I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar macro-nutrient ratios and whatever micro-nutrients are rare outside of meat.
I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd buy it for the environment.
I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.
Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.
Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
I've been vegetarian for about 8 years and won't buy them and try to avoid them in restaurants because they're too meat-like. Unfortunately they've made good non-fake meat vegetarian burgers (black bean, wild rice, etc) harder to find.
It's a situation of "You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have cravings for anymore? We made something that tastes exactly like it. You're going to love it!"
I'm glad they existed when I first went vegetarian as they made the transition easier, but its a tough market when people will go off them in a couple years.
Because after 8 years the idea of eating meat has no remaining appeal and is switching more to mild revulsion. Why would I order a substitute that is a close copy of that?
I'll still get them if there's literally no other vegetarian option on the menu, but that's rare.
I'll echo what some of the other commenters have stated:
I'm not vegan nor vegetarian, but I definitely align with many of the reasons that one would choose to be so. There are environmental and animal welfare concerns with the meat industry that simply cannot be ignored.
With that in mind, I try _choose_ a non-meat-based option when it's feasible. I do my best to vote with my dollar. Beyond Meat and Impossible have made this option available significantly more often in the past couple years.
When I shop for meat at the grocery store to cook at home, I've effectively stopped buying "real" meat for my standard meals. Unless I'm cooking some special or something specific, I simply buy Beyond Meat/Impossible for my standard meals. The same applies when eating out -- if there's a meat alternative, I will go for it (even absorbing the $2-3 upcharge).*
This is not to say that I _only_ go for the meat-alternative-based non-meat dishes. I often go for a tofu or mushroom alternative too. I don't even think Beyond Meat/Impossible taste _like_ the meat they're trying to substitute -- they're just simply good, meat-y, protein-y, umami-y flavors that I simply can't get enough of.
The more options there are for people like me the better. My diet has been able to shift closer and closer to removing meat entirely, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing battle. I just want to eat _less_ meat, not _no_ meat.
* One thing that's frustrating to me as someone that's not _actually_ a vegetarian/vegan is that restaurants often make the assumption that if I'm choosing the meat-alternative, then I must be vegetarian or vegan. No, I still want the cheese or the dairy, or even the meat (e.g.: an Impossible Cheeseburger with real bacon is still delicious). I'm trying to reduce, not _eliminate_, meat from my diet.
There’s no way to say this without sounding like an asshole but perhaps in 8 years your memory of what meat is like has drifted. I only say that because the rest of us wish the fake stuff was remotely comparable in taste and texture.
Why do you assume people will stop consuming them after a few years? I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are concerned about the environmental implications of consuming meat.
I would replace all animal products if they tasted like the real thing. I'm sorry but tofu is not cheese
I've been vegetarian for a long time and I still think Beyond burgers are great. I have a pack of them from Costco in the freezer. I like black bean burgers, too, but Beyond burgers taste like my (distant) memory of a "normal" burger.
In any case, I assume Beyond was relying on getting more market penetration past just vegetarians and vegans. There just aren't enough of us to get to the revenue they seem to be targeting. Personally, I'll be disappointed if they end up disappearing.
Was a vegetarian for about 8 years and now a pescatarian. We practically always have some Beyond products in our house and will order them at restaurants. Losing Beyond products would be a huge bummer.
I'm a vegan who loves & misses the taste of meat. Without Beyond (and Impossible), it would have been way harder for me to have become vegan. I think black bean burgers are disgusting. When picking a restaraunt for a team dinner with non vegans, I specifically look for menus that offer Impossible or Beyond, and I avoid restaurants that offer homemade bean/pea/etc burgers.
This is too bad. Beyond and Impossible opened up the door to me gradually becoming vegan. It was similar enough to real meat that I didn’t miss meat anymore, and from there I found other substitutions which were healthier. Without them I’m sure I never would have started a plant-based diet.
Not a customer but it’s a shame it’s not working out for them. I’m sure they have people who would enjoy it but the feedback I’ve heard was mostly negative with respect to quality of ingredients and the like.
At this stage if they scaled back would they stand a chance to survive? Or do they owe too much money?
They owe way too much. The article actually touches on this - they have such little hope of paying back their debt that they are leaning into this so that they can get better renegotiation terms with bond holders
I absolutely love beef. A good ribeye steak, or some smoked brisket are two of my favorite foods. I was intrigued by the claims these meat alternative companies were making, so naturally I tried them all. It's not surprising to me that they are struggling. I could barely swallow their products. I think it was a mistake to compare these to one of the greatest foods on the planet. It set the expectation was too high.
