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I always wondered who their demographic was. The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab ma

I always wondered who their demographic was. The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). Health-conscious folks would take one look at the ingredient list and bail because of the heavy processing and industrial fillers. You've got bodybuilders and athletes skipping it because it lacks the micronutrient density and bioavailability of real animal protein. Everyday folks aren't exactly lining up to pay a "green premium" for something that tastes almost like a burger but costs more and offers less. It feels like they built a product for a tiny, hyper-specific niche: people who desperately crave the experience of a fast-food patty but have an ideological dealbreaker with meat, while being well off enough that finances aren't carefully managed and loose enough in their convictions that a burger-joint is still ok. It always seemed like an odd propsition to me, even if cool in some ways.

3rodents 7mo ago
Beyond Meat aren't unique, there are dozens of brands offering the same product. Tens of millions of people eat these type of products. Any (or most) burger-serving restaurant in Europe will have a Beyond Meat or equivalent on the menu. They're not always advertised as vegan (because of preparation and extras) but these fake burgers are very popular, for many reasons.
- Den_VR 7mo ago
  At the time it was a unique product. My alternatives reminded me more of basically black-bean patties than beef. Then impossible meat did it better, industry decided there was money in this direction, and now there’s “or equivalent” everywhere.
- markdown 7mo ago
  Fake? In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
  - goosejuice 7mo ago
    What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak. Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
    - deaux 7mo ago
      > What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak. The 95.8% of the world population that isn't in the US. This is simple to deduce because everywhere else calls "a piece of fried chicken in a burger bun" a "chicken _burger_". Only the US calls it a "chicken sandwich". Some of Canada might now use the latter through US influence - any Canadians here? KFC is a representative example, they call them "KFC chicken sandwich" only in the US, "burgers" effectively everywhere else.
      - goosejuice 7mo ago
        I suspect Commonwealth or Asia. Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun? A piece of hot chicken between bread in Italy would likely be a panino, france a sandwich, spain a bocadillo, Portugal sandes, Japan a sando, mexico a torta, Argentina a sanguche. I think you overestimate how many people use burger for things that don't refer to the American concept. A lot of cultures have hot sandwiches and thus (ham)burger is often distinctly the American concept of a ground beef patty. Where this breaks down outside of the Commonwealth is often from cultures without things in bread that got exposed to the generic burger via fast food chain terminology. Not surprising there.
        deaux 7mo ago
        What are you even arguing about? KFC and McD uses "Burger" everywhere outside of NA. There's nothing left to discuss besides that, it shows that indeed the rest of the world all calls it a burger even though it's not a ground meat patty. Good luck finding a country outside of NA where they call their chicken burgers a "chicken sandwich". > Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun? A _burger bun_ makes it a burger.
- peacebeard 7mo ago
  That's a really good point. Maybe in part because Beyond had a highly visible IPO they became the poster child for the success or failure of meat alternatives but in reality their story is pretty much just their own story.
edm0nd 7mo ago
>I always wondered who their demographic was. Wealthy hippies, vegans, and yuppies.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
mschild 7mo ago
Based on my bubble, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters that do want to decrease their meat consumption. At this point, in Germany at least, discounter brands like Lidl and Aldi have beaten Beyond Meat at their game though. They produce alternatives that taste as good or better, for significantly less money.
- scythe 7mo ago
  Yeah, I never understood what Beyond's core innovation was. Impossible had that whole synthetic heme thing going on. Beyond seemed almost like opportunistic mimicry. But Impossible turned out to be pretty expensive IIRC.
  - leodler 7mo ago
    Aldi in Germany might be very different for all I know, but I've been vegan or vegetarian my entire adult life and I think every burger alternative besides Beyond/Impossible is quite awful, though I usually don't eat meat alternatives in the first place.
  - slfnflctd 7mo ago
    In my opinion as a mostly-vegetarian who used to adore burgers as a kid, the Impossible brand was by far the most realistic (and my beef-loving partner would agree, they made stroganoff with it and loved it)... but the price truly is ridiculous at this point. It started out just barely justifiable, and it's simply too high now. I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
    - JSR_FDED 7mo ago
      Agree. Impossible is on a different planet in terms of being very very close to the taste of real meat. Unfortunately still premium priced. It’s a pity that Beyond is getting so much attention because they’re not the best ambassadors for meat alternatives. People will try it, and then decide to wait another 5 years before trying again.
benmusch 7mo ago
being an ethical vegan does not mean you like the taste of plants (or, at least, that you don't miss the taste of meat). I'm veg and very much miss having access to meat. I'm an occasional buyer of their product, but the issue for me is just the versatility. It's really only a replacement for the most generic ways to prepare a burger/sausage. The moment you try to use the ground beef in, say, a chili recipe, it's a totally mis-matched flavor
asdff 7mo ago
My vegetarian friends can now go to a restaurant (or better example yet, any event space like sports event or theme park, since having a veggie burger is pretty easy to check a box and satisfy dietary restrictions) and get any of the burger offerings on the menu with a beyond patty. Before that, the vegetarian option of only resort was often much more depressing and unsubstantial.
- antonymoose 7mo ago
  Reading this somewhat reminds me how the Gluten Free trend led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac. Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option. The impression I’ve gotten is for the latter.
  - asdff 7mo ago
    It is the latter. For a few of them they swear off impossible and tolerate beyond or vice versa. And of course some restaurants with their own bean burger formulations are sometimes whiffs but also other times completely blow any fake meat option out of the water.
    - DangitBobby 7mo ago
      I've had maybe one bean burger in a restaurant that was any good.
      - asdff 7mo ago
        Sorry for your loss
  - zvqcMMV6Zcr 7mo ago
    > led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac. Did it really? I have hear some complaints that before "gluten free" meant it doesn't contain those allergens at all and now it only means "there are no grains on ingredient list". And with amount of cross-contamination in food industry that is nowhere near enough for people with allergy.
mystraline 7mo ago
Thats the thing... Really really good vegetarian and vegan food tastes amazing and is filling. And unless you're intentionally picking around for meat or meat products, you're not going to notice. A lot of Indian/Brahmin food is exactly that. Its insanely delicious. And we have Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat(is that the name?). Both instead of going "vegetarian done well is superb" went to "sorry its a sad reminder of a hamburger". And thats a problem. Nobody wants to be reminded that this is $10/lb and real hamburger is $5/lb. Ive also had problems with other 'meat substitues'. They're almost always plasticy or fake tasting, or chemically off. Whereas my tofu saag is delicious. And no meet or cheese needed... Although my favorite is saag paneer (cheese). I stay away from the fake-almost-but-not-quite foods.
blackjack_ 7mo ago
