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Beyond Meat fights for survival
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 1y agoWish their products had less fat in them. They're tasty, but nutritionally they're a whole lot of canola oil.
- mdaniel 1y agoTheir newest release uses avocado oil, fwiw: https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/beyond-beef/ground#:~:text=our%20new%20avocado%20oil%20recipe https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/beyond-beef/ground...
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIs anyone really pretending these are healthier than a grass-fed beef patty? Or cooked vegetables? The health pitch on these products has always struck me as incredibly weird.
- onli 1y agoYes. Meat consumption is not exactly healthy. It's absolutely plausible that replacing it with something like this is a net plus. That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> It's absolutely plausible that replacing it with something like this is a net plus Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely. To the extent we’ve found anything out in nutrition, it’s that processing away from the kitchen is generally bad. > That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth Nope [1]. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/
- onli 1y ago> Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely. Not sure why you claim that, there definitely are studies in that direction. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-021-01922-9 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... for example, you can find many more. I'm not saying it's absolutely certain, but it's definitively not unlikely. "Processing away from the kitchen" on the other hand is a very broad field, and the current thinking seems to be that it is too broad. There are absolutely negative health outcomes observed there, but it is likely about aspects. So at first one has to have certainty about which part of processing is bad, to then known if Beyond Meat is processed in an unhealthy way. That is not at all clear. There is a big difference between a pizza and a chicken nugget is what I'm saying. > > That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth > Nope [1]. > [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/ One study, negative and positive aspects in the composition, no tests and thus no conclusion about the overall health aspects of eating that. Your nope is frankly bullshit.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoMeat consumption being linked to adverse health effects isn’t disputed. Replacing meat with Beyond Meat being a healthy choice is. > negative and positive aspects in the composition, no tests and thus no conclusion about the overall health aspects This is sort of like saying a study that shows a certain food contains lead that doesn’t also test for the effects of that specific way of ingesting lead is useless. That said, what you ask for exists [1]. Though I suppose now we’ll need a double-blind controlled study. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8909876/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8909876/
- ivraatiems 1y agoOther 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 1y agoThe article says that impossible food has gone down 50% (the stock price)
- ameliaquining 1y agoNote 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.
- wk_end 1y agoImpossible is good enough that - in the right context, if you squint real hard - you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from the real deal. Beyond just isn't there, it still comes off as a weird faux meat.
- ivraatiems 1y agoCompletely agree. I've made pasta sauces with Impossible that are indistinguishable.
- coyotebob 1y agoI've been vegan since 2014. I rarely eat those plant-base burgers, but do on occasion. One of the brands changed formulations and now doesn't even taste like a burger any longer. I bought pre-grilled Beyond burgers and they the better of the two.. For me, burgers are a treat. Most of the time I eat beans, fruit and vegetables.
- Havoc 1y agoThey changed their recipe about a year back and now I regret it every time I buy one of their beyond burgers. Guessing they were going for smokey bbq vibe but it's just not pleasant
- northhnbesthn 1y agoNot 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 1y agoThey 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
- phyrex 1y agoThat'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.
- armchairhacker 1y agoI 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.
- iknowstuff 1y agohmm.. 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 1y agoI thought sodium was really bad for you though
- o11c 1y agoSalt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
- eximius 1y agoZero 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 1y agoIt 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.
- bastawhiz 1y agoI 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.
- qmmmur 1y agoFor your own health, I implore you to explore even the most basic of cooking.
- s5300 1y ago[dead]
- bastawhiz 1y agoI do cook, I didn't say that I don't. My point is that if I'm going to pay a premium for a main ingredient and go through the effort of cooking it, I do not want it to be mediocre at best. Beyond Meat, imo, just isn't a more pleasing option, and the only reasons that I can see to choose it are: 1. You really like meat but have reasons to avoid it. 2. You want to broaden the diversity of foods in your exclusively plant based diet. And that's not me. And probably not very many other people, either. Hell, I buy a lot of vegetarian meals that require a fair amount of preparation. But they're not meat substitutes, because if I'm optimizing for enjoyment, I'm buying something that tastes good on its own rather than mimicking something that tastes good.
- hellcow 1y agoThis 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 1y agoWhat have you substituted cheese with? It's one of my favorite foods but no substitute has come close to it
- im_down_w_otp 1y agoI replaced it with insatiable yearning. It's not as good, but it's all I've got.