They work well enough as a replacement in a fast food burger or in a dish where the meat itself isn't really the star player. Using their ground meat alternatives in a hamburger helper is totally fine.
We're not at the point where high quality meat can be replaced, but that doesn't mean the product is worthless.
everybody mostly discusses real vs. imitation/vegan, yet i think it has nothing to do with the current BYND situation.
"on an operating basis Beyond Meat lost 45 cents from every dollar of sales."
that is a culprit. Bad management. How else can your plant based product at comparable to meat prices be a loss instead of great profit. Even pure avocados are cheaper than meat. What is better and pricier than avocados do you put into your product? Then it should taste much better than avocados and meat. Yet there is no avocados, it is more like low quality cat/dog food:
"Key components include pea protein, rice protein, and lentil protein, alongside avocado oil, refined coconut oil, and canola oil. Other notable additions include methylcellulose, potato starch, and apple extract.
"
That stuff at their prices should be super-profitable.
It’s always been awful IMO. Tastes like sawdust with a congealed vegetable oil binder and chemical flavorings that approximate meat. A straight up bean burger is better and far less processed.
Its way better than a bean burger IMHO. As a vegan, what I like most about Beyond burgers are that they are consistent, and pretty amazing at not being awful. If I'm in a random restaurant with a few token vegan options, the last thing I want to do is take a chance on some potentially terrible homemade bean or chickpea burger. If they have Beyond or Impossible, I know exactly what I'm getting.
Absolutely better than the crappy black bean or chickpea patties you'd get at most burger joints. I'd much rather have Beyond or Impossible at a cookout as well.
Our local drive in movie theater (remember those) offers various meal options including burgers, and I've taken to ordering the Impossible there because somehow several times in their beef burgers I've gotten significant bone chunks, to the extent that I was surprised I didn't break a tooth on them.
It could have to do with how they're prepped. Even the real thing can taste like sawdust and grill marks if done incorrectly. I'm personally biased towards veggie burgers and prefer them over the real thing but in the last year, I've been to multiple cookouts where both "burger dudes" and kids have chosen beyond over meat.
I agree that the level of process is questionable but, if done well, I don't think it lacks in flavor.
Last I looked, there was an awful lot of saturated fat in their burgers. I tended to order something other than a veggie burger when their was the only one on the menu.
One of the things I've noticed about shopping carefully at the local supermarket (Albertsons, in Oregon) is that they very often use beef as a 'loss leader' to get people to shop there, so beef is often cheaper than it 'should' be, and especially so if more of the externalities involved in the production of beef were included in the price.
I like beef, but the price probably makes it harder to compete with.
Ground beef needs to move quickly, and you've got to sell some to go with the nicer cuts of meat, so it makes sense to sell at low or negative margins.
Note that Impossible, unlike Beyond, isn't publicly traded, so the only time anyone knows for sure what it's worth is right after it raises capital. It sounded like the 50% thing was some kind of internal projection.
I feel like I'm the ideal customer for Beyond Meat and its competitors. I am not price sensitive, I don't mind the idea of plant based meat products, and I am willing to try new things. My biggest reasons for not buying Beyond Meat are that I:
1. Would rather not cook, and eating Beyond Meat in a way that's financially meaningful for them as a company means me cooking
2. If I'm going to put in the effort to cook, I want the result to be something that I have outsized enjoyment for. If I get a middling burger for my trouble, I'm simply not going to care enough to do it.
The chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken sound the closest to something I can casually heat up, but neither of those are things that would replace something in my existing diet. They have beef and chicken and sausage and all sorts of other stuff, but they're just the meat. They replace an ingredient.
I buy Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls. I'd happily get ones that used Beyond Meat. I buy frozen noodle and pasta meals: same deal. Sandwiches. Chicken salad. Soup. I'm struggling to think of a single product that I can swap out for a Beyond Meat alternative.
I don't need every bit of meat that I consume to even be especially good. But if it's only just fine and it's not convenient, I'm just not going to get it. If it was cheaper, I might consider. Or if it was more nutritious. Or if it was more filling than regular meat (or less filling, even). Or if I felt strongly about the plant based products that I buy being a somewhat compelling meat facsimile. But there's just nothing that inspires me to pick up any of their products.