I'm like technically the exact demographic they should be chasing. Plant based eater who loves the taste of meat and just stopped eating it for ethical reasons. But like, I'm not gonna eat a heavily processed food often for the reasons stated above, and also it's just not great nutritionally compared to Seitan, which also actually just tasted better when prepared right. And it also doesn't stack up compared to high protein / extra firm tofu, which is incredible for cooking when frozen and then defrosted and cooked. And also made of soybeans, one of the cheapest food commodities in the world. So why would I pay 2x or 3x the amount of money for a drastically inferior product? Just when I want an exact burger replica, and once you are plant based for 3 or more years, you just don't really crave that anymore except as maybe a guilty pleasure once or twice a year. So like, sure it's fine, but it is already in a tough competition with other plant based foods.
- jsbisviewtiful 7mo ago
  I haven’t done a comparison of Beyond vs seitan for their nutritional value, but as someone who used to eat a lot more seitan I gleefully moved over to Beyond/Impossible. Seitan is packed full of gluten, which is much harder to digest. Seitan makes me uncomfortably bloated whereas Beyond/Impossible do not. And no, I don’t have a gluten “intolerance” or Celiac.
  - blackjack_ 7mo ago
    Seitan has 3x-5x the protein of beyond meat by weight. It sucks that your body processes it less. For me it’s usually a treat, and I’ve never noticed any digestive issues despite having issues with more whole wheat things (beer, more natural whole wheat breads). I’m glad you like the beyond meat though. Good for them to have actual consistent customers for the 2x / year I end up eating it!
    - jsbisviewtiful 7mo ago
      My partner and I joke that seitan filled sandwiches are protein bread sandwiches lol. Def like the taste of seitan though!
p1necone 7mo ago
I feel like fast food is a pretty big market for stuff like this. Burger King in New Zealand has had plant based alternatives to the whopper and chicken burger on the menu for > 1 year now so it must be doing ok. I'm not even vegetarian and I get them sometimes, they're pretty good (especially the chicken one - they changed the recipe a while ago and it's now practically indistinguishable from the real chicken option, although that probably says more about their standard chicken than it does about the meat free option). There's no premium for the plant based versions I don't think (or if there is it's small enough that I never noticed), and I think you're underestimating how many vegans/vegetarians still want junk food.
dgxyz 7mo ago
Personally I really fucking like meat but having done a couple of weeks in a slaughterhouse, I don't want to eat it. Gives me nightmares. Seriously. This is a good filler product.
- level87 7mo ago
  This is the insight that most people need but will never have, empathy for other living things seems to be greatly lacking amongst the general population.
  - probably_wrong 7mo ago
    I don't think that's a fair framing of the problem because it focuses on empathy towards the animals while forgetting the empathy towards the humans. Going vegan is not a zero-cost choice. It can be difficult, expensive, and in some cases even impossible due to health issues. Some users here complain about the meat subsidies without acknowledging that meat is pretty great when you're in the bottom of the economic pyramid and need food that's cheap, quick, and will provide a fair nutritional value. I don't think you can live in a modern city without supporting some type of cruelty, as most phones and clothes alone would already be a no-go. It's not that people don't have empathy, but rather that there's only so much one can do in a day and one has to pick their battles. If you want to dedicate extra time and energy into animal well-being that's great, but let's not point the finger at those who lack those extra resources as if it were an individual moral failing.
    - level87 7mo ago
      You make a valid point, but my comment wasn't about resources, it was about empathy. Factory farming isn't sustained by poverty, it's sustained by indifference. The majority of people who could easily choose alternatives simply don't think about it. I grew up in a poor household and we were vegetarian, because we saw animals as living things with feelings, not commodities whose pain and suffering is meaningless. I agree you can't live without some level of cruelty, but you can certainly live without contributing to one of its most obvious forms.
mattas 7mo ago
I agree with this. As a veggie, the texture, taste, smell, color of meat grosses me out. I don't want not-meat that appears to be meat. I want not-meat that is definitely not meat.
BeetleB 7mo ago
I guess for people like me. I eat meat, and I eat burgers. I can't speak for Beyond Meat, but when at restaurants, the Impossible Burger often tastes better than the real beef (likely because the former is pre-seasoned). There are plenty of meat eaters who want to eat these as a way to cut down their meat consumption. They don't want to become vegetarians, though.
delecti 7mo ago
> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver Why not? I think there's a false conflation of veganism and health food (and gluten-free, though that's not relevant in this discussion). I love burgers, and fried chicken, and crappy chicken nuggets, but I don't want more animals to have to suffer for my sake than is necessary. I disagree on how hyper-specific that niche is. IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
- thewebguyd 7mo ago
  > IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete. This is the real problem. Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now. $38 billion dollars in the US each year to subsidize meat and dairy, but only $17 million goes to fruit and vegetable farmers. It's completely backwards, especially considering the climate impact on meat and dairy farming.
  - AngryData 7mo ago
    Im calling BS on the $30-$40 a pound beef because ive raised my own cows for personal consumption and even if I paid myself $20 an hour for every second I spent with my cows, and assumed my alfalfa field usage could produce an expensive cash crop without fertilizer, and completely ignored the opportunity loss of only caring for 1-2 cows instead of 30+, that is still a cost WAY above what my beef costs.
    - xethos 7mo ago
      Without taking a side, you've skipped every step past the field here. Transportation, butchering, packaging, and grocery store shelves, with profit margins, health / sanitation checks, and shrinkage at every step
      - skeeter2020 7mo ago
PrimalPower 7mo ago
There’s plenty of vegetarians due to ethical or cultural reasons that never acquired the taste for traditional plant based foods and are looking for a more substantial, protein heavy alternative. Is it niche? Yes, but vegetarians were always niche. While the late 2010s fixated on “protein” and “macros” - allowing products like Beyond or Soylent to shine. Much of the health discourse around the 2020s has focused on quality of the ingredients and “processed foods”. So naturally Beyond is caught on the crossfire. Is there a future where this stuff is proven to be better for you in the short and long term? I sure hope so. But there’s way too many unknowns right now and it’s expensive to boot.
Marsymars 7mo ago
I actually like Beyond Meat patties, but I eat maybe a half-dozen "fake meat" burgers per year - that's not going to sustain a competitor when Americans eat an average of 3 beef burgers per week.
tdb7893 7mo ago
There's no reason ethical vegans wouldn't go for ultra-processed foods. Beyond Meat just isn't a great option, it's expensive and not good enough to justify it. The selling point for them seems to be that they taste more like meat than most meat substitutes but as someone who has been vegan for a while that doesn't matter to me (unless I'm trying to match a non-vegan recipe). I get Morningstar Farms products vastly more often than Beyond Meat ones. Beyond and Impossible are maybe like my 4th and 5th most bought meat imitation brands and it's not like those other brands are less salty or processed. Idk why I only ever hear non-vegans mention Beyond and Impossible.
lambda 7mo ago
