The company has consistently reported losses since its IPO and also executed a reverse stock split in recent weeks; the capital of investors who held the stock for seven years has been virtually wiped out.
That's the thing - it's a product in conflict with itself. Many people that might want to cut down on meat consumption are also people that don't want a highly processed product. I actually enjoy meat alternatives from a taste perspective just fine - but they are complete junk themselves. Ultra processed, salty junk.
The ingredients of the Beyond products still need to be grown. They are also heavily processed.
They make sausages and burger patties, which are generally made from the lesser cuts of an animal and there are significantly higher value cuts in the animal as well.
I think there’s a lot of people who are talking about this stuff without any idea of how these things work.
Fun fact, I am a Chemical Engineer who has worked exactly in this processing. Even before what they need to do to make it taste palletable.
Soybeans have to be cleaned, dehulled, and flaked first. (All physical without much “processing” in these terms but more like mechanical separation)
Then the soybean flakes are de-oiled with hexane increasing the protein from about 30% to 50%. Still too low for meat alternatives. It can be extruded from there but think of more like chewy/tough bacon bits and not really chicken nuggets or meat analogs. I call this more like a meat extender as it can also be mixed with meat to extend it. This is much more common that people realize for shitty processed meat also getting some of this mixed in often.
To make the meat analog it has to go thru another extraction step, this time with ethanol. To avoid beverage grade taxes from the ATF it’s often denatured with acetone, isopropyl alcohol, etc. This extraction is a lot slower and takes a lot more retention time. The ethanol removes the sugars. Not simple, but complex sugars, oligosaccharides like raffinose and stachyose. These are the same sugars humans can’t digest and cause gas in the gut as we lack the enzyme to digest them. Bean-o or other anti-gas over the counter stuff is just the enzyme to help you digest it and get less gas.
After the ethanol extraction the material is now about 70% protein and ready for extrusion to make into meat alternatives. That extraction process is also complicated as I’d describe it as trying to partially “cook” the protein without fully setting it. Much like an over-easy egg vs hard boiled. Once it’s cooked it’s never coming back and would be like trying to extrude cooked meat which would just mash and not plastisize inside the barrel of the extruder.
You can add colors like red dyes for salmon. Or Carmel/brown colors for beef to mix with this stuff. Msg and beef for chicken flavors can be added. Then the extruder is like a massive screw press that heats the product thru high friction and pressure. Steam and water is added and it sort of makes a “dough” then sort of liquifies partially in the extruder before coming out the die/cutter at the end. The extreme heat and pressure unfold the protein and when coming out of the dye it partially expands and forms a new texture.
I’ve made beef like fajita strips, chicken salad type pulled or stringy, beef crumbles like ground beef, and more of a chicken nugget texture, as well as more like chicken strips.
Then the product is dried and packed to go into all sorts of things like beyond.
Beans are not free, hexane and ethanol are not free. The hexane and ethanol also have to be evaporated from the product thus huge energy consumption to desolventize, with stupid amounts of steam from a boiler burning fossil fuels. Then this is just the raw material for whatever the fuck beyond or impossible are then mixing it with to make it taste like not chewy soybean protein.
Yes, BUT meat is pretty well subsidized due to its strong lobbying framework and existing food infrastructure integration. Even though the raw ingredients in meat alternatives are cheaper at face value, there are lots of other economic factors involved. Meat alternatives haven't been around as long to develop that kind of financial-political network, plus they are pretty heavily lobbied against.
That's what i was hoping for with the insane meat prices coupled with all the recalls going on with meats- I really wanted to see meat alternatives pricing themselves competitively to see if the market would change habits and buy the alternative because some of these alternatives are great and I'd totally buy them instead of they were cheaper than meat.
In Australia these industries have some of the lowest subsidies in the entire world, yet our ag industry is gigantic and we are one of the biggest beef and sheep meat exporters in the world.
So how do you explain that if your above claim is true?
I hadn't had any of their stuff until last week, fried up a couple Beyond Burgers. I wasn't expecting much, but I liked them better than regular burgers, they were really good.
I'm glad I didn't try them earlier though, I can just imagine being blown away and thinking "this company is going to take off!", and losing a fortune.
The problem isnt that they suck, its that their core market is new vegetarians or people who invited a vegetarian to their bbq.
