There is demand for plant-based meat... at a lower price point than real meat. It will never be a viable category at a premium price. These attempts to make it a prestige product have doomed it from the start. People who will not accept or change for moral reasons won't do so for STYLE reasons either - it HAS to be a pocketbook consideration.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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I think their plan was to market to wealthy vegans and to run on novelty until they figured out how to make their product at a lower price.
Yeah, I agree. And it's working out exactly as I expected.
The thing is, it would already be a much lower price point if we didn't massively subsidize meat production and allow insane levels of animal and human rights abuses in the meat industry. Beef should cost like $100 a pound or more.
Yeah from a business perspective it's still kind of their fault that they didn't realise they can't compete with an industry which totally externalises it's environmental impact and it's subsided by the taxpayer, but ultimately we should blame the laws for this.
You're not wrong. The meat industry plays dirty. But Beyond Meat could've done more to turn the playing field in their favor too - lobbying for carbon credits or for subsidies of their own for climate action back when we had an administration that valued that. Instead they partnered with fast food restaurants trying to push themselves as a lifestyle brand.
I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time and beyond meat/impossible meat aren’t my favorite flavor or texture. I still opt for the older substitutes like Morningstar (kellogg) and Gardein (conagra) when I need a substitute for a cookout or something. I know they were hoping to market to people who eat meat though so maybe this anecdote is irrelevant. I wonder if impossible, which is private, is similarly losing money.
I actually really love beyond meat burgers and added as a ground beef substitute. I found that if the patties are charred the blackened char is like a brand new spice. Can't really compare it to anything and I love it.
I’ll try that next time I have one! Do you like impossible too? I’m not an excellent cook so maybe the ones I mentioned are just more fool proof to cook.
I'm not as big of a fan of impossible, but it's been a while since I've tried it. I know Beyond Meat has gotten better over time. I'd be willing to try it again but it doesn't seem to be as available where I live.
Morningstar sausages are pretty solid. But good Lord, the bacon looks like construction paper.
Honestly, what I'm really hoping for is clean meat, labgrown. It should curb deforestation, reduce the environmental strain, and help wolves curb CWD in deer populations.
My family overwhelming prefers impossible burger meat over Beyond to the point that they will just ask for something else if I get Beyond. Totally anecdotal info, but if you charge as much as they do, you need to be actually tasty. I also agree with many of the comments that prefer the much older black bean style substitutes like Morningstar, but my family doesn't love them.
I don’t like Beyond and have only met one or two people who do, but aside from the taste problem they are expensive. Meat alternatives need to be a fraction of the price of meat, but instead they are treated as luxury bourgeois foodstuff. We need to do better.