This is such a weird comment. Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste. Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty. So from a health conscious point of view, it's a decent substitute. Then there are the people who just want to reduce their meat consumption overall. Maybe they're not vegan or vegetarian, but they're trying to watch their saturated fat intake, or reduce their carbon impact, or they suffer from gout and are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat to ease that. Sometimes you just want to go out with your friends for a burger, and the Beyond patty can make a better substitute than a black bean or mushroom patty that used to be common. And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it, it usually costs the same as a beef patty; it just provides another option, for the days I want to skip meat. I have, for a long time, done a low meat diet; I don't avoid it entirely, but I try not to eat it at every meal. It provides a nice alternative for that. Is it a bit of a niche market? Sure. But, not every product needs to be for everyone.
- Klonoar 7mo ago
  Nah, it definitely costs extra at restaurants.
- afavour 7mo ago
  > And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it I just did a quick search on Uber Eats in NYC. Every Beyond Burger I found was between $3-5 more than a regular burger. That’s the reason I stopped eating them, I actually quite like the texture and flavor. I just don’t like the price.
  - fosco 7mo ago
    I never buy beyond/impossible at restaurants because of this. I often have some at home and instead of having two red meat burgers have one and one of these, occasionally when they go on sale at Costco I’ll buy a bunch. I am not vegan or vegetarian but do seek ways to reduce my red meat intake which years ago was grilling ribeyes 4-5 nights a week. I was unreasonably unhealthy and having alternate options helped balance my health out over the long run. I like both beyond burgers and impossible. I wish they were cheaper than hamburger meat, when I compare to buying hamburger meat in bulk it’s still more expensive at this point
Scoundreller 7mo ago
> lacks the [...] bioavailability of real animal protein I never understood this argument: what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction? I'm not rushing to demand IV tylenol because its oral bioavailability is only 80%-90%, which is around the "loss" we're talking for plant vs animal protein on average. And the ultraprocessing should improve plant's profile here.
- VladVladikoff 7mo ago
  >what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction? Because the macros suck. If you’re trying to hit certain protein / carb / fat ratios, eating more of the “protein” means eating a lot more carbs and fat too, which often isn’t the goal. Your analogy is not accurate, it would be more like waking up in pain in the middle of the night after a bad injury, and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine.
  - Scoundreller 7mo ago
    if you have only fixed-ratio food options, sure, but otherwise, no. > and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine. that's what tylenol #4s are for, double the codeine, none the caffeine. Take half a t#4 and half of a regular standard tylenol = T#3 without the codeine.
    - sph 7mo ago
      Found the tylenol expert
- Projectiboga 7mo ago
  Eating raw Miso a few times a month can move one's biome to get more plant protein digested per gram than even from egg whites. So the issue with protein is somewhat overhyped. The main potential shortfalls in the vegan diet are vitamins B-12, D & K.
- vjsrinivas 7mo ago
VladVladikoff 7mo ago
Veganism is a fake health conscious diet. You can eat whatever you like while simultaneously feeling superior about it. Oreos, chips, pizza, fries, candy, soda, etc. why not also highly processed burgers? I say this after having lived with vegans who literally ate vegan pizza every day.
- etbebl 7mo ago
  You can be vegan as part of a health conscious diet, but strict veganism is usually motivated by ethics, not health. (That being said obviously there's more market share if you're in the intersection of the venn diagram.)
  - tys- 7mo ago
    Completely agree (said as a vegan of about 15 years who eats way too much junk food).
- tys- 7mo ago
  My wife often quips that on our first stay-at-home date during Covid she made me a fruit bowl for my desert whilst she had ice cream. The fruit was amazing but I (much to my wife’s surprise) also immediately Uber Eats’d a full tub of Vegan Ben & Jerry's. I’ve personally never met another vegan who chose this lifestyle for “diet” reasons. They’ll be out there for sure, but for the folks I know It’s always been about the animals. Just because I choose not to eat animals doesn’t mean I’m choosing to be healthy :) I should focus more on the food that I eat but alas, it’s just not how I roll at the moment. You do get some unintentional health benefits here and there (lower cholesterol in my case) but other trade-offs too for those like me that aren’t as diligent as they should be (lower b-12, iron etc). This is completely unrelated to the question of “can you be healthy as a vegan”. To that I would say absolutely. Is it the reason most people choose to be vegan - my gut would say no (but I’m not claiming this as fact). Goddamn I love me some Oreos. Plus, it’s easier to sit atop a high horse when you’re not eating it ;)
- mhitza 7mo ago
  Veganism is not "a fake health conscious diet". It could be for the people around you but doesn't deserve to be universally qualified as such.
derefr 7mo ago
How about these two niches: 1. non-vegans eating with vegans at a vegan restaurant, where eating there wasn't their choice (they were craving a burger), and so, being forced to order off this menu, will choose the most burger-like thing on the menu. 2. non-vegans eating with vegans at a non-vegan restaurant, where for whatever reason they feel the need to impress / not-offend the vegan by eating vegan food as well. (Think "first date" or "client meeting.")
- fooker 7mo ago
  In both the situations, I'd order the best vegan thing on the menu instead of nasty imitation meat.
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Nursie 7mo ago
Ethical vegans and vegetarians may like the taste of meat but be sworn off it because of their ethics. I see this so much in these discussions - if they don't like meat then why are they going for a subsitute? They love vegetables so should stick to vegetables. Do people genuinely think that 'ethical' vegans and vegetarians are doing it because they don't like meat? Or genuinely not comprehend the idea of taking an ethical stance even if you actually like something? For illustration, human baby could be the best tasting barbecue on the planet, but even if it was I would still think that murdering children for my dinner would be wrong and wouldn't do it. Ethical vegans and vegetarians feel similarly about eating meat, that it's (often) delicious but killing animals for food is wrong. Offering them a "meat without any of the suffering" option, in theory, has quite a large audience. Plus as a meat-eater who had a vegetarian partner for a few years, things like impossible mince also made it easier for me to cook things we could both enjoy, and things like beyond/impossible made eating out a little easier in burger joints etc.
5o1ecist 7mo ago
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pasquinelli 7mo ago
their demo is vegans who want a burger, which is not a rare thing at all.
shafyy 7mo ago
Obviously there is a big enough market for plant-based meat alternatives. At least in the European countries I have lived, if you go into a grocery store, you will see a large aisle that sells this stuff. Many big companies likes Nestlé are in this market. They sure as hell are not doing it for ethical reasons, they are making money. Just because Beyond as a company is doing bad doesn't mean the whole category of products is doing bad.
- Insanity 7mo ago
  I'm vegetarian and used to live in EU. Strong +1 to this, many more meat alternatives than in Canada/US, and the options taste better whilst being overall healthier. The amount of fat and salt in the products in NA is sad to see.
  - shafyy 7mo ago
    > The amount of fat and salt in the products in NA is sad to see That's true for many products across the board, not only vegan ones though.
roncesvalles 7mo ago
As an ex-vegetarian, I never understood the premise of the Impossible/Beyond stuff because when they launched there already was a really good soy burger in the supermarket frozen aisle that had excellent macros, priced reasonably, and tasted great. I never thought the notion of "let's make the veggie burger taste like meat" made any sense.
Avshalom 7mo ago