- e40 1y agoVegan cheese is made from cashews. If you’re in the Bay Area try Arizmendi’s vegan pizza. Surprisingly good.
- novia 1y agoI looked them up and I couldn't find any indication that they regularly offer vegan pizzas.
- angry_moose 1y agoI'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 1y agoI'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 1y agoBecause 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.
- transcriptase 1y agoThere’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 1y agoBoth can be true. I think they try desperately to be meat, and they fail miserably.
- DangitBobby 1y ago
- paulcole 1y agoI 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!
- gonzalohm 1y agoI 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
- ipnon 1y agoThe crappy supermarket meat is actually incredibly nutritious it just has dubious ethics for an apparently vanishingly small market segment.
- gonzalohm 1y agoBut it tastes disgusting, it's one of those things where you actually get what you pay
- anoncow 1y agoWhat makes supermarket meat crappy?
- xedrac 1y agoThere is no crappy meat, just meat that isn't prepared well.
- sandspar 1y agoThere'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.
- Barbing 1y agoAny employees here, sorry what morale must be like at work (I’d guess) & hope you get great offers elsewhere!
- SoftTalker 1y agoIt’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.
- octo888 1y agoRight! Beyond awful
- drewg123 1y agoIts 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 1y agoAbsolutely 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 1y agoOur 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.
- itsoktocry 1y agoYes, you know exactly what you're getting: processed garbage.
- boston_clone 1y agoWay better than dead animal flesh!
- beej71 1y agoLast 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.
- thegeekpirate 1y agoUSDA 80/20 ground beef has 7.7g per 113g [0], 90/10 has 5g [1], Beyond Meat has 2g [2], and Impossible has 6g [3]. Impossible also has a "Lite" version (which doesn't seem to exist near me) with 1g [4], although apparently it doesn't taste very good. [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514744/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514744/nutrients [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514743/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514743/nutrients [2] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-CA/products/the-beyond-burger/beyond-burger https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-CA/products/the-beyond-burger/... [3] https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018939274-What-are-the-nutrition-facts-for-Impossible-Beef-Meat-From-Plants https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600189392... [4] https://impossiblefoods.com/beef/plant-based-impossible-beef-lite https://impossiblefoods.com/beef/plant-based-impossible-beef...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- davidw 1y agoOne 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 1y agoGround 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.
- xedrac 1y agoI 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 1y agoThey 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.
- trhway 1y agoeverybody 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.
- oezi 1y 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.
- rgovostes 1y agoWhen Impossible was new and only available in burger format at a small number of partner restaurants, I ventured out to SF to try two of them. I concluded that it can make for a genuinely convincing substitute, but the key is preparing it with a sleight of hand to misdirect from the noticeable imitation texture and flavor. Those early burgers were made with thin patties, with flavorful burger sauces and toppings. As Impossible expanded beyond their launch partners, they lost their control over the consumer experience. I think many restaurants now serve wretched Impossible Burgers because they just substitute a beef patty and don't try to accommodate the differences. If you are savoring it as part of a taste test, it will never fool you; the first impression isn't the takeaway. If beef is not the focal point of the dish, as in their Impossible Mapo Tofu recipe (https://impossiblefoods.com/recipes/impossible-mapo-tofu https://impossiblefoods.com/recipes/impossible-mapo-tofu) or a chili or something, it can slot in pretty well. They are nowhere near substitutes for ribeye steak or smoked brisket.
- sampo 1y agoHow is their competitor Impossible Foods doing? It's a private company, so we can't as easily look at stock prices.
- joelrunyon 1y agoNot great - https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1931091407294312956 https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1931091407294312956
- JoshTriplett 1y agoYou seem to be single-purpose posting to promote your legal case.
- joelrunyon 1y agoIs the information wrong?
- pengaru 1y ago[flagged]
- dmazin 1y agoIt’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.
- account-5 1y agoWhat part of the UK does this happen in? I've never been asked this. I can only assume you're in London?
- dmazin 1y agoWoops, 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. https://gfieurope.org/blog/plant-based-meat-and-milk-are-now-mainstream-choices-for-british-consumers/ 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-intake-animal-products https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/almost-half-uk-adults-set-cut-in...
- Adverblessly 1y ago> 35% of UK households purchased plant-based milk at least once during 2023 I'd estimate my household purchased ~200 litres of cow's milk in 2023. We also "purchased plant-based milk at least once" or twice when we had guests over that don't drink cow's milk.
