Posted on 08/12/2025 9:44:59 AM PDT by lasereye
The end was always inevitable for Beyond Meat, because being an innovator does not mean having a moat to protect your business. The pioneering company arguably created the category of plant-based meat that acts like actual meat.
That's clever, but it's not a defensible business. Once Beyond Meat BYND created the category, it was inevitable that the product would become commoditized.
Beyond Meat owns no real intellectual property (IP), and every company in the meat and grocery business (more or less) now sells a take-off of a product that already had limited appeal.
The people who like plant-based meat really like it, but that's a niche audience that won't grow all that much. That has created the "frozen yogurt store" effect for Beyond Meat.
When one self-serve frozen yogurt chain opens in your town, it has lines out the door. The addition of a second store puts both in peril, and further openings split the market so much that nobody succeeds.
That has happened with Beyond Meat, and no amount of clever talk from founder and CEO Ethan Brown can change that.
Beyond Meat has admitted it's in trouble by hiring corporate restructuring expert John Boken from consultancy AlixPartners as interim chief transformation officer. It has also let go of 44 employees in North America (6% of its global workforce) as it seeks to cut operating expenses amid disappointing sales.
Sales in the second quarter dropped by nearly 20% year-over-year.
Brown opened the Q2 earnings call by stating the obvious.
"We are disappointed with our second-quarter results, which reflect ongoing softness in the plant-based meat category, particularly in the U.S. retail channel and certain international foodservice segments," he shared.
The founder, however, was very blunt in his assessment.
Before diving into details on the quarter, this level of disruption to a recovery requires broader commentary," he shared. "...To stabilize our business and with a goal to achieve EBITDA positive operations within the second half of 2026 and to realize our much longer-term objective of reshaping global protein markets in support of a healthier and more sustainable future, we are taking significant and immediate actions."
McDonald's launched the P.L.T. (Plant, Lettuce, and Tomato) back in 2019 in partnership with Beyond Meat. It was limited to some locations in Ontario and was dropped after 12 weeks.
Then in February 2022, McDonald's began testing the McPlant burger, a Beyond Meat patty nestled in a sesame seed bun with vegan cheese and classic McDonald's fixings. It was limited to locations in San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth. They announced in July 2024 that it wouldn't be added to the US menu. It's still on the McDonald's menu in Europe.
McDonald's attributed the McPlant's demise to lackluster sales. Joe Erlinger, McDonald's USA President, stated that the burger "was not successful in either market" during a food forum. This suggests that American consumers, unlike their European counterparts where the McPlant remains available, weren't seeking plant-based options at McDonald's.
Such a shame.
(Beyond Meat headed to Chapter 11 bankruptcy)
EXCELLENT 👍👍👍 🤣🤣🤣
I had a beef with them because
I could get no Beef from them
(It was limited to locations in San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth)
Gee...
In the energy sector, California will introduce Beyond Electricity. Very renewable.
Trump effect. It peaked at the height of the Trump resistance and BLM, as a virtue signaling accessory to end White oppression, which it equated with meat consumption. The euphoria has ended and the subculture has come down to earth.
Who were the investors...the usual suspects...
Over the years 2013 to 2016, the company received venture funding from GreatPoint Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Obvious Corporation, Bill Gates, Biz Stone, the Humane Society[16][17] and Tyson Foods.[18] Tyson Foods purchased a 5% stake in Beyond Meat in October 2016,[19] but sold its 6.5% stake and exited the investment in April 2019, ahead of the company’s initial public offering.[20]
By 2018, Beyond Meat had raised US$72 million in venture financing.[21] Beyond Meat is also backed by celebrity and athlete investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jessica Chastain, Mark Rober, Snoop Dogg, Liza Koshy, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, DeAndre Hopkins and others.[22][23][24]
The day doesn’t pass without a new article about “ultra-processed” foods being terrible for your health. NOTHING is more “ultra-processed” than this lab-grown crap.
The marketing problem, at least in the U.S., was very simple: why buy fake anything when you can have the real thing? I got tired of the “eat your ____, it’s good for you” trope at about age seven. (Mom was right, of course, but still...)
The EV of food.
I had that burger and it was not bad for a plant meat lookalike.
However, it wasn’t worth buying again.
Our local Kroger started out with a BIG cooler with a wide variety of this crap. Now it’s just three little bins on one end.
Guess it didn’t sell, eh?
I would never eat this gross crap… it appears a lot of other people feel the same.
(The EV of food)
😃😄🤣🤣🤣
Acts like actual meat?
Tastes? Nope!
Looks like? Nope
Acts? Yeah if you like ball less, vag less tranny meat that ACTS...;-)
should have been called a “DOW CHEMICAL BURGER”.
I wish I’d shorted or bought put options. I could have retired.
Back around 2019, after a long hike on the San Francisco Peninsula, I stopped into Buck’s in Woodside, CA for lunch. The menu featured an “Impossible Burger” and I figured, with a name like that, it has to be good. This horrible raw crumbly crappy texture thing arrived and I promptly complained to the waitress. “Look at this mess! Yuck.”
She replied “You do know, sir, that that is a vegetarian burger, don’t you?”
LOL. “Nope, I had no clue.”
And THAT was my first AND last experience with a fake meat “burger.” I think the fries, lettuce and tomato were good.
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