Right, so because no one in this thread has the ability to remember past their own personal preferences: The demographic that Beyond and Impossible claimed to be chasing was the like 85% of Americans that answered polls about wanting to eat less meat (back in the early 201Xs). "Meatless Monday", weeknight vegetarian... Whatever. Thats who they pitched investors on. It's also a market that never materialized, whether because it was always a mirage of push polling or because an ascendant fascist GOP has made meat eating a cornerstone of their identity or COVID or whatever.
CalRobert 7mo ago
I like them and buy them. I’ma regular guy who likes burgers but is very worried about the effects cattle farming has on the planet. I don’t love killing animals so I can have a tastier meal either.
MarceliusK 7mo ago
The pitch always seemed aimed at meat eaters who might replace one or two meals a week if the substitute was close enough
kgwxd 7mo ago
The target from any position in the pyramid is always the next level down.
bryanrasmussen 7mo ago
well I used to buy them because my daughter decided to become a vegetarian and we needed something that we all agreed on. Yes it was generally more expensive, for the worst quality meat but otherwise I think it was at a reasonable medium price point.
ricardobayes 7mo ago
The way you say "ultra processed" just shows the agro lobby did it's thing. You have to realize processed in the case of beyond is mechanically separating whole pea to use the protein.
- FooBarWidget 7mo ago
  You are right. I assumed it would be full of junk like most meat substitute products. But I took a look at the ingredients list of the Dutch version, it seems the preservative (potassium lactate) is the only problem, everything else seems acceptable. I'm quite surprised by how decent the ingredients are. Still, I don't really have a reason to buy it. I don't avoid meat. I specifically eat beef for, for example, creatine and iron. But I guess it is good for people who crave beef yet have an ideological resistance against meat, a niche which I'm not sure how big it is.
  - ricardobayes 7mo ago
    Supermarket burger patties all have nitrates to cure/preserve them which turn into nitrosamines when cooked (carcinogenic). Same goes for bacon etc. I'm actually super appalled how the agrolobby with its full-page ads was able to turn something healthy into something being viewed as chemical and unhealthy.
    - timmmmmmay 7mo ago
      you've posted this multiple times and it's not actually true. go read the ingredients list on a supermarket burger
      - ricardobayes 7mo ago
        You're right, it's more salami, hot dogs and other meat products. But you're right on burgers themselves for the most part.
      - justin66 7mo ago
        > go read the ingredients list on a supermarket burger Perhaps a tangent, but they're not required to list "chlorine" as an ingredient if the slaughterhouse washes the beef with bleach to kill bacteria.
IncreasePosts 7mo ago
Ethical vegetarians are exactly the people who might like meat but refuse to eat it because of the impacts. Maybe you mean "natural" vegetarians - people who just don't like meat any way so don't eat it
liveoneggs 7mo ago
The demographic is people who have tricked themselves into thinking there are "healthy options" at a hamburger restaurant and who are willing to pay $2 extra for that validation.
JeremyNT 7mo ago
> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). I don't see why this follows. There are a lot of ethical vegans and vegetarians who like junk food. And these patties have higher protein than less processed plant based alternatives, which is important to a lot of people. It's just that vegetarians and vegans are a small portion of the overall "burger" market. I suspect the "meat" branding helped early on, because it got some people to give it a try who otherwise never would have. There were other plant-based burgers on the market already but Beyond really exploded quickly. It's just that it didn't really live up to the hype enough for meat eaters to go back for a second helping after the novelty wore off. So at this point the "meat" in the brand name isn't doing anything.
blks 7mo ago
I haven’t been eating meat for 14 years, and I sometimes buy stuff like beyond meat patties or similar, but definitely not as a daily food, but like a fast food to eat with beer, or to take with me when grilling with friends. So I assume same way how other people eat meat burgers (am I correct to assume that people don’t eat McDonald’s or supermarket burgers everyday?). And it’s not really about the taste, it’s more about form factor of a “protein fried patty” in a sandwich. Could easily be falafel. Normal daily food is of course actual vegan/vegetarian food that doesn’t need to pretend to be meat.
paulirwin 7mo ago
As a vegetarian of 20 years, I like being able to go to restaurants and have something that is on par with what my friends and family are eating (although I do prefer Impossible to Beyond, by far). Even without friends and family, there's a social (and distinctively American) aspect to being able to have a realistic burger and beer at my local sports bar/grill and not just have a salad or some Sysco frozen black bean burger.
drewg123 7mo ago
I'm the demographic. I became vegan a several years ago when I was in my late 40s for health reasons -- all males in my family my age or older have had multiple heart attacks except for me. I didn't become vegan because I like eating salads. I miss the taste of meat, and beyond does a decent job of it (Impossible is far better). If animal agriculture was not subsidized, I expect plant based "meats" would be on par or cheaper than real meat.
Angostura 7mo ago
I bought them because I like meat but want to reduce my carbon footprint a bit and am not that impressed with animal husbandry standards
lynndotpy 7mo ago
"Ethical vegans" are just as capable of wanting a salty, oily piece of junk food to slither down their gullet. I'd wager practically every vegan that exists in the US spent at least a decade of their formative years eating burgers at least a few times a year.
Blackthorn 7mo ago
I'm not a vegan but I eat Beyond. The stuff is perfectly good on its own merits. The steak tips have great protein numbers, take hot sauce well, and therefore makes a great breakfast.
waffletower 7mo ago
The large Beyond patty has 260mg of salt. The American Heart Association recommends a daily limit of 2300mg, with an ideal limit of 1500mg for most adults, including those with high blood pressure. How is this a salt bomb? You can eat 4 of them a day and still have salt to spare in your diet.
drakonka 7mo ago
People like me: who prefer not to kill animals to live but enjoy the taste of some type of meat in moderation. I am absolutely happy to pay for a premium meat alternative for the occasional visit to a burger joint. There are lots of them where I live alongside the Beyond patties and they're quite popular. I'm not quite sure what desperation has to do with it - you just eat things you enjoy that fit your dietary preferences.
Wistar 7mo ago
The demographic includes my spouse who likes the taste and texture of both Beyond and Impossible burgers much more than ground beef burgers. Beyond sausage links are damn good.
msie 7mo ago
I've had to switch to a less-meat-protein diet because of my kidney issues. This is one way to do it. It is pretty tasty!
fn-mote 7mo ago
There is a huge thread basically refuting the parent's "nobody wants this" claim. The fact that the Beyond Burger sells in mainstream grocery stores tells you all that you need to know: it's popular (enough). There are muliple products in this niche in my not-very-large grocery store. Grocery stores don't stock products that don't sell. No matter how you personally think it doesn't have a niche.
kimos 7mo ago
I’m their market. I don’t eat processed food all the time, but I’m looking for ways to reduce my animal consumption. I’ll pick it over animal usually, though I’ll pick good quality animal or less processed plant based. I think the part that’s accurate is that it’s hard to get past the highly processed hurdle for the kind of people that think critically about food. But vegans aren’t the target market.
atombender 7mo ago
Just because someone is vegetarian or vegan doesn't mean they don't like the taste of meat. I'm a strict vegetarian myself and have been for about ten years. But as much as I love plant foods, I absolutely miss meat — I was never a big meat eater, but I would enjoy burgers, salami, pepperoni, bacon, Italian meatballs, prosciutto, things like that. I dislike Beyond products, which taste a bit weird and metallic to me. The only imitation meat product I've remotely enjoyed is Impossible Burger. Nobody has managed to make anything else — if someone would nail plant-based pepperoni or bacon I would be all over it.