- marliechiller 1y agoAs a counter, I cant remember the last time I wasn't asked what milk I'd prefer. In fact, I now prefer oat milk in coffee to regular milk
- da-x 1y agoBoy, the C-suite that sold in the 2019-2021 peak at $150 a share knew what they were doing.
- socalgal2 1y agoMy 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.
- Pikamander2 1y agoYeah, I never understood the hype for Beyond's products. They must have just had great marketing or something because their meat barely tasted any better than any other frozen veggie burger. Impossible Foods was always more impressive, both from a taste and scientific perspective. They invested hundreds of millions of dollars into cutting-edge food science, including a new plant-based heme production process. That's in contrast with much of their competition (like Morningstar, or countless other brands) who just slapped together some bean paste and spices and called it a day.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoBeyond has other products that are decent. Impossible has better patties last I tried. But Beyond Sausage is good (though expensive). And Beyond Steak chunks are great in tacos: just pop them in an air fryer. It's like $6.50/bag which is enough tacos for two people.
- joelrunyon 1y ago[flagged]
- ggm 1y agoVegetarians 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.
- mdaniel 1y agoI know this is about Beyond but I figure the audience that would care about this article would be interested in looking at Juicy Marbles: https://juicymarbles.com/collections/all-products https://juicymarbles.com/collections/all-products 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
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIngredients make it look like engineered soy. Is there a secret sauce to making it better than meat for someone who doesn’t have that level of ethical granularity?
- Klonoar 1y agoJuicy Marbles is legitimately the best plant-based replacement if you're interesting in smoking/BBQ'ing on a grill. I use them for pot-lucks with people.
- itsoktocry 1y agoTop two ingredients: engineered soy and sunflower oil. Yummy.
- boston_clone 1y agoQuite the far cry from the rape and murder required of beef burgers, no?
- submeta 1y agoThe 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.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoBeyond Meat is industrial plant-based protein. The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. That means their market is is poor and lower middle-class folks—hence the distribution through fast food and mid-grade grocery channels. They’re not buying plant-based proteins. (The conscientious are already eating plants.) Beyond Meat is broken as a mass-market brand. It should be restructured as a niche play. > young folks already grow up with a very critical attitude towards meat consumption Statistically insignificant [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919220301354 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030691922...
- fn-mote 1y ago> The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. I don’t understand this take on what (is / should be) a premium brand. The whole dismissal doesn’t make sense to me. It’s marketed at well-off former meat eaters. The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans just like they have for the last hundred plus years.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> don’t understand this take on what (is / should be) a premium brand It’s not. The premium options for plant-based foods are vast, fresh and more expensive than BM. Beyond Meat isn’t serving premium. It’s premium to the lowest-grade ground beef. But that’s like saying a basic economy seat is premium to Greyhound. Technically true. But misleading relativism. > The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans Globally? Sure. In developed countries, of course not.
- nxpnsv 1y agoBM 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.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoYeah, there is a camp of people who see headlines like this and (giddily) think it spells the demise of plant-based alternatives, probably because since they don't shop plant-based products, their mental concept is stuck 15 years ago where BM was new and experimental, so now they think "heh, not surprised that flopped and we can move on". But what they don't get is that the market has exploded with competition. Even grocery stores in places like Houston have gone from a couple shelves of vegan products to half-aisles or full-aisles of plant-based food. Beyond Meat might die in spite of the success of the market it entered into or helped create.
- crinkly 1y agoIm not surprised. It doesn’t really fit anywhere. I’m a vegetarian and have been for about 30 years. None of the fake meat really appealed to me. I don’t factor anything that looks or tastes like meat into my diet. The same is true of other long term vegetarians that I know. I did try the products and they were “meh”. It suspect it mostly appealed to meat eaters who felt a little guilty about it due to marketing and social pressure. But the expense and the general inferiority of their products was enough for it to wear off quickly. I don’t blame them for not bothering. I will add I’m not a strict vegetarian - I’ll eat meat in places where it’s not socially understood what vegetarians are. Arguing with some guy in the middle of nowhere in Central Asia about the chunk of horse you just got served isn’t productive. Whatever you want to do is fine.
- coolgoose 1y agoI am all for eating more vegetables. But putting ultra processed mashed up shit to replace the real thing just sounds like an avenue for disaster health wise.
