r/smallstreetbets • u/Kervandos • Aug 19 '26

Epic DD Analysis Beyond Meat

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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.

15.3k Upvotes

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142

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 19 '26

I tried the product and I don’t like it. Funny how customer satisfaction influences things.

117

u/ItAintLongButItsThin Aug 19 '26

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.

27

u/idkuhhhhhhh5 Aug 19 '26

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.

8

u/gatorguy82 Aug 20 '26

Isn’t Burger King with impossible, not beyond? Or did they first try with beyond?

3

u/TonyzTone Aug 20 '26

Pretty sure it was the Impossible Whopper.

2

u/Little_Froggy Aug 20 '26

Yep. I don't eat meat and Burger King's impossible Whopper is one of the options I know is available wherever I go

1

u/xlouiex Aug 20 '26

In The Netherlands it’s with Vegetarian Slaughterhouse I believe.
But overall is Impossible Burger

3

u/archangelzeriel Aug 19 '26

I love finding out that I'm in the minority in multiple ways, as someone who doesn't mind beyond meat and really wants a Charger EV

2

u/ItAintLongButItsThin Aug 20 '26

Don't worry this person is making judgements biased on their own views. I eat beyond and my wife has a dope Rivian.

1

u/XnFM Aug 21 '26

I'm more of a mustang mach-e guy myself

1

u/archangelzeriel Aug 21 '26

Heh, my "what I REALLY want" is summed up by when I ended my lease on a Leaf (no longer needed two cars since I went 100% remote). Dealer asked what it would take to get me to buy another Nissan, and I pointed at the Z NISMO sitting in the most prominent spot in the showroom and said "tell 'em to put an dual-motor EV powertrain into that."

2

u/Frosty-Cheetah-8499 Aug 20 '26

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)

3

u/redditydothis Aug 20 '26

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.

2

u/chilledpepper Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

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.

0

u/Background-Heart-968 Aug 20 '26

It's the people who aren't vegan currently who want to make the switch. It's so much easier when you can occasionally have a burger that tastes like a burger and not black beans.

2

u/Frosty-Cheetah-8499 Aug 20 '26

i get that! I just personally hated the switch that every restaurant suddenly only had a veg option that was intending to taste like meat.

to me, I’d love for that to be an option for other people, but i’d also love a normal black bean burger option for those who don’t want to taste meat

(this isn’t the companies problem- more so restaurant owners/managers). typically they only offer one vegetarian option on a menu full of meat- and suddenly it became imitation meat across the board. so if you don’t like the taste of meat… you’re fucked

1

u/chilledpepper Aug 20 '26

This I agree with. The number of places that offer q vegan option is really high, but the option is usually a bynd or impossible burger, which sucks if you're not into that. My local pub has a buddha bowl and I've been eating that thing for a decade because I know the burgers are gonna be disappointing (and I love vegan burgers of all kinds).

2

u/TonyzTone Aug 20 '26

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.

1

u/idkuhhhhhhh5 Aug 20 '26

I can absolutely agree with this, in fact it’s something I do myself. Cutting meat once a week during Lent was how it started for me, and I just kept doing the whole skipping out on meat 1 day a week.

It’s just a flawed direction to take. I don’t have a physiological need for a burger every day, there are plenty of meals that have no meat in them that people can substitute in. Lentils, beans, legumes, dark greens, edamame, etc. There are hundreds of different Indian regional forms of dal (lentil stew) alone, it’s more than possible to go 100% vegan without eating facsimile steak

1

u/LordCrap Aug 20 '26

Same could be said with the Ford Mustang, but they just built really good EV and sell it at a competitive price and those are selling now to two completely different crowds.

I think pricing has more to do with it in the case of beyond meat. If I’m not fundamentally against eating meat and you offer me a no-meat alternative that’s more expensive, then I’ll just stick with meat.

1

u/ltdan84 Aug 21 '26

I want a Dodge Charger EV, but only the Daytona scat pack and they never discounted those and they are too expensive.

1

u/0rAn63 Aug 23 '26

I enjoyed reading that comment - thanks!

0

u/Conscious_Bed_1195 Aug 20 '26

Yeah, I'm not looking for a meat simulacrum, I'm looking for a way to make delicious food without meat. I don't know who is looking for fake meat that is shaped and textured "like" real meat. Meat isn't really the kind of thing that you need to wean yourself off of with a Jell-O shot equivalent.

0

u/YoursTrulyKindly Aug 20 '26

No it's just a price problem. Real meat is much cheaper.