3rodents 7mo ago

Beyond Meat aren't unique, there are dozens of brands offering the same product. Tens of millions of people eat these type of products. Any (or most) burger-serving restaurant in Europe will have a Beyond Meat or equivalent on the menu. They're not always advertised as vegan (because of preparation and extras) but these fake burgers are very popular, for many reasons.

Den_VR 7mo ago
At the time it was a unique product. My alternatives reminded me more of basically black-bean patties than beef. Then impossible meat did it better, industry decided there was money in this direction, and now there’s “or equivalent” everywhere.
markdown 7mo ago
Fake? In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
- goosejuice 7mo ago
  What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak. Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
  - deaux 7mo ago
    > What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak. The 95.8% of the world population that isn't in the US. This is simple to deduce because everywhere else calls "a piece of fried chicken in a burger bun" a "chicken _burger_". Only the US calls it a "chicken sandwich". Some of Canada might now use the latter through US influence - any Canadians here? KFC is a representative example, they call them "KFC chicken sandwich" only in the US, "burgers" effectively everywhere else.
    - goosejuice 7mo ago
      I suspect Commonwealth or Asia. Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun? A piece of hot chicken between bread in Italy would likely be a panino, france a sandwich, spain a bocadillo, Portugal sandes, Japan a sando, mexico a torta, Argentina a sanguche. I think you overestimate how many people use burger for things that don't refer to the American concept. A lot of cultures have hot sandwiches and thus (ham)burger is often distinctly the American concept of a ground beef patty. Where this breaks down outside of the Commonwealth is often from cultures without things in bread that got exposed to the generic burger via fast food chain terminology. Not surprising there.
      - deaux 7mo ago
        What are you even arguing about? KFC and McD uses "Burger" everywhere outside of NA. There's nothing left to discuss besides that, it shows that indeed the rest of the world all calls it a burger even though it's not a ground meat patty. Good luck finding a country outside of NA where they call their chicken burgers a "chicken sandwich". > Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun? A _burger bun_ makes it a burger.
peacebeard 7mo ago
That's a really good point. Maybe in part because Beyond had a highly visible IPO they became the poster child for the success or failure of meat alternatives but in reality their story is pretty much just their own story.

edm0nd 7mo ago

>I always wondered who their demographic was. Wealthy hippies, vegans, and yuppies.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

mschild 7mo ago

Based on my bubble, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters that do want to decrease their meat consumption. At this point, in Germany at least, discounter brands like Lidl and Aldi have beaten Beyond Meat at their game though. They produce alternatives that taste as good or better, for significantly less money.

scythe 7mo ago
Yeah, I never understood what Beyond's core innovation was. Impossible had that whole synthetic heme thing going on. Beyond seemed almost like opportunistic mimicry. But Impossible turned out to be pretty expensive IIRC.
- leodler 7mo ago
  Aldi in Germany might be very different for all I know, but I've been vegan or vegetarian my entire adult life and I think every burger alternative besides Beyond/Impossible is quite awful, though I usually don't eat meat alternatives in the first place.
- slfnflctd 7mo ago
  In my opinion as a mostly-vegetarian who used to adore burgers as a kid, the Impossible brand was by far the most realistic (and my beef-loving partner would agree, they made stroganoff with it and loved it)... but the price truly is ridiculous at this point. It started out just barely justifiable, and it's simply too high now. I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
  - JSR_FDED 7mo ago
    Agree. Impossible is on a different planet in terms of being very very close to the taste of real meat. Unfortunately still premium priced. It’s a pity that Beyond is getting so much attention because they’re not the best ambassadors for meat alternatives. People will try it, and then decide to wait another 5 years before trying again.

benmusch 7mo ago

being an ethical vegan does not mean you like the taste of plants (or, at least, that you don't miss the taste of meat). I'm veg and very much miss having access to meat. I'm an occasional buyer of their product, but the issue for me is just the versatility. It's really only a replacement for the most generic ways to prepare a burger/sausage. The moment you try to use the ground beef in, say, a chili recipe, it's a totally mis-matched flavor

asdff 7mo ago

My vegetarian friends can now go to a restaurant (or better example yet, any event space like sports event or theme park, since having a veggie burger is pretty easy to check a box and satisfy dietary restrictions) and get any of the burger offerings on the menu with a beyond patty. Before that, the vegetarian option of only resort was often much more depressing and unsubstantial.

antonymoose 7mo ago
Reading this somewhat reminds me how the Gluten Free trend led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac. Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option. The impression I’ve gotten is for the latter.
- asdff 7mo ago
  It is the latter. For a few of them they swear off impossible and tolerate beyond or vice versa. And of course some restaurants with their own bean burger formulations are sometimes whiffs but also other times completely blow any fake meat option out of the water.
  - DangitBobby 7mo ago
    I've had maybe one bean burger in a restaurant that was any good.
    - asdff 7mo ago
      Sorry for your loss
- zvqcMMV6Zcr 7mo ago
  > led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac. Did it really? I have hear some complaints that before "gluten free" meant it doesn't contain those allergens at all and now it only means "there are no grains on ingredient list". And with amount of cross-contamination in food industry that is nowhere near enough for people with allergy.

mystraline 7mo ago

Thats the thing... Really really good vegetarian and vegan food tastes amazing and is filling. And unless you're intentionally picking around for meat or meat products, you're not going to notice. A lot of Indian/Brahmin food is exactly that. Its insanely delicious. And we have Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat(is that the name?). Both instead of going "vegetarian done well is superb" went to "sorry its a sad reminder of a hamburger". And thats a problem. Nobody wants to be reminded that this is $10/lb and real hamburger is $5/lb. Ive also had problems with other 'meat substitues'. They're almost always plasticy or fake tasting, or chemically off. Whereas my tofu saag is delicious. And no meet or cheese needed... Although my favorite is saag paneer (cheese). I stay away from the fake-almost-but-not-quite foods.

blackjack_ 7mo ago

I'm like technically the exact demographic they should be chasing. Plant based eater who loves the taste of meat and just stopped eating it for ethical reasons. But like, I'm not gonna eat a heavily processed food often for the reasons stated above, and also it's just not great nutritionally compared to Seitan, which also actually just tasted better when prepared right. And it also doesn't stack up compared to high protein / extra firm tofu, which is incredible for cooking when frozen and then defrosted and cooked. And also made of soybeans, one of the cheapest food commodities in the world. So why would I pay 2x or 3x the amount of money for a drastically inferior product? Just when I want an exact burger replica, and once you are plant based for 3 or more years, you just don't really crave that anymore except as maybe a guilty pleasure once or twice a year. So like, sure it's fine, but it is already in a tough competition with other plant based foods.

