y ago

I've enjoyed the run up in stock price, but IIRC their products still aren't 'organic' or otherwise designated as being specifically environmentally conscious (e.g. 'regenerative'). Isn't the value prop mostly about offering vegetarians, whatever their personal motivations might be, something new on the menu?

dashundchen 6y ago
I am a vegetarian who eats almost entire vegan. I know a lot of other veg/an and plant based diet people. My experience for veg/ans matches the article. Substitutes like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are almost always a novelty or treat - something you would order out at an omni restaurant, or maybe bring to a cookout where meat eaters were also grilling. It's nice to have as an option but we're used to building our meals around staples like tofu, beans, tempeh, seitan etc. I hear way more about these newer processed products from meat eaters who think this is what we would eat regularly, or are excited to try them out themselves. After the recent meat shortages and the million pandemic articles about "how to cook beans" I am convinced the actual target market is meat eaters who are looking to build meals around something as close to meat as possible, rather than people who are plant based.
- cheez 6y ago
  The plan, as far as I can tell, is to raise the price of meat so "sort of meat" has a place at the table for people who cannot afford real meat.
- Animats 6y ago
  Impossible Burger is not aimed at vegans. It is aimed at carnivores. It's not particularly "organic" or healthy. It just tastes like a Burger King Whopper. It's selling fine, and it has to be very profitable, given the ingredients and the reasonably simple manufacturing process.
  - tiziniano 6y ago
    Now now, that is a very charitable comment about its taste. As usual in food, more processing -> cheaper and lower quality. Sure, it might have similar macronutrients but real health is in getting enough micros.

Mengkudulangsat 6y ago

Beyond Meat just arrived in our market a few months ago and while the product is fine, its price is absurdly expensive. To produce it's purported benefits, Beyond Meat needs to adopt the Coca-Cola / Mcdonalds approach - license the tech / brand to local franchisees for local expansion and utilize the local agri sector for raw materials.

chickenpotpie 6y ago
Or if we started paying the actual price for real beef beyond beef would be the cheaper option. Removed the subsidies and include a carbon and water tax on food.
- siculars 6y ago
  >include a carbon and water tax on food. Um ok. People who subscribe to this theory can calculate the proper offset and donate to their cause of choice or, you know, moderate their food consumption to adequately reflect their opinions on food production.
  - vostok 6y ago
    The point of taxes is that they force people to pay for things whether they want to or not. This is nice because most people wouldn't want to voluntarily pay for negative externalities. I know that there's no way I would want to pay for the ecological effects caused by my lifestyle choices for example. A tax doesn't give me the option to not pay.
  - cochne 6y ago
    The point is that these taxes help offset costs that you pay for other people, not yourself. If there was a car factory spewing toxic waste into the local water supply, would you say to your neighbors just don't buy the car if you don't like it?
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      Clearly the solution is to make it more expensive because it's ok to buy from that factory if you're rich :)

frsandstone 6y ago

Archive.org cache: https://web.archive.org/web/20200610011002/http://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/beyond-meat-scaling-ethical-consumerism/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200610011002/http://4thquadran... Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vg6P9j7fRv8J:https://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/transformation/beyond-meat-scaling-ethical-consumerism/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vg6P9j... Looks like a classic HN hug took it down.

latc 6y ago
Thanks... Haha I've increased capacity and it should be back up now

Munky-Necan 6y ago

I'm hoping that lab grown meat takes off. I believe that this is on par with expanding solar power and electric cars in terms of combating global warming.

Mirioron 6y ago
I hope so too. This seems like one of the most important things to tackle, but how safe is it? What's the chance that 50 years down the line we figure out that this has some damaging effect on the human body?
- asdff 6y ago
  It would have a similar composition as ground beef. I guess refrain from excess like any red meat.

jojobas 6y ago

The implication is that eating meat is not ethical, something most don't agree with.

jrvarela56 6y ago
Like many other things in our economy, you're not paying for externalities. Others bear the cost. This is not ethical.
- jojobas 6y ago
  If you mean carbon footprint, Beyond Meat appears to be on par with chicken and not much better than pork. Beef and lamb are worse, but I don't think this is the main ethics angle they're on.
- mikeg8 6y ago
  Others bear the cost, only if the meat consumption supports the producers of externalities aka factory farms and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). If the meat you consume comes from small-scale, grass fed, local producers, there are no externalities (or fewer than cultured meat could produce) and thus eating meat can still be ethical.
  - shlant 6y ago
    "thus eating meat can still be ethical" Most people who choose not to eat meat for the ethical reasons do so based on the foundational belief that killing another conscious animal for food is unethical. "small-scale, grass fed, local producers" do not negate that belief.
- foolfoolz 6y ago
  - driving a car 1 mile to school is not ethical: who mined that ore? drilled for that oil? - buying mass produced clothes is not ethical: who slaved for pennies to make that shirt? - having a smart phone is unethical: cheap laborers build the components in arrangements they can’t exit living in the 1st world is a world of hypocrisy. everything we do is possible because we have built on the backs of those less developed and outsource our costs so our living standard is high. i accept this, do all the things above, and eat meat