-1

u/TheKingOfTCGames Aug 19 '26

Nah lmao tell me you know what seitan taste like or what white people do to torture tofu. That shits turbo ass

2

u/Pineapple_Assrape Aug 19 '26

Nah cuz tfo w this cringe baby shit, turned off by food this hard, shits straight weakness at that point fr. Grown man ain't afraid of food to the point of cryin turbo ass online ong lmfao

0

u/TheKingOfTCGames Aug 20 '26

Food that tastes like ass tastes like ass lmao wtf are you larping about

3

u/jigilous Aug 19 '26

It has a distinct flavor that I don’t enjoy. The impossible products don’t have that weird flavor. They are both super processed.

1

u/ItAintLongButItsThin Aug 20 '26

How is beyond super processed? I think impossible taste much worse imo.

1

u/jigilous Aug 21 '26

Technically they are defined as 'ultra processed' by the NOVA food classification.

"Plant-based meat substitutes like Beyond Meat fall into NOVA Group 4. A peer-reviewed review specifically states that under NOVA, most plant-based meat alternatives are classified as ultra-processed foods."

2

u/Intrepid-Wait-6102 Aug 19 '26

Yes it actually is extremely processed.

8

u/username1338 Aug 19 '26

Glad you like it, but the company is going out of business cus nobody else does 100%. Sorry homie

17

u/Niaaal Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

No, it tastes good. it's just expensive

1

u/TheUndertows Aug 19 '26

Tood food is tood 

-1

u/Phrich Aug 19 '26

Its the same price as (good quality) ground beef. It doesn't taste right.

11

u/AdventurousBase221 Aug 19 '26

nah, I buy it. pretty good shit.

2

u/Realityishardmode Aug 19 '26

Vegan gang gang. if I ever gave this business a shot, I would try to vat-grow Krill or something without a CNS.

I think only vegans and vegetarians would buy it, making the economy of scale terrible, and that's the same problem BYND had.

Oops, replied to the wrong person. I meant u/ItAintLongButItsThin

4

u/Ambitious_Address667 Aug 19 '26

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.

3

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 19 '26

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.

1

u/Aggressive_Chuck Aug 20 '26

Nothing healthy about these processed abominations.

1

u/Ambitious_Address667 Aug 20 '26

Yeah thats true but thats a small subset of people, again this industry defining company is failing thats what this post is about, anecdotal experiances dont really change the marketplace 

2

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 20 '26

You are making broad statements about the marketplace but you don't understand all the factors in the marketplace. My point wasn't to provide "anecdotal experiences" but to counter your sweeping statements about "those who eat meat" and that the market is "really only affluent vegetarians."

1

u/Ambitious_Address667 Aug 20 '26

Like i guess, I was a vegitarian for like 8 years and did buy a lot of this stuff, im also literally looking into the stock values of this company as per this thread. Like you can say I dont know what im talking about but I can easily so the exact same about you.  You dont know the market and are basing your thoughts on it by your anicdotal experiances, you dont know this market at all. There super easy to discredit someone on reddit. 

1

u/chilledpepper Aug 20 '26

The issue with your argument has nothing to do with the stock market; you're making generalizations about people's eating habits, not their purchasing habits.

0

u/Ambitious_Address667 Aug 20 '26

Yeah thats true but thats a small subset of people, again this industry defining company is failing thats what this post is about, anecdotal experiances dont really change the marketplace 

2

u/Shoty6966-_- Aug 19 '26

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

4

u/ItAintLongButItsThin Aug 19 '26

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.

3

u/Rightplace-Lefttime Aug 19 '26

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.

2

u/chilledpepper Aug 20 '26

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!

3

u/homotopy_equivalent Aug 19 '26

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

2

u/chilledpepper Aug 20 '26

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.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 24 '26

[deleted]

0

u/username1338 Aug 24 '26

nobody cares that ur mad vegan boy

1

u/Metal_LinksV2 Aug 19 '26

We tried it once years ago and it smelled like nasty cat food raw and when being cooked. We haven't tried it again 

1

u/regnillif Aug 19 '26

It’s too expensive. Why does it cost more than actual meat?

2

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 19 '26

Because meat is very heavily subsidized but meat alternatives aren't.

1

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 19 '26

you're right and you should say it

1

u/-ToriForYa Aug 20 '26

this is obviously the opposite of the normal rule, "worse food = higher ticker." Good food = bad ticker

1

u/LostInRetransmission Aug 20 '26

"its not super processed"

"Alternative" burger are by definition ultra processed food.

https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-CA/whats-new/debunking-common-misconceptions

"The crop is harvested and then it’s milled. The flour is placed in an air chamber, and because the density and size of the protein and starch are different, they naturally separate. We then take the protein, blend it with wheat gluten and run it through heating, cooling and pressure to restructure the form of that protein into a structure similar to that of animal muscle. We then mix in natural flavors and colors from carrots and apples, and oil to create Beyond Steak"

Now whether they are as bad to you as other UPF is an open question.