jsbisviewtiful 7mo ago
I haven’t done a comparison of Beyond vs seitan for their nutritional value, but as someone who used to eat a lot more seitan I gleefully moved over to Beyond/Impossible. Seitan is packed full of gluten, which is much harder to digest. Seitan makes me uncomfortably bloated whereas Beyond/Impossible do not. And no, I don’t have a gluten “intolerance” or Celiac.
- blackjack_ 7mo ago
  Seitan has 3x-5x the protein of beyond meat by weight. It sucks that your body processes it less. For me it’s usually a treat, and I’ve never noticed any digestive issues despite having issues with more whole wheat things (beer, more natural whole wheat breads). I’m glad you like the beyond meat though. Good for them to have actual consistent customers for the 2x / year I end up eating it!
  - jsbisviewtiful 7mo ago
    My partner and I joke that seitan filled sandwiches are protein bread sandwiches lol. Def like the taste of seitan though!

p1necone 7mo ago

I feel like fast food is a pretty big market for stuff like this. Burger King in New Zealand has had plant based alternatives to the whopper and chicken burger on the menu for > 1 year now so it must be doing ok. I'm not even vegetarian and I get them sometimes, they're pretty good (especially the chicken one - they changed the recipe a while ago and it's now practically indistinguishable from the real chicken option, although that probably says more about their standard chicken than it does about the meat free option). There's no premium for the plant based versions I don't think (or if there is it's small enough that I never noticed), and I think you're underestimating how many vegans/vegetarians still want junk food.

dgxyz 7mo ago

Personally I really fucking like meat but having done a couple of weeks in a slaughterhouse, I don't want to eat it. Gives me nightmares. Seriously. This is a good filler product.

level87 7mo ago
This is the insight that most people need but will never have, empathy for other living things seems to be greatly lacking amongst the general population.
- probably_wrong 7mo ago
  I don't think that's a fair framing of the problem because it focuses on empathy towards the animals while forgetting the empathy towards the humans. Going vegan is not a zero-cost choice. It can be difficult, expensive, and in some cases even impossible due to health issues. Some users here complain about the meat subsidies without acknowledging that meat is pretty great when you're in the bottom of the economic pyramid and need food that's cheap, quick, and will provide a fair nutritional value. I don't think you can live in a modern city without supporting some type of cruelty, as most phones and clothes alone would already be a no-go. It's not that people don't have empathy, but rather that there's only so much one can do in a day and one has to pick their battles. If you want to dedicate extra time and energy into animal well-being that's great, but let's not point the finger at those who lack those extra resources as if it were an individual moral failing.
  - level87 7mo ago
    You make a valid point, but my comment wasn't about resources, it was about empathy. Factory farming isn't sustained by poverty, it's sustained by indifference. The majority of people who could easily choose alternatives simply don't think about it. I grew up in a poor household and we were vegetarian, because we saw animals as living things with feelings, not commodities whose pain and suffering is meaningless. I agree you can't live without some level of cruelty, but you can certainly live without contributing to one of its most obvious forms.

mattas 7mo ago

I agree with this. As a veggie, the texture, taste, smell, color of meat grosses me out. I don't want not-meat that appears to be meat. I want not-meat that is definitely not meat.

BeetleB 7mo ago

I guess for people like me. I eat meat, and I eat burgers. I can't speak for Beyond Meat, but when at restaurants, the Impossible Burger often tastes better than the real beef (likely because the former is pre-seasoned). There are plenty of meat eaters who want to eat these as a way to cut down their meat consumption. They don't want to become vegetarians, though.

delecti 7mo ago

> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver Why not? I think there's a false conflation of veganism and health food (and gluten-free, though that's not relevant in this discussion). I love burgers, and fried chicken, and crappy chicken nuggets, but I don't want more animals to have to suffer for my sake than is necessary. I disagree on how hyper-specific that niche is. IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.

thewebguyd 7mo ago
> IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete. This is the real problem. Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now. $38 billion dollars in the US each year to subsidize meat and dairy, but only $17 million goes to fruit and vegetable farmers. It's completely backwards, especially considering the climate impact on meat and dairy farming.
- AngryData 7mo ago
  Im calling BS on the $30-$40 a pound beef because ive raised my own cows for personal consumption and even if I paid myself $20 an hour for every second I spent with my cows, and assumed my alfalfa field usage could produce an expensive cash crop without fertilizer, and completely ignored the opportunity loss of only caring for 1-2 cows instead of 30+, that is still a cost WAY above what my beef costs.
  - xethos 7mo ago
    Without taking a side, you've skipped every step past the field here. Transportation, butchering, packaging, and grocery store shelves, with profit margins, health / sanitation checks, and shrinkage at every step
    - skeeter2020 7mo ago

PrimalPower 7mo ago

There’s plenty of vegetarians due to ethical or cultural reasons that never acquired the taste for traditional plant based foods and are looking for a more substantial, protein heavy alternative. Is it niche? Yes, but vegetarians were always niche. While the late 2010s fixated on “protein” and “macros” - allowing products like Beyond or Soylent to shine. Much of the health discourse around the 2020s has focused on quality of the ingredients and “processed foods”. So naturally Beyond is caught on the crossfire. Is there a future where this stuff is proven to be better for you in the short and long term? I sure hope so. But there’s way too many unknowns right now and it’s expensive to boot.

Marsymars 7mo ago

I actually like Beyond Meat patties, but I eat maybe a half-dozen "fake meat" burgers per year - that's not going to sustain a competitor when Americans eat an average of 3 beef burgers per week.

tdb7893 7mo ago

There's no reason ethical vegans wouldn't go for ultra-processed foods. Beyond Meat just isn't a great option, it's expensive and not good enough to justify it. The selling point for them seems to be that they taste more like meat than most meat substitutes but as someone who has been vegan for a while that doesn't matter to me (unless I'm trying to match a non-vegan recipe). I get Morningstar Farms products vastly more often than Beyond Meat ones. Beyond and Impossible are maybe like my 4th and 5th most bought meat imitation brands and it's not like those other brands are less salty or processed. Idk why I only ever hear non-vegans mention Beyond and Impossible.

lambda 7mo ago

This is such a weird comment. Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste. Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty. So from a health conscious point of view, it's a decent substitute. Then there are the people who just want to reduce their meat consumption overall. Maybe they're not vegan or vegetarian, but they're trying to watch their saturated fat intake, or reduce their carbon impact, or they suffer from gout and are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat to ease that. Sometimes you just want to go out with your friends for a burger, and the Beyond patty can make a better substitute than a black bean or mushroom patty that used to be common. And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it, it usually costs the same as a beef patty; it just provides another option, for the days I want to skip meat. I have, for a long time, done a low meat diet; I don't avoid it entirely, but I try not to eat it at every meal. It provides a nice alternative for that. Is it a bit of a niche market? Sure. But, not every product needs to be for everyone.

