If plant-based foods are so good then sell them as so. Don't sell them as $adjective meat. If your whole business idea is based on misleading customers, perhaps it's not that good.
At least in the UK, the plant-based meat business appears to fall between two stools.
In the high-end niche market, plant-based meat is up against organic, grass-fed, free-range, 30-day aged and the like. While itself frequently including awful ingredients like Palm Oil, being (of at best) unknown impact on health and never (so far) being anything other than just about *acceptable* in terms of taste and texture to a meat eater.
While at the other end where there is little concern for animal welfare, climate change, health and even taste. It costs more for the same quantity.
To achieve its potential, the plant-based meat industry either needs to figure out how to do better than millions of years of evolution and target the high-end. Or figure out how to churn out mass-market products at a lower cost than the dead-animal equivalent.
(For my money, churning it out at least appears tractable)
I don't like beans, peas and lentils. I do however love plant-based meat. There is a market for people like me but I don't know if it justifies the valuation of these companies.
Creating "actual beef" used to be fairly expensive, but, over the decades, companies have found out how to produce it for as cheap as possible, while still earning billions in profits, without consumers feeling as though beef is expensive. That efficiency comes with time. Plant-based meat is still in its infancy by comparison. So, even though the costs to consumers is high, the amount of profit the plant-based companies earn may be similar, or even lower than, what the beef industry earns.
Then there's Beyond itself. Striking a deal with McDonald's likely involved a lot of time and money — and then the "McPlant" product immediately failed. If you're going to convince Americans that plant-based meat is good, meeting them where they're at with fast food may seem like a good idea. But the type of people who find themselves in the McDonald's drive-thru, and the type of people who will pay extra for plant-based meat, is a tiny sliver of the theoretical burger Venn Diagram.
Now, you could call that grossly mismanaged, or you could call it the best possible shot they had at catering to a wide audience and breaking out of the niche vegan market. But the fact is, the product failed. Where can they