WhompingWindows 6y ago

Forget ethics, think of taste vs value vs health: can they make meatless burgers taste as good as regular burgers, while being cheaper or healthier? Or can they taste BETTER than regular burgers, while being equally expensive or equally unhealthy?

Balgair 6y ago
Long term (10+ years?), I think these plant-based meats are the future. These early/middle stages are important, just like any product, and they'll find their fit in a crowded grocery store. They are likely to be much healthier than meat (barring some real fun CRISPR gymnastics). They can taste however you'd want them to taste. Think, Captain America 5 burgers, exclusively at Burger King. It'll taste like the best beefiest burger more so than real beef can. Sauces can help, but the underlying burger still has to hold up. They're likely to be much cheaper as patents expire and 'store brand' burgers get out there. The competition will drive the price to near the cost of the ingredients, which I think are much cheaper than feeding the animal the ingredients for a few years and then eating the animal. They're more resilient to shocks in the supply chain compared to animals (mad cow, hurricanes, climate change, etc). They have a much broader market base than animals due to ethical and religious restrictions. Barring some medical report that says they give you super-cancer, I think the product is just better suited to the marketplace.
asdff 6y ago
I don't think it's possible nor prioritized. Decades of artificial flavoring pale in comparison to the real thing, and mass produced cultivars are preferred over odd looking yet tastier heirlooms. The food industry knows they only need to hit close enough because the vast majority of consumers buy the cheapest version possible at the grocery store. As for the physics of a good burger, a lot of that comes from animal fat, blood, sinew, firm and tender tissues. There are some plant based options that are attempting to replicate the blood component, and ground meat is certaintly a more forgiving medium as far as texture. Even with the existing meatless market, however, the economics are a tough bet for a lot of people. I tried out a vegan clone of In n out that opened in the neighborhood. At $12, it's 3x the price of a double double, and patty was ok but mostly just tasted like something deep fried. The real sting, and this goes for most vegan and vegetarian food I eat beyond ethnic food, $12 left me feeling hungry. The portions, the taste, and the price all combine into this perfect storm that puts off a lot of meat-eating consumers from taking up vegetarian food more regularly.

rglover 6y ago

Does anybody know of a good comparison of the nutrition profile of Beyond Meat vs. natural beef?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

CivBase 6y ago

I am very happy that plant-based meat substitutes have come so far and are able to provide competition to the meat industry. Many parts of the meat industry have cited high demand as justification for unethical practices and this new competition should help do away with that. However, I think the "meat is bad" sentiment bandied about by this article and Beyond Meat is painfully reductive. It's great for their marketing... for now, at least... but it is also a very divisive statement that will probably end up creating as much opposition as support. Can't we just let both options exist? Margarine doesn't need a "butter is bad" campaign to stay relevant.

dig6x 6y ago
Think this is contingent on what “bad” means, how extensive are the negative externalities of something like meat farming versus the creation of butter or margarine. In that sense, they’re not comparable examples.
shlant 6y ago
I can empathize with that perspective. I personally find the "guilt and shame" tactic less effective and more divisive which is why I tend to avoid going that route. However, there also is truth to the statement "meat is bad" if "bad" means "has negative consequences" and I think those negatives definitely need to be talked about, but I do think it is hard to strike a good balance between effectively and honestly stating the position while also not turning more people off in the long term vs. how many are convinced.
theabsurdman 6y ago
If we can eat foods that don't cause the death and suffering of other creatures, then that is objectively better than eating foods that DO cause the death and suffering of others. Death and suffering are bad, although meat eaters will tie themselves in knots to try and pretend it isn't.
- CivBase 6y ago
  The meat industry does not inherently cause suffering, but the death part is certainly unavoidable. It's not a question of whether or not death is "bad". It is a question of whether or not death is "worth it". In my experience, most people put a relatively high value on life (especially human), but not an infinite one. Most societies agree that human life must be highly valued; however, I think you will find that many people do not value the lives of livestock so highly. For many, even human life can be traded for something of great enough value. Ultimately, the value of a life is a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to challenge your opinion here. I just want to remind you that not everyone shares that opinion, and you'll have to convince them before you can use it as justification for declaring "meat is bad".