I think the problem is that crappy supermarket meat is really cheap, and most people don't seem to care about the quality of the meat. For those people, it's hard to justify buying a more expensive product that's not even meat.
I wonder if reducing the price (without selling at a loss) would increase sales enough to offset the lower revenue
Part of the reason that cheap meat is cheap is because it's a byproduct of producing nice meat. Chicken thighs are cheap because the chicken seller makes money on breasts. Round is cheap because the cow is paid for with the revenue from brisket and ribeye etc.
The meat alternatives are a product by itself, and they have to justify their whole supply chain. That's tough.
That's disappointing, they've done a great job making plant meat ubiquitous and took away some of the hippy aura that has kept many people from trying plant-based meat alternatives. I really hope they can turn it around, both selfishly as a happy customer, as well as for the planet.
I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar macro-nutrient ratios and whatever micro-nutrients are rare outside of meat.
I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd buy it for the environment.
I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.
Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.
hmm.. you would buy it but aren't?
4 oz raw/patty:
Impossible → 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol
Beyond → 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol
80/20 beef → 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol (high)
Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.
I thought sodium was really bad for you though
The beef patty numbers are solely raw beef, they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger.
The McDonald’s quarter pounder patty (just the cooked patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is comparable, comes with 210mg of salt.
Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren’t as significant as they appear.
Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
Salt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
I've been vegetarian for about 8 years and won't buy them and try to avoid them in restaurants because they're too meat-like. Unfortunately they've made good non-fake meat vegetarian burgers (black bean, wild rice, etc) harder to find.
It's a situation of "You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have cravings for anymore? We made something that tastes exactly like it. You're going to love it!"
I'm glad they existed when I first went vegetarian as they made the transition easier, but its a tough market when people will go off them in a couple years.
I'm not a vegetarian and I buy them exactly because they're meat-like.
You're literally not supporting a company which, as you admit, made your life more pleasant. And might potentially do so for others.
I'm confused.
Because after 8 years the idea of eating meat has no remaining appeal and is switching more to mild revulsion. Why would I order a substitute that is a close copy of that?
I'll still get them if there's literally no other vegetarian option on the menu, but that's rare.
I'll echo what some of the other commenters have stated:
I'm not vegan nor vegetarian, but I definitely align with many of the reasons that one would choose to be so. There are environmental and animal welfare concerns with the meat industry that simply cannot be ignored.
With that in mind, I try _choose_ a non-meat-based option when it's feasible. I do my best to vote with my dollar. Beyond Meat and Impossible have made this option available significantly more often in the past couple years.
When I shop for meat at the grocery store to cook at home, I've effectively stopped buying "real" meat for my standard meals. Unless I'm cooking some special or something specific, I simply buy Beyond Meat/Impossible for my standard meals. The same applies when eating out -- if there's a meat alternative, I will go for it (even absorbing the $2-3 upcharge).*
This is not to say that I _only_ go for the meat-alternative-based non-meat dishes. I often go for a tofu or mushroom alternative too. I don't even think Beyond Meat/Impossible taste _like_ the meat they're trying to substitute -- they're just simply good, meat-y, protein-y, umami-y flavors that I simply can't get enough of.
The more options there are for people like me the better. My diet has been able to shift closer and closer to removing meat entirely, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing battle. I just want to eat _less_ meat, not _no_ meat.
* One thing that's frustrating to me as someone that's not _actually_ a vegetarian/vegan is that restaurants often make the assumption that if I'm choosing the meat-alternative, then I must be vegetarian or vegan. No, I still want the cheese or the dairy, or even the meat (e.g.: an Impossible Cheeseburger with real bacon is still delicious). I'm trying to reduce, not _eliminate_, meat from my diet.
There’s no way to say this without sounding like an asshole but perhaps in 8 years your memory of what meat is like has drifted. I only say that because the rest of us wish the fake stuff was remotely comparable in taste and texture.
Both can be true. I think they try desperately to be meat, and they fail miserably.
I both remember the taste of meat and wish meat alternatives would taste like it, and I think Impossible and Beyond are both very successful at that.
For me, it's an uncanny valley thing. It's close, but missing something small and intangible which leaves me ruminating on the "fakeness."
Why do you assume people will stop consuming them after a few years? I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are concerned about the environmental implications of consuming meat.
I would replace all animal products if they tasted like the real thing. I'm sorry but tofu is not cheese
> I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are concerned about the environmental implications of consuming meat.