- newdee 1y agoIt is, and people seem to ascribe some implicit goodness to these companies because they’re seen as providing an alternative to an implicitly evil industry and degenerate dietary choice. Truth is, they’re running the same game, just with a less wholesome food product.
- mawadev 1y agoOver here, beyond meat is simply more expensive than just buying meat. On top of that, it feels like you eat pure ultra processed product magic chemistry and thats not good. So who exactly is the target audience for that? I'd totally buy it, if it competes with meat prices by being cheaper and if there wasn't so much effort into trying to look like meat and taste like meat, which goes against the entire premise.
- intothemild 1y agoMy vegetarian wife won't touch the stuff, or any meat substitute. It's too much like meat. I always believed these things are like nicotine patches/chewables/etc.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoThat's not the right way to look at it. Just because I went vegan doesn't mean I hate the taste of meat. I love the taste of meat. I sometimes treat myself to products that taste like meat. There is no "final stage veganism" for me where I hold my fingers together in the "X" shape towards anything that reminds me of animal-based foods. And a lot of people seem to think this caricature is realistic based on the amount of times people think they're trolling me on Twitter by posting an image of a sizzling steak.
- makingstuffs 1y agoThe problem with Beyond Meat is that it is insanely expensive. I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the price of their ultra processed burger. Don’t get me wrong, as a vegetarian, I think they taste nice. They are just too damn expensive and not particularly healthy which goes against why I am a vegetarian. In Europe we have so many alternatives that are insanely cheaper and, as an Indian, we have so many alternatives that haven’t been processed to within an inch of their life. One thing I found to be a great homemade burger maker is simply getting some dried minced soy protein, mix with some eggs, breadcrumbs and seasoning before wrapping in some cling film and pressing it into a patty. Tastes great, holds it shape and has a burger like texture.
- raphman 1y ago> before wrapping in some cling film and pressing it into a patty Why do you wrap it? Couldn't you also form the burger patty without the cling film?
- whoknowsidont 1y agoPretty common thing to do to help limit cleanup and help shape the patties (regardless of what they're made of).
- makingstuffs 1y agoIt allows you to add some pressure to the patty while providing it a restricted space in which it can expand. By doing so the ingredients seem to form a much stronger bond (from my experience). I used to do the same with beef when I ate it. Also, rolling it into a ball and then wrapping before flattening gives a much better shape to the resulting patty
- bell-cot 1y agoIf you'd rather avoid the single-use-ish plastic, then wax paper usually works as well.
- globular-toast 1y agoIs this really a problem with Beyond Meat or a problem with our policies not correctly pricing meat due to not caring about the environment or animal welfare?
- cloudbonsai 1y agoSo the biggest problem here is that Beyond Meat has a huge debt due in just 2 years: That’s a problem given that $1 billion in convertible bonds come due in March 2027. Beyond Meat has no way to repay that debt, and the credit markets know it: The bonds currently trade at about 17 cents on the dollar. To put the "$1B" number into the context, Beyond Meat sold $300M worth of plant-based meats last year, and made a net operating loss of $156M. Their total assets are $600M, and the market capitalization is only $260M as of today. If they could magically become profitable at 10% profit margin, it would take 20+ years to repay the debt. It's hopeless.
- Workaccount2 1y ago[flagged]
- zahlman 1y ago> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. It seems clear that the purpose of your comment is to "drag" an unrelated company.
- chronogram 1y agoThat's got to be an incredible expenditure then. Considering their pricing compared to the better store brand alternatives, while not lacking any scale disadvantages, I expect high margins on the products themselves.
- bartread 1y agoAnd this as well: > The company expects the figure to reach about $330 million in 2025, roughly 10% higher than it was six years earlier despite a huge increase in the number of products offered. It’s not like they have any growth potential to speak of that would enable them to service that debt. It’s a bit hard to see who their target market is or, rather, it’s a bit hard to see that the market segment they’re aiming for is big enough for them to grow at an appreciable rate. To me it reads like they just didn’t do their homework up-front - e.g., an in depth segmentation - in determining their addressable market. Vegetarians and vegans I know want protein sources in their diets but they don’t necessarily want meat substitutes, so perhaps BM’s products aren’t that appealing to them. Meat eaters possibly have low awareness of BM and, unless they’re particularly principled - and wealthy enough to absorb the additional cost - are unlikely to pay the same price, or more (at least here in the UK), for meat substitutes than they’d pay for actual meat. Moreover, people I know who are trying to cut down on meat, like their veggie and vegan counterparts, mostly aren’t looking for meat substitutes in their meat-free meals either. If BM’s products were more affordable and better advertised they’d have a better chance at widespread adoption but it’s very hard to plot a route from where they are now to there. Also, this doesn’t solve for the portion of the market who aren’t looking for explicitly meaty meat substitutes. As you say, it does appear hopeless. (FWIW, I’ve eaten BM burgers on several occasions. They’re excellent but I’m not normally willing to pay the premium for them versus actual beef patties, or making our own.)