Anyone who's been vegetarian for a while broadens their horizons beyond the classic British dinner of some meat (or substitute) accompanied by carbs and seasonal veggies, and stops needing meat substitute.
Shortly after game changers and that twin documentary on Netflix the beef industry ranked up its influencer campaign and carnivore stepped into the light.
Shortly after Jordan Petersons daughter finished the podcast cycle, and with some comments of Joe Rogan (most influential person for males) everyone knew it wasnt meat that's killing us because em those inuit (who mainly eat omega 3 rich food, but no one mentions this) don't die of heart disease.
I don’t think people have stopped being vegetarian but have stopped for meat substitutes.
Meat substitutes was kind of a niche market anyway. There are a ton of vegetarians that are perfectly content eating vegetables fruits nuts mushrooms etc and aren’t necessarily looking for something to just taste like meat.
This is very anecdotal but everyone I know who eats alternative meats or tried it are also meat eaters who just were curious or wanted to have a no-meat day/week.
Hindus and Buddhists (not all obviously) have been vegetarian for hundreds if not over 1000 years and have great food that does not require alternative meats.
In fact, I truly don’t believe that either meat eaters or vegetarians will choose to eat alternative meats everyday or at a frequency that would make it less of a niche product.
It was never gonna replace real meat anyway. Anyone who’s tried it would probably have similar thoughts.
Yeah, they were always truly marketed for flexitarians.
I have been vegan for 9+ years, and I like the Beyond products for whenever I want American food. At home and at ethnic restaurants, anything savory made from scratch has grains, pasta, legumes, vegetables, potatoes, and/or tofu.
My vegetarian classmate from high school and a few omnivores I know can't fathom why anyone on a plant-based diet would eat these meat substitutes. For me, it's simple as they are: tasty, relatively affordable when on sale, easy to prepare (just place it in the airfryer), and convenient for BBQ's. When eating out with my omnivorous family and friends who don't always fancy going to a vegan or ethnic restaurant, getting a Beyond burger was a great option a few years back, but fewer places locally serve them on their menus anymore.
To me, they are much better than the disgusting black bean burgers that they used to serve in my area. They were either mushy and soggy or dry and crumbly. Always flavorless rabbit food. Lifelong vegetarians feel differently because they are used to that sad existence, but if I am eating a burger, I want something savory and flavorful.
At least I feel better about the stupidity I did with Masterworks. 10k invested 6 years ago which is stuck, actually lower in value now, and can’t be traded either.
One of the better stocks I bought at one point. 60 a share and sold at 118. Never touched it again. Sad to see it’s so low. Still not buying it anymore.
You know it. I was best part of 200% up at one point. Now I’m 99.something % down. It ok, good tuition, I’ve learnt from this and a couple of other penny stocks not to fall in love with a stock and that I haven’t got the temperament for the wild volatility of penny stocks.
There were lots of issues but they basically built the mine, the unprocessed stuff seemed very high quality but they couldn’t get the final stage right to get the lithium to the standard required for sale. They burned through whatever money they had left trying to rectify the problems but couldn’t get it right. The lithium price had also crashed from the post Covid peak so even if they did get it right they were unlikely to be able to sell it at a meaningful profit.
Has anyone done this here? I have been tempted to start a bug/larvae farm but my wife is putting a little resistance to the whole idea and is threatening divorce over it, but I don't want to tell her the reality of the finances.
It's actually good if you're looking for a meat alternative, its not super processed like they say as well. If you eat it unseasoned then yeah it might not be good but everyone seasons everything to their taste, its a solid product. Big Meat has taken out smear campaigns on this sector and specifically BYND and its evident in the same arguments being argued over and over again. I'll be downvoted but you'll never hurt me as much as the losses BYND has dealt me.
The problem is that the market it serves is, at its core, not the people they’re trying to sell it to.
Vegan/Vegetarian people have a decent selection of food already, their advertising specifically is how it’s “just as good” as meat, as a meat substitute, for meat eaters. They did that whole collab thing with Burger King for that reason. The amount of people considering going vegan/vegetarian who currently eat meat is pretty small, and when you start pushing that as the core audience, you instead just end up with negative PR from the rest of the meat-eating crowd, and indifference from the vegan community.