I don't think most people think about the environmental implications of consuming meat even remotely
Indeed. I've been vegan for nearly 5 years, and I still miss meat. Beyond and Impossible make being vegan tolerable for me.
I've been vegetarian for a long time and I still think Beyond burgers are great. I have a pack of them from Costco in the freezer. I like black bean burgers, too, but Beyond burgers taste like my (distant) memory of a "normal" burger.
In any case, I assume Beyond was relying on getting more market penetration past just vegetarians and vegans. There just aren't enough of us to get to the revenue they seem to be targeting. Personally, I'll be disappointed if they end up disappearing.
Was a vegetarian for about 8 years and now a pescatarian. We practically always have some Beyond products in our house and will order them at restaurants. Losing Beyond products would be a huge bummer.
I'm just the opposite.
I'm a vegan who loves & misses the taste of meat. Without Beyond (and Impossible), it would have been way harder for me to have become vegan. I think black bean burgers are disgusting. When picking a restaraunt for a team dinner with non vegans, I specifically look for menus that offer Impossible or Beyond, and I avoid restaurants that offer homemade bean/pea/etc burgers.
This is too bad. Beyond and Impossible opened up the door to me gradually becoming vegan. It was similar enough to real meat that I didn’t miss meat anymore, and from there I found other substitutions which were healthier. Without them I’m sure I never would have started a plant-based diet.
What have you substituted cheese with? It's one of my favorite foods but no substitute has come close to it
Sad truth is there isn’t a real substitute. You just eat it less and desire it less over time.
Unrelated to cheese but MyBacon is fantastic if you can get it near you.
Violife is probably the best for shredded (mozzarella/cheddar) but its still not great.
I really like Field Roast Chao slices for things like burgers or sandwiches.
https://kite-hill.com/products/chives-cream-cheese is a great option for bagels. I prefer it to normal cream cheese.
I replaced it with insatiable yearning. It's not as good, but it's all I've got.
Vegan cheese is made from cashews. If you’re in the Bay Area try Arizmendi’s vegan pizza. Surprisingly good.
Wish their products had less fat in them. They're tasty, but nutritionally they're a whole lot of canola oil.
Not a customer but it’s a shame it’s not working out for them. I’m sure they have people who would enjoy it but the feedback I’ve heard was mostly negative with respect to quality of ingredients and the like.
At this stage if they scaled back would they stand a chance to survive? Or do they owe too much money?
They owe way too much. The article actually touches on this - they have such little hope of paying back their debt that they are leaning into this so that they can get better renegotiation terms with bond holders
I absolutely love beef. A good ribeye steak, or some smoked brisket are two of my favorite foods. I was intrigued by the claims these meat alternative companies were making, so naturally I tried them all. It's not surprising to me that they are struggling. I could barely swallow their products. I think it was a mistake to compare these to one of the greatest foods on the planet. It set the expectation was too high.
They work well enough as a replacement in a fast food burger or in a dish where the meat itself isn't really the star player. Using their ground meat alternatives in a hamburger helper is totally fine.
We're not at the point where high quality meat can be replaced, but that doesn't mean the product is worthless.
everybody mostly discusses real vs. imitation/vegan, yet i think it has nothing to do with the current BYND situation.
"on an operating basis Beyond Meat lost 45 cents from every dollar of sales."
that is a culprit. Bad management. How else can your plant based product at comparable to meat prices be a loss instead of great profit. Even pure avocados are cheaper than meat. What is better and pricier than avocados do you put into your product? Then it should taste much better than avocados and meat. Yet there is no avocados, it is more like low quality cat/dog food:
"Key components include pea protein, rice protein, and lentil protein, alongside avocado oil, refined coconut oil, and canola oil. Other notable additions include methylcellulose, potato starch, and apple extract. "
That stuff at their prices should be super-profitable.
It’s always been awful IMO. Tastes like sawdust with a congealed vegetable oil binder and chemical flavorings that approximate meat. A straight up bean burger is better and far less processed.
Its way better than a bean burger IMHO. As a vegan, what I like most about Beyond burgers are that they are consistent, and pretty amazing at not being awful. If I'm in a random restaurant with a few token vegan options, the last thing I want to do is take a chance on some potentially terrible homemade bean or chickpea burger. If they have Beyond or Impossible, I know exactly what I'm getting.
Absolutely better than the crappy black bean or chickpea patties you'd get at most burger joints. I'd much rather have Beyond or Impossible at a cookout as well.