- p1dda 1y ago[flagged]
- findthewords 1y agoPlant-based protein will not succeed as long as government subsidize meat production.
- epolanski 1y agoSo if I buy their very cheap convertible bond, they either repay it (they won't) or they give me lots of equity?
- aembleton 1y agoOr you take a hair cut if the majority of bond holders agree.
- pfdietz 1y agoWhat I would like to see in a fake meat is a product engineered to have lower level of histidine, since there is evidence that gut microorganism processing of histidine creates a chemical that causes atherosclerosis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44595008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44595008
- aszantu 1y agoI kinda think beyond meat is for ppl who care about taste. You can fake meat taste and texture much cheaper. For ppl who care about nutrients, artificial meat seemingly gets more expensive and you also need licenses probably and what not. Health wise it's in your own best interest to eat animals that fave been able to forage and graze in the sun. See Vitamin d and so on. Those ppl won't buy factory slurry.
- maxglute 1y agoNot surprised. Expensive, taste like shit. Nice Asian vegetarian food exist. A always seemed like stupid amount of resources a d effort to cater to burger markets.
- petesergeant 1y agoHeadline here is not true; in fact: > the end of Beyond Meat stock doesn’t mean the end of the Beyond Meat business ... reorganized company can continue its work, and perhaps even go public again in the future The stock price is simply unnaturally low because there's a decent chance it'll go through Chapter 11 soon.
- sub7 1y agoThe FDA already allows far too much salt and preservatives in US food supplies and this fake meat stuff is an absurd amount of salt that will 100% give you a heart attack very very early if you eat it regularly. Just like the drug ads on TV, this is one of those situations where industry must be reigned in before the market discovers the truth.
- Marsymars 1y ago> The FDA already allows far too much salt and preservatives in US food supplies and this fake meat stuff is an absurd amount of salt that will 100% give you a heart attack very very early if you eat it regularly. A Beyond Burger has ~300 mg sodium. You could eat one every day and come in well under the recommended daily allowance of sodium as long as the rest of your diet is appropriate.
- anovikov 1y agoThis is a poster child of ZIRP one step away from Juicero.
- lazylizard 1y agoi cannot understand the urge to compete with the pig or cow or chicken (especially) for meat production. they are so good at turning feed into meat. why not plant based lobster, crab, sea cucumber or sea urchin or sharks fin or something similar. that is unproductive? or impossible to farm? and perhaps even endangered? something that plant based processes are closer to competing on price.
- andyjohnson0 1y ago> i cannot understand the urge to compete with the pig or cow or chicken (especially) for meat production. they are so good at turning feed into meat. Because they are living, somewhat sentient, animals that are capable of suffering. And using them as a food source requires that we kill them on a large scale. And because industrial-scale meat production causes huge suffering to the animals caught-up in it, as well as serious environmental damage.
- lazylizard 1y agothere's not much market for that apparently..
- apexalpha 1y agoIt's insane to me that they're struggling despite the burgers being more expensive than actual meat in my supermarket. They taste nice, sure. But my supermarket now also has Mushroom burgers, lentil burgers, normal soya burgers... All for 1/3 of the price. The premium product of vegatarian meat is meat, not more expensive veggie meat, it seems. Personally I think this will become that premium spot: mosameat.com But who knows, it's too early to tell.
- giantg2 1y agoWhether they taste nice is debatable. They had an odd aftertaste for me. I would much rather have a good mushroom or black bean burger. They taste better to me, are cheaper, and probably more healthy.
- beanjuiceII 1y ago[flagged]
- pif 1y agoThat's good news, fake products need to die. We already have real meat and real vegetables, and both are wonderful things. We don't need this idiot fad of eating one of them while conving us that we are eating the other.