Klonoar 7mo ago
Nah, it definitely costs extra at restaurants.
afavour 7mo ago
> And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it I just did a quick search on Uber Eats in NYC. Every Beyond Burger I found was between $3-5 more than a regular burger. That’s the reason I stopped eating them, I actually quite like the texture and flavor. I just don’t like the price.
- fosco 7mo ago
  I never buy beyond/impossible at restaurants because of this. I often have some at home and instead of having two red meat burgers have one and one of these, occasionally when they go on sale at Costco I’ll buy a bunch. I am not vegan or vegetarian but do seek ways to reduce my red meat intake which years ago was grilling ribeyes 4-5 nights a week. I was unreasonably unhealthy and having alternate options helped balance my health out over the long run. I like both beyond burgers and impossible. I wish they were cheaper than hamburger meat, when I compare to buying hamburger meat in bulk it’s still more expensive at this point

Scoundreller 7mo ago

> lacks the [...] bioavailability of real animal protein I never understood this argument: what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction? I'm not rushing to demand IV tylenol because its oral bioavailability is only 80%-90%, which is around the "loss" we're talking for plant vs animal protein on average. And the ultraprocessing should improve plant's profile here.

VladVladikoff 7mo ago
>what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction? Because the macros suck. If you’re trying to hit certain protein / carb / fat ratios, eating more of the “protein” means eating a lot more carbs and fat too, which often isn’t the goal. Your analogy is not accurate, it would be more like waking up in pain in the middle of the night after a bad injury, and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine.
- Scoundreller 7mo ago
  if you have only fixed-ratio food options, sure, but otherwise, no. > and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine. that's what tylenol #4s are for, double the codeine, none the caffeine. Take half a t#4 and half of a regular standard tylenol = T#3 without the codeine.
  - sph 7mo ago
    Found the tylenol expert
Projectiboga 7mo ago
Eating raw Miso a few times a month can move one's biome to get more plant protein digested per gram than even from egg whites. So the issue with protein is somewhat overhyped. The main potential shortfalls in the vegan diet are vitamins B-12, D & K.
vjsrinivas 7mo ago

VladVladikoff 7mo ago

Veganism is a fake health conscious diet. You can eat whatever you like while simultaneously feeling superior about it. Oreos, chips, pizza, fries, candy, soda, etc. why not also highly processed burgers? I say this after having lived with vegans who literally ate vegan pizza every day.

etbebl 7mo ago
You can be vegan as part of a health conscious diet, but strict veganism is usually motivated by ethics, not health. (That being said obviously there's more market share if you're in the intersection of the venn diagram.)
- tys- 7mo ago
  Completely agree (said as a vegan of about 15 years who eats way too much junk food).
tys- 7mo ago
My wife often quips that on our first stay-at-home date during Covid she made me a fruit bowl for my desert whilst she had ice cream. The fruit was amazing but I (much to my wife’s surprise) also immediately Uber Eats’d a full tub of Vegan Ben & Jerry's. I’ve personally never met another vegan who chose this lifestyle for “diet” reasons. They’ll be out there for sure, but for the folks I know It’s always been about the animals. Just because I choose not to eat animals doesn’t mean I’m choosing to be healthy :) I should focus more on the food that I eat but alas, it’s just not how I roll at the moment. You do get some unintentional health benefits here and there (lower cholesterol in my case) but other trade-offs too for those like me that aren’t as diligent as they should be (lower b-12, iron etc). This is completely unrelated to the question of “can you be healthy as a vegan”. To that I would say absolutely. Is it the reason most people choose to be vegan - my gut would say no (but I’m not claiming this as fact). Goddamn I love me some Oreos. Plus, it’s easier to sit atop a high horse when you’re not eating it ;)
mhitza 7mo ago
Veganism is not "a fake health conscious diet". It could be for the people around you but doesn't deserve to be universally qualified as such.

derefr 7mo ago

How about these two niches: 1. non-vegans eating with vegans at a vegan restaurant, where eating there wasn't their choice (they were craving a burger), and so, being forced to order off this menu, will choose the most burger-like thing on the menu. 2. non-vegans eating with vegans at a non-vegan restaurant, where for whatever reason they feel the need to impress / not-offend the vegan by eating vegan food as well. (Think "first date" or "client meeting.")

fooker 7mo ago
In both the situations, I'd order the best vegan thing on the menu instead of nasty imitation meat.

deleted 7mo ago

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Nursie 7mo ago

Ethical vegans and vegetarians may like the taste of meat but be sworn off it because of their ethics. I see this so much in these discussions - if they don't like meat then why are they going for a subsitute? They love vegetables so should stick to vegetables. Do people genuinely think that 'ethical' vegans and vegetarians are doing it because they don't like meat? Or genuinely not comprehend the idea of taking an ethical stance even if you actually like something? For illustration, human baby could be the best tasting barbecue on the planet, but even if it was I would still think that murdering children for my dinner would be wrong and wouldn't do it. Ethical vegans and vegetarians feel similarly about eating meat, that it's (often) delicious but killing animals for food is wrong. Offering them a "meat without any of the suffering" option, in theory, has quite a large audience. Plus as a meat-eater who had a vegetarian partner for a few years, things like impossible mince also made it easier for me to cook things we could both enjoy, and things like beyond/impossible made eating out a little easier in burger joints etc.

5o1ecist 7mo ago

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deleted 7mo ago

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pasquinelli 7mo ago

their demo is vegans who want a burger, which is not a rare thing at all.

shafyy 7mo ago

Obviously there is a big enough market for plant-based meat alternatives. At least in the European countries I have lived, if you go into a grocery store, you will see a large aisle that sells this stuff. Many big companies likes Nestlé are in this market. They sure as hell are not doing it for ethical reasons, they are making money. Just because Beyond as a company is doing bad doesn't mean the whole category of products is doing bad.

Insanity 7mo ago
I'm vegetarian and used to live in EU. Strong +1 to this, many more meat alternatives than in Canada/US, and the options taste better whilst being overall healthier. The amount of fat and salt in the products in NA is sad to see.
- shafyy 7mo ago
  > The amount of fat and salt in the products in NA is sad to see That's true for many products across the board, not only vegan ones though.

roncesvalles 7mo ago

As an ex-vegetarian, I never understood the premise of the Impossible/Beyond stuff because when they launched there already was a really good soy burger in the supermarket frozen aisle that had excellent macros, priced reasonably, and tasted great. I never thought the notion of "let's make the veggie burger taste like meat" made any sense.

Avshalom 7mo ago

Right, so because no one in this thread has the ability to remember past their own personal preferences: The demographic that Beyond and Impossible claimed to be chasing was the like 85% of Americans that answered polls about wanting to eat less meat (back in the early 201Xs). "Meatless Monday", weeknight vegetarian... Whatever. Thats who they pitched investors on. It's also a market that never materialized, whether because it was always a mirage of push polling or because an ascendant fascist GOP has made meat eating a cornerstone of their identity or COVID or whatever.