Our local drive in movie theater (remember those) offers various meal options including burgers, and I've taken to ordering the Impossible there because somehow several times in their beef burgers I've gotten significant bone chunks, to the extent that I was surprised I didn't break a tooth on them.
It could have to do with how they're prepped. Even the real thing can taste like sawdust and grill marks if done incorrectly. I'm personally biased towards veggie burgers and prefer them over the real thing but in the last year, I've been to multiple cookouts where both "burger dudes" and kids have chosen beyond over meat.
I agree that the level of process is questionable but, if done well, I don't think it lacks in flavor.
Right! Beyond awful
Last I looked, there was an awful lot of saturated fat in their burgers. I tended to order something other than a veggie burger when their was the only one on the menu.
One of the things I've noticed about shopping carefully at the local supermarket (Albertsons, in Oregon) is that they very often use beef as a 'loss leader' to get people to shop there, so beef is often cheaper than it 'should' be, and especially so if more of the externalities involved in the production of beef were included in the price.
I like beef, but the price probably makes it harder to compete with.
Ground beef needs to move quickly, and you've got to sell some to go with the nicer cuts of meat, so it makes sense to sell at low or negative margins.
Other faux-meat companies like Impossible seem to be doing better. Maybe Beyond's product is inferior? Personally, I don't choose it over Impossible.
The article says that impossible food has gone down 50% (the stock price)
Note that Impossible, unlike Beyond, isn't publicly traded, so the only time anyone knows for sure what it's worth is right after it raises capital. It sounded like the 50% thing was some kind of internal projection.
I feel like I'm the ideal customer for Beyond Meat and its competitors. I am not price sensitive, I don't mind the idea of plant based meat products, and I am willing to try new things. My biggest reasons for not buying Beyond Meat are that I:
1. Would rather not cook, and eating Beyond Meat in a way that's financially meaningful for them as a company means me cooking
2. If I'm going to put in the effort to cook, I want the result to be something that I have outsized enjoyment for. If I get a middling burger for my trouble, I'm simply not going to care enough to do it.
The chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken sound the closest to something I can casually heat up, but neither of those are things that would replace something in my existing diet. They have beef and chicken and sausage and all sorts of other stuff, but they're just the meat. They replace an ingredient.
I buy Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls. I'd happily get ones that used Beyond Meat. I buy frozen noodle and pasta meals: same deal. Sandwiches. Chicken salad. Soup. I'm struggling to think of a single product that I can swap out for a Beyond Meat alternative.
I don't need every bit of meat that I consume to even be especially good. But if it's only just fine and it's not convenient, I'm just not going to get it. If it was cheaper, I might consider. Or if it was more nutritious. Or if it was more filling than regular meat (or less filling, even). Or if I felt strongly about the plant based products that I buy being a somewhat compelling meat facsimile. But there's just nothing that inspires me to pick up any of their products.
Impossible has Impossible Bowls, which sounds like something that would be what you're looking for. They are available at Walmart https://impossiblefoods.com/media/news-releases/impossible-f...
For your own health, I implore you to explore even the most basic of cooking.
[dead]
Any employees here, sorry what morale must be like at work (I’d guess) & hope you get great offers elsewhere!
I think the problem is that crappy supermarket meat is really cheap, and most people don't seem to care about the quality of the meat. For those people, it's hard to justify buying a more expensive product that's not even meat.
I wonder if reducing the price (without selling at a loss) would increase sales enough to offset the lower revenue
The crappy supermarket meat is actually incredibly nutritious it just has dubious ethics for an apparently vanishingly small market segment.
But it tastes disgusting, it's one of those things where you actually get what you pay
What makes supermarket meat crappy?
There is no crappy meat, just meat that isn't prepared well.
Part of the reason that cheap meat is cheap is because it's a byproduct of producing nice meat. Chicken thighs are cheap because the chicken seller makes money on breasts. Round is cheap because the cow is paid for with the revenue from brisket and ribeye etc.
The meat alternatives are a product by itself, and they have to justify their whole supply chain. That's tough.
That's disappointing, they've done a great job making plant meat ubiquitous and took away some of the hippy aura that has kept many people from trying plant-based meat alternatives. I really hope they can turn it around, both selfishly as a happy customer, as well as for the planet.
I don’t eat meat but enjoy their products at least once a week, sometimes more. Very tasty, available nearly everywhere.
I don’t care about the nutrition/health of it at all.
Hope they can turn things around!