The Decline of Beyond Meat...What Happened?

Episode Description: In 2019, Beyond Meat was seen as one of the most promising companies. Today, it is struggling to stay alive. This video attempts to identify some of the biggest reasons behind its decline.

To submit ideas and vote on future topics:

A very special thanks to this wonderful group of Patrons:
Library of Scars, Craig Mews, Jon Sturtz, Gabriela Martinez Celaya, Jennifer Yugo, Checkered Omega, Caitlin Kenney, Jandel, John Briscoe, Laura Floyd, John & Becki Johnston, Kib Bibens-LeFebvre, Andrew Jeeves, aziz alfozan, Audria Richmond, Adamant, Moriah Krawec, Dandaley, Tyrone Cowan, NoChance13, Ronnie Cheng, Astra, Ahmad, milkshake, Jon, Christian & Penny Gray, Emerald Computers – Jason Dragon, Brett Walton, Peter Wesselius, Meow Wolf, MyNameIsKir, Sirpoptart.

Company Declines:
______________________________

[Radamus]

Trying to make a replacement for meat and charging a premium for the replacement product is kind of a strange business model. I've always been kind of curious to try it but I am not willing to pay a HIGHER price than the original to try a replacement.

[weeds]

I’ll never forget when COVID hit and Beyond Meat (and the other brands) were the only items still in stock when everyone was rushing around panic buying

[oaktownstunna]

Another major issue with beyond meat was their advertising, they advertised mostly to meat eaters to change their eating habits rather than advertised to their market of vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians.

[anna]

I belong to a program that diverts grocery store waste to farms for animal feed. One day I was processing a load that had some “Beyond Meat” burger patties in it. My pig, along with the poultry, were around begging for treats, so I gave her one. She took it eagerly, then actually spat it out, and huffed off radiating offense. The poultry weren’t as picky, they happily cleaned it up. But I thought it interesting that Pansy, who was pretty eclectic in her food choices, decisively rejected the Beyond Meat.

[Ghost_of_Matair]

The problem I see is the same one with a lot of alternative brands. They chose to make a "meat substitute" when they should have done what Field Riast did. Field Roast went down the "Let's make a product that tastes good without meat, then shape it to fit where the customer would normally use meat". The latter approach seems to be working quite well for them.

[georgemonet]

Price is absolutely the big issue.
People would cry all day about how much they abhor the poor conditions that children were subjected to when producing clothing, but even a very tiny difference in price between sweat shop clothing and non sweat shop clothing led to those same people buying sweatshop clothing. Price is king.

[piprod]

I think it demonstrates a wider problem: whenever a new product category comes out the company that started it gets valued as if it will capture the whole market and competitors won't appear.

[robinmcmillan]

Another problem with Beyond Meat was the short expiry dates. I'm supposed to spend twice as much on a plant-based patty that expires in two days? Even real meat has a longer time to expiry.

[ninelivesstealer]

One thing not mentioned in this video is that Beyond and Impossible had angel investors spend MASSIVE amounts of cash to buy shelf space in stores. I work in the meat department at Walmart and corporate forced a bunch of these products on us for about three years, had a ton of special signage and feature space, the works--but NONE of it ever sold. The Beyond Burgers came 6 to a case and I would only take out and date 2 at a time, but even then they would just expire on the shelf. Also had a big problem with the packaging, as about 25% of the bricks of 'meat' came in already having lost their vacuum seal so we had to toss them immediately. As soon as the downturn in profits happened and the companies couldn't afford to pay stores to stock their product anymore it was removed immediately and we no longer carry a single imitation meat product (except in the frozen department which had them long before they became a fad).

Some people somewhere in LA were really confident they could make imitation meat a thing if they just shoved it in front of people enough, but it was always going to fail. Consumers don't want to pay 50% more for a worse tasting product, vegetarians don't actually want meat substitutes that badly, and retailers don't want to waste valuable refrigerated shelf space on a product no one buys.

[darkliok]

The biggest issue i saw was that it was especially promoted by some big celebrities as a replacement and how its much better that real mean, and then it came out that they actually own shares in the company.

[NiirTheRaccoon]

Just look at Black Bean Burgers: They aren't trying to be an imitation, but an entirely different thing, and they are absolutely delicious.

[BlastingXNP]

Worked as a butcher for a while, including years after this and Impossible came out. At first, the hype carried these off the shelves. But eventually the hype died down and we refused to even carry it except for frozen. We couldn't give it away after a few years.

[ministerofdarkness]

To quote the 80s
"Where's the Beef?"

[chrisw]

The Report of the Week reported that their KFC offering was inedible in January 2022. They were doomed after that.

[yaminben]

Since young I was taught to eat less process food or avoid it entirely. Beyond meat is no different

[iamtafara]

This is like buying a replica iPhone for twice the price of the original one.

[timchaney]

With only 5% of the US population being vegetarian and vegan and willing to pay the high prices, this was a non-starter/fad.

[pass_]

i should post a photo of me and my friend pointing at beyond chicken looking very excited about it, that wont go wrong

[damienruzco]

Blows my mind that McDonald’s thought the kind of people who are so committed to vegetarianism to buy this stuff would ever consider giving them business

[superblitz]

It is very unlikely, but it seems like any time a company goes from private to public, things go from caring about the product to caring about the 💰💰💰.