CalRobert 7mo ago

I like them and buy them. I’ma regular guy who likes burgers but is very worried about the effects cattle farming has on the planet. I don’t love killing animals so I can have a tastier meal either.

MarceliusK 7mo ago

The pitch always seemed aimed at meat eaters who might replace one or two meals a week if the substitute was close enough

kgwxd 7mo ago

The target from any position in the pyramid is always the next level down.

bryanrasmussen 7mo ago

well I used to buy them because my daughter decided to become a vegetarian and we needed something that we all agreed on. Yes it was generally more expensive, for the worst quality meat but otherwise I think it was at a reasonable medium price point.

ricardobayes 7mo ago

The way you say "ultra processed" just shows the agro lobby did it's thing. You have to realize processed in the case of beyond is mechanically separating whole pea to use the protein.

FooBarWidget 7mo ago
You are right. I assumed it would be full of junk like most meat substitute products. But I took a look at the ingredients list of the Dutch version, it seems the preservative (potassium lactate) is the only problem, everything else seems acceptable. I'm quite surprised by how decent the ingredients are. Still, I don't really have a reason to buy it. I don't avoid meat. I specifically eat beef for, for example, creatine and iron. But I guess it is good for people who crave beef yet have an ideological resistance against meat, a niche which I'm not sure how big it is.
- ricardobayes 7mo ago
  Supermarket burger patties all have nitrates to cure/preserve them which turn into nitrosamines when cooked (carcinogenic). Same goes for bacon etc. I'm actually super appalled how the agrolobby with its full-page ads was able to turn something healthy into something being viewed as chemical and unhealthy.
  - timmmmmmay 7mo ago
    you've posted this multiple times and it's not actually true. go read the ingredients list on a supermarket burger
    - ricardobayes 7mo ago
      You're right, it's more salami, hot dogs and other meat products. But you're right on burgers themselves for the most part.
    - justin66 7mo ago
      > go read the ingredients list on a supermarket burger Perhaps a tangent, but they're not required to list "chlorine" as an ingredient if the slaughterhouse washes the beef with bleach to kill bacteria.

IncreasePosts 7mo ago

Ethical vegetarians are exactly the people who might like meat but refuse to eat it because of the impacts. Maybe you mean "natural" vegetarians - people who just don't like meat any way so don't eat it

liveoneggs 7mo ago

The demographic is people who have tricked themselves into thinking there are "healthy options" at a hamburger restaurant and who are willing to pay $2 extra for that validation.

JeremyNT 7mo ago

> The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). I don't see why this follows. There are a lot of ethical vegans and vegetarians who like junk food. And these patties have higher protein than less processed plant based alternatives, which is important to a lot of people. It's just that vegetarians and vegans are a small portion of the overall "burger" market. I suspect the "meat" branding helped early on, because it got some people to give it a try who otherwise never would have. There were other plant-based burgers on the market already but Beyond really exploded quickly. It's just that it didn't really live up to the hype enough for meat eaters to go back for a second helping after the novelty wore off. So at this point the "meat" in the brand name isn't doing anything.

blks 7mo ago

I haven’t been eating meat for 14 years, and I sometimes buy stuff like beyond meat patties or similar, but definitely not as a daily food, but like a fast food to eat with beer, or to take with me when grilling with friends. So I assume same way how other people eat meat burgers (am I correct to assume that people don’t eat McDonald’s or supermarket burgers everyday?). And it’s not really about the taste, it’s more about form factor of a “protein fried patty” in a sandwich. Could easily be falafel. Normal daily food is of course actual vegan/vegetarian food that doesn’t need to pretend to be meat.

paulirwin 7mo ago

As a vegetarian of 20 years, I like being able to go to restaurants and have something that is on par with what my friends and family are eating (although I do prefer Impossible to Beyond, by far). Even without friends and family, there's a social (and distinctively American) aspect to being able to have a realistic burger and beer at my local sports bar/grill and not just have a salad or some Sysco frozen black bean burger.

drewg123 7mo ago

I'm the demographic. I became vegan a several years ago when I was in my late 40s for health reasons -- all males in my family my age or older have had multiple heart attacks except for me. I didn't become vegan because I like eating salads. I miss the taste of meat, and beyond does a decent job of it (Impossible is far better). If animal agriculture was not subsidized, I expect plant based "meats" would be on par or cheaper than real meat.

Angostura 7mo ago

I bought them because I like meat but want to reduce my carbon footprint a bit and am not that impressed with animal husbandry standards

lynndotpy 7mo ago

"Ethical vegans" are just as capable of wanting a salty, oily piece of junk food to slither down their gullet. I'd wager practically every vegan that exists in the US spent at least a decade of their formative years eating burgers at least a few times a year.

Blackthorn 7mo ago

I'm not a vegan but I eat Beyond. The stuff is perfectly good on its own merits. The steak tips have great protein numbers, take hot sauce well, and therefore makes a great breakfast.

waffletower 7mo ago

The large Beyond patty has 260mg of salt. The American Heart Association recommends a daily limit of 2300mg, with an ideal limit of 1500mg for most adults, including those with high blood pressure. How is this a salt bomb? You can eat 4 of them a day and still have salt to spare in your diet.

drakonka 7mo ago

People like me: who prefer not to kill animals to live but enjoy the taste of some type of meat in moderation. I am absolutely happy to pay for a premium meat alternative for the occasional visit to a burger joint. There are lots of them where I live alongside the Beyond patties and they're quite popular. I'm not quite sure what desperation has to do with it - you just eat things you enjoy that fit your dietary preferences.

Wistar 7mo ago

The demographic includes my spouse who likes the taste and texture of both Beyond and Impossible burgers much more than ground beef burgers. Beyond sausage links are damn good.

msie 7mo ago

I've had to switch to a less-meat-protein diet because of my kidney issues. This is one way to do it. It is pretty tasty!

fn-mote 7mo ago

There is a huge thread basically refuting the parent's "nobody wants this" claim. The fact that the Beyond Burger sells in mainstream grocery stores tells you all that you need to know: it's popular (enough). There are muliple products in this niche in my not-very-large grocery store. Grocery stores don't stock products that don't sell. No matter how you personally think it doesn't have a niche.

kimos 7mo ago

I’m their market. I don’t eat processed food all the time, but I’m looking for ways to reduce my animal consumption. I’ll pick it over animal usually, though I’ll pick good quality animal or less processed plant based. I think the part that’s accurate is that it’s hard to get past the highly processed hurdle for the kind of people that think critically about food. But vegans aren’t the target market.

atombender 7mo ago

Just because someone is vegetarian or vegan doesn't mean they don't like the taste of meat. I'm a strict vegetarian myself and have been for about ten years. But as much as I love plant foods, I absolutely miss meat — I was never a big meat eater, but I would enjoy burgers, salami, pepperoni, bacon, Italian meatballs, prosciutto, things like that. I dislike Beyond products, which taste a bit weird and metallic to me. The only imitation meat product I've remotely enjoyed is Impossible Burger. Nobody has managed to make anything else — if someone would nail plant-based pepperoni or bacon I would be all over it.