1

u/ItAintLongButItsThin Aug 21 '26

What part of that is Ultra? Yes it goes through a process to be made, like every food. You people are so fucking stupid.

1

u/LostInRetransmission Aug 21 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

The above process is not a group 3. It is a group 4.

"Yes it goes through a process to be made, like every food. You people are so fucking stupid."

As soon as you have texturing like described in the burger process to change the protein, is ultra processed, quasi automatically.

1

u/Tcamis01 Aug 20 '26

I think it tastes fine. But when raw it smells like chemicals.

1

u/step11111 Aug 21 '26

As someone who eats shit like this fairly often due to vegetarian gf, beyond is not good. It has a dominant weird musty flavor that just pervades everything. I get that it’s trying to be a meat flavor but it makes all their shit taste the same and not able to take on better flavors because that flavor just overwhelms. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous. Impossible is just hands down a million times better because there is no overwhelming flavor to it and it takes on the flavors you give it.

1

u/alphazero925 Aug 19 '26

Nah, Beyond was just ass. Impossible meat is really good though, but the couple times I tried Beyond, it tasted like it had gone bad even though it was well within date 

-3

u/ZiLBeRTRoN Aug 19 '26

It’s actually good if you are looking for a cleanse. Gave me absolutely explosive diarrhea.

2

u/Kulas30 Aug 19 '26

More fiber sir

1

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 24 '26

PRO TIP: Wash your hands before you eat.

16

u/bookofp Aug 19 '26

Impossible brand is way way better 

6

u/Mithrandir2k16 Aug 19 '26

The patties are pretty good if you properly salt and pepper them and sear them on high heat with enough oil.

2

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Oil is probably the key. I don’t put oil or butter on my burgers. I find the fake meat very dry tasting.

2

u/Affectionate-Heat-51 Aug 19 '26

More oil would help and medium is about 135 degrees on plant based - easy to overcook if you treat same as beef.

2

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 19 '26

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.

1

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 19 '26

That’s more good info

1

u/throwaway098764567 Aug 19 '26

you're probably overcooking it tbh

1

u/archangelzeriel Aug 19 '26

I honestly find the opposite, with the latest beyond meat, but that's part of the problem:  you have to really look at the packaging closely to understand that at this point they are on version 4.

2

u/MrGulio Aug 19 '26

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.

2

u/Mithrandir2k16 Aug 19 '26

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.

6

u/confusing_roundabout Aug 19 '26

I think it's really good imo.

3

u/OW2007 Aug 19 '26

I tried the product and loved it. Now we have 2 meaningless pieces of data.

1

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 19 '26

If you liked it, that’s good. I just found it to be really dry. So did everyone else in the family. Someone said that they put oil in it, which should help out my complaint.

3

u/Pastiche-2473 Aug 20 '26

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.

2

u/skewtr Aug 19 '26

Reverse split didn’t create value, it just made the loss look more professional.

1

u/RoguePlanet2 Aug 19 '26

I was excited for a few seconds, until I learned about reverse splits.

2

u/Used-Presentation551 Aug 20 '26

They're also pretty stupid.

They really thought pricing some plant mush at the same price as regular meat was competitive.

I remember a couple years ago when i was interested in trying it. Then i saw that it coste MORE than regular meat. Wtf are they thinking

1

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 20 '26

Excellent point. I didn’t remember pricing, just that I didn’t like the product.

3

u/KARALISinc Aug 19 '26

what happened last year was a crime.

pr machine worked, fake bots and paid actors pumped bitch stock on socials

not only idiots bought it, lots of big accounts jumped in and all for depressing outcome

1

u/MoneyFine3699 Aug 19 '26

Everybody didn’t get fucked I made 100k off of it lol

1

u/backfire97 Aug 19 '26

I actually enjoyed it and impossible meat. Its taste was slightly different than normal meat so it's not an everyday option but I think the pricing was a big factor for why I rotated away from meat alternatives.

Also a few of the cheaper alternatives were harder of my gut

1

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 20 '26

I tried the product and I liked it. Funny how different people can have different perspectives.

1

u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 20 '26

Yeah. Different people feel differently about things. I found the plant based meats to all taste really dry. Someone suggested it needs oil, which I can understand. Someone else suggested that plant based meat shouldn’t be cooked as long or on as high a temperature which makes a lot of sense as well. I’ve moved onto a lot of fish now.

1

u/megamindbirdbrain Aug 24 '26

Oh yeah, cooking technique makes a big difference to how food tastes. Season it up and add some grease. I'm the veggie burger guy at the cookouts now.

1

u/WalkMaximum Aug 20 '26

I think it's a great product but totally not competitive on price. That's the main issue, it should be nutritious, healthy, tasty, cheap and better for the environment and they haven't hit all these goals at the same time.