- throw14082020 1y agoI recently travelled the US (California, Arizona, Utah, Ohio), I found it really hard to find vegan options. Some restaurants that used to sell vegan burgers or vegan options have stopped (McDonalds, Applebees) - because not enough people ordered them. Some restaurants that have Beyond Meat burger patties as on option "don't have any in stock" - probably for the same reason. According to GPT o4-mini, these are the restaurants that have stopped in the past few years: Habit Burger & Grill; McDonald’s; Carl’s Jr.; TGI Fridays; Del Taco; Denny’s; Dunkin’; Wendy’s. I will say beyond meat tasted pretty good, and I would prefer to eat that than to go hungry at US restaurants. But it's very expensive and very annoying to cook at home (smoky). Not sure how healthy it is either - highly processed? Also, people who are vegetarian/vegan know the health benefits. They're not going to pay more to get less healthy.
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoBeyond is hard to buy in supermarkets too. Whole Foods doesn't stock it at all and many others never have it in store even if the chain does technically stock it online. I just want it because it's 0 cholesterol and tastes the same as meat to me. This is probably the cause of their problems. You need to be one of the big food brands to have leverage to get it on shelves in a prominent position and they are small.
- thom 1y agoHate these burgers. As a dairy-loving vegetarian, first the vegans came along and ruined everything by evicting most of the tasty options from restaurants, and then the meat eaters somehow wanted vegan food that tasted of animals and that became the default option on many menus. Vegetarians (who I grant you are difficult to pity as the centrists of the food world) got utterly screwed.
- lanfeust6 1y agoIf the supposed tastier option is black bean burgers, can't say I agree, and I eat black beans all the time.
- 9dev 1y agoIf you’re consuming lots of dairy, and became vegetarian to avoid animal suffering, you can just as well eat meat. Not much of a difference ethically.
- merry_flame 1y agoRidiculous. Dropping meat is upwards of 90 pc of the welfare impact.
- dolebirchwood 1y agoThat's cool. But "avoiding animal suffering" isn't the only reason people stop eating meat. Sometimes the reason is as simple as: I just think meat is gross. No judgment on anyone else who eats it.
- 9dev 1y agoI added the if because of that. A lot of people aren’t aware what cows and chickens go through in industrial farming.
- thom 1y agoI was brought up vegetarian.
- pjs_ 1y agoBeans dude. Beans are absolutely delicious. They grow in the ground by accident. A good bean burger is way more appetizing than a biosludge patty. Unfortunately nobody is getting rich selling beans. But they are all we need here
- 9dev 1y agoChock full of nutrients and protein too!
- msarrel 1y agoThey're charging more than beef for something that is just as unhealthy. It's amazing they lasted this long.
- azalemeth 1y agoHere's a really good vegan burger recipe: caramelise about three large red onions with garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Drain a tin of red kidney beans, keep the liquid, mash together with fried onions, add about 100g of breadcrumbs, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, chilli powder, and a pinch of allspice. Add aquafaba or breadcrumbs to adjust consistency. Press into round shapes. Fry (about six minutes). Cost: three onions, one tin of beans, some old bread, negligible spices. Yield: four delicious, fresh, very healthy burgers. I am a lifelong vegetarian and the likes of beyond meat are just frankly disgusting to me. They're expensive, upf, have a horrid texture, and aren't aimed at me. But I guess that's the point -- their target market is "real men" who want to try being vegan for a while, not the likes of me. Yet I fear real men don't want to get the message and the demographic who are veggie or vegan have better, cheaper, nicer alternatives.
- 1024core 1y agoAs a vegetarian, the problem with Beyond Meat (and other such products) is that they're too close to the original. I'm a vegetarian; I don't want to eat meat. If what I'm eating tastes too close to meat, I begin doubting it. It has happened several times in the past where I've been served (real) meat when I explicitly asked for a non-meat version (e.g. "beef burrito" instead of "bean burrito", etc.) This is why I avoid Beyond Meat (and Impossible) products: too close for comfort. Vegetables and grains have a great taste in themselves; they don't need to imitate meat to be tasty!
- why_at 1y agoAs a vegan, hard disagree. I prefer impossible because it tastes even more like meat. I love vegetables and grains too. Tofu and lentils etc. are delicious but sometimes I just want a burger.