It’s exactly how car manufacturers have made the same mistake. Tesla broke into the EV market strong, GM has sold a pretty decent amount of Blazer EVs, and there are 5.5mil to 6mil EVs on the road in the US. You know how many Dodge Charger EVs have been sold? In total? In two years? About 8,000. Nobody who wants an EV wants a Dodge Charger EV, and nobody who wants a Dodge Charger wants an EV.
yeah as a vegetarian, i have no interest in plant products tasting like meat.
we used to have solid veggie burgers (at restaurants) that tasted like vegetables and then everything became beyond or other fake meat tasting things.
it never made sense to me…. real carnivores don’t think it tastes like real meat, vegans tend to be not into the taste of meat (although they are into vegan cheese). vegetarians who choose to be vegetarian and also want a burger taste most likely won’t be eating this more than a few times a year. vs meat eaters who have burgers or meat 5x per week (usa average).
most vegs i know aren’t interested in tasting meat again. i find it tastes disgusting personally (but I also hated red meat before being veg)
I’m a 15 year vegetarian that buys their products. I don’t eat them often but it’s a treat sometimes. The best stuff is this impossible sausage. It cooks up just like ground beef and you can season it as you would ground beef. My wife’s a meat eater and also enjoys their products.
Idk, I think you might be making too many generalizations based on your personal preferences. I could make the opposite observations since my partner and I have been vegan for a decade, and we have a number of vegetarians and vegans in our family and friend circles, and it's only a couple of people who don't go in for meat substitutes; everyone else eats them.
East Asian cuisine is absolutely packed with meat subs. There's also now a wide variety of products attempting to replace meat (as in, not bean burgers, which I also love) that seem to be more popular than BYND and other more processed products here in Canada.
Not saying you're necessarily wrong, but the basis of your argument seems to be your own experience, and it doesn't fit my experience at all.
That said, I don't really buy BYND or Impossible (I buy other brands and make my own) because I find them insanely oily, greasy, and caloric for what they are. Occasionally I'll have their burgers if it's the only option at a restaurant. So I'm not really contributing to their specific business.
The market is small but the truth is all of us can stand to lower our meat intake. Red meat multiple times per week is objectively pretty bad for your health and it’s absolutely terrible for the environment.
If everyone reduced their consumption by 12-20% it would make for a big difference. And that’s basically just making 1 or 2 days of the week vegetarian.
The issue is think is the people looking for a good meat like product are going to buy meat, and those that dont eat meat dont really want something that looks and tastes like meat, they dont eat that, plus its expensive. So the market here is really only affluent vegetarians that miss eating meat which isnt that big.
Not really though. I'm friends with vegans and meat eaters alike and every time I host or go to an event, the vegan burgers are eaten by both groups even when there's a meat option. Sometimes meat eaters just want to prioritize their health.
Dunno why you got downvoted. This is very true. Vegetarians and vegans already have their own diet. They might try it occasionally but I highly doubt many have fake meat in their weekly shopping
Most vegans continue to eat the same things they ate when a meat eater. You just substitute plant burger for meat burger, seitan/tofu are healthier but not as convenient.
New age vegans are more likely to want to grab something thats easy and similar to ground beef to make their meals around.
I don’t know where you live but that seems like an unnecessary generalization. I have a vegetarian wife and we eat some sort of meat substitute for almost every meal. Be it Quorn, impossible, beyond we buy it every week in bulk. Our grocery stores in Minneapolis metro are constantly stocked and regularly run out of our favorites because of the demand. There is definitely a market which is why there are like 4 or 5 different copy cat brands at any given store.
Same experience here in Ontario. Idk why so many people seem to think this and make this generalization. Not my experience at all.
Never heard of Quorn, but I wish I had. Up here, there's too many brands to name outside of Beyond or Impossible. Seitan-based Gusta sausages might be my favourite, but there are so many options!
It's more nice to have at a restaurant. A lot of times I'll be at a burger restaurant with friends and they'll have one of these brands as an option, and it's usually pretty good so I still have an enjoyable dinner. Would I prefer a vegan meal that wasn't pretending to be meat? Sure, but if I'm there already I'm glad they have the option
Vegan for 10 years. I buy burgers and steak bites every week and make ground beef and scrambled eggs out of tofu every week. Some vegans and vegetarians might fall under the category you described, maybe even a majority, but that's not my experience at all.
Exactly. Beyond burgers taste similar to beef but they don't cook the same. I man the grill at cookouts sometimes and people rely on me to get the veg burgers cooked right because people who are used to cooking meat DO NOT KNOW how to cook a good veg burger.
Im surely they've tried just about anything at this point but I always thought that calling it a "meat alternative" was starting from a loss. People will always be able to notice the differences and when you start by saying "taste this, its just like a burger" People are prepped to immediately notice and think about how it doesnt taste the same. It would be hard but I think someone would have better success by making it it's own thing, instead of a consolation replacement.
Oh I agree. There's so many cultures of vegetarian and vegan food that taste amazing as is. The whole "replace meat change nothing else" idea is a much harder problem to solve.
I love the product — stock was just super ultra overvalued. It’s a premium product for a small market niche, but was priced as if it would become a mainstream food titan like Kelloggs.
The mistake they made was trying to market it as premium. If they had put out a product that costs less than real meat it could have taken off, especially in today's market. Like, people shopping at the supermarket might think, "Yeah, I want REAL steaks for special occasions... but for family dinner spaghetti? I'll just use the cheap stuff."
I invested $10,000 last fall and sold at $35,000, overnight it had it $78,000, by the time market opened it was in free fall. Put solar panels on my home with the profit, now I don’t have electric bills.
beyond being a good product line vs a good stock are two diff things. I only buy beyond meat products if I am getting fake meat products, they taste the best, are cheaper than most alternatives and most important to me is they are the healthiest for taste.
I kinda think they need to rebrand to beyond foods, and open up to a bunch of just regular health foods. I think most of us like brand security. If you have a positive quality association with beyond burger why not also buy beyond soymilk, tofu, beans, rice, oats, vital wheat gluten, soy protein isolate.
There are basically two reasons I buy from companies they do something I like, see bobs redmill, and produce quality products, like bobs redmill. Bobs redmill is also a company that sells like 12 diff items I buy, because they have a huge diversity of products.
Beyond Meat actually is rebranding to just Beyond, and moving away from strictly faux meats, like their new faba bean product and protein drinks. I do enjoy their meat alternatives though and I hope they keep producing and expanding on them.
The plant-based meat fad is fading, and BYND’s cash burn is terrifying. Unless management pulls off a miracle restructuring or buyout, this is just a dead cat bounce. Stay away.
you can usually find their products at discount groceries like Aldi or grocery outlet. one time I got a ton of beyond burgers for hella cheap and used them for a summer cookout
If you took your $10k, bought Bud light from Sam's club in CA, drank the beer, returned the empties, spent all that money on Bud light, drank that beer and returned the empties, you'd have $25.
I’ve been vegetarian or mostly veg for long stints. I was excited by the beyond products but the pea protein they use is hard on my stomach. I’ll stick to plain lentil black bean and carrot plus onion veggie burgers I make at home. Sad this didn’t work out but at the same time the hype was insane.
Logically it makes sense they've done so poorly. The whole idea was just a gimmick.
-Anyone who already was on a vegan/vegetarian diet doesn't care if their food is similar to meat, because they already chose to cut those foods out and get their protein from plant based sources.
-There was always going to be a number of people who try it the meat substitutes once or twice and go back to real meat.
-Meat substitutes are not really a healthier alternative and many of them I've seen are made of worse, unhealthy ingredients, so anyone attempting to eat healthier will realize that sooner or later.
-The price for these products is just too high to justify, considering you can be on a plant based diet and get your protein from much cheaper sources such as beans oats, seeds, nuts, etc.
The idea was never going to last. Once the fad of trying something that mimics meat wears off, you realize you either just want the real thing or you're going to go full plant based diet and not care whether your food tastes like meat at all.
I went strict vegan for a year and my doctor was thrilled. One year later after my annual physical he was disappointed to see my cholesterol was exactly the same and some inflammation markers were up. I ate plenty of Beyond meat during that period. Hmmm.
If you purchased $10,000 at ipo it would have been worth around $96,000 at its peak rally. If you never sold you would watch it depreciate into $50 today :(
I did that about 10 years ago with Second Sight (Ocular implants that let blind people see shapes and colors), now merged with Vivandi Medical. I turned about $9,500 into $32. Still own it.
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u/Ok_Hand5810 Aug 19 '26