- zavec 1y agoI think this will vary largely based on individual opinion. Many vegetarians will feel the same way as you of course. I'm currently trying to minimize my meat consumption where feasible based on some other factors, for several years in the past have been a stricter vegetarian as well. My motives for that are and were entirely based on cruelty and environmental concerns, so for me (and again, I suspect many other people who are vegetarian for their own combination of reasons) being close to the real thing isn't a downside at all.
- EUSSR 1y ago[flagged]
- woodpanel 1y agoThe Beyond Meat story for me is a boon since its IPO. I made a good fortune betting against the post-IPO rally. Let's not forget how, in the late 2010s, VC money successfully pushed the idea that Beyond Meat et al didn't just taste as good as what it mimmicks, but that it acutally tastes better. Then-Celebrety Chef David Chang even said "it melted my brain" (Impossbile Foods). Chain stores around the world fell over each other to first announce stocking their shelves with it, then told their customers they had to wait due to too much demand in existing markets, and ultimately that they won't be selling any actual meat at all in in a couple of years. It was the full display of top-to-bottom class-war, elitist groupthink drooling over the power to pull a staple of our cuisine, culture and life quality from us – exactly because we like it. And then shove super processed improvements into the mouths of the dull plebs. And make a killing with eyewatering stock prices of up to 190 USD.
- zahlman 1y ago> I made a good fortune betting against the post-IPO rally. How did you decide when the rally was over?
- woodpanel 1y agoMay 2019 is when they launched in Germany and by looking at the shelves during the coming months it was obvious that BYND's then-market-cap of over 10B USD was unsustainable. Shelves were being emptied out quickly by customers at the start. By the end of the summer though, these new types of patties (whether BYND or its competitors) had more discount/sale stickers on it than the average carpet store window. To be fair: Price actually returned to that valuation a year later during Covid but by then I wasn't exposed and didn't bother to double down. Probably bad financial behaviour, since I was betting against "the market can be incorrect longer than you can remain solvent", but the visibility of it's products vis-a-vis the hype, and the unlikelyness to me that a patty of hyperprocessed legumes could ever achieve a moat large enough to sustain such a market cap, gave me confidence that with BYND sanity would return to markets rather sooner along side the first quaterly results.
- 1y ago
- konfusinomicon 1y agobeyond meat is people!
- CodeWriter23 1y agoMaybe they should simply stop fighting against survival.
- j_timberlake 1y agoOn a positive note, if you eat non-meat alternatives, you both avoid funding more factory-farming and you also help fund better non-meat options. You can't make much difference, but it's not like this is the only thing going on in your life anyway.
- pedalpete 1y agoAll of the hamburger and chicken-finger alternative meat companies missed the lesson where you want to target a high-dollar small market first, and then spread from there. There is WAY too much competition from regular meat, to bean/tofu/other vegetarian options that alternative meat just can't compete with on price. From what I've seen, Vow (https://www.eatvow.com/ https://www.eatvow.com/) are the only company that has taken a different approach and gone ultra-high end with their "cultured meats". Rather than trying to re-create a simple burger, they've made meats that can't exist in the real world. Their Japanese Qual Foix Gras has been available in Singapore for a while now and is coming to Sydney this month (I believe). This product is only sold at ultra-high end restaurants where people want the experience and are willing to pay for it. Vow didn't need to scale manufacturing to huge levels and try to boil the ocean all at once. They have a step by step plan ala Tesla where they start with the ultra-small scale very expensive foods, then move slightly down market, and continue until they are able to make affordable mass-market cultured foods for everyone.
- exabrial 1y agoPutting ultra ultra ultra processed food in one’s body is not a good idea.
- thecolorblue 1y agoThere are multiple companies that went public in that 2019 - 2021 time frame that have negative EBITDA and are hard to price because of it. Ginkgo Bioworks, IPO Date: Sept. 2021, EBITDA: -$325m Rivian, IPO Date: Nov. 2021, EBITDA: -$455m Beyond Meat has seen less growth than their some of these examples, but my conclusion is still the same: it would have been better for them to find their footing as a private company, then use the IPO money to expand, rather than to pour the IPO money into R&D. Publicly trading stock causes more overhead and restricts the companies ability to pivot. Investors, founders, and employees are able to cash out before the real value has been created. The money generated does not guarantee longer term success or better long term investments as much as they thought it would. I am still bullish on many of these companies but if I were to get in my time machine back to 2019, I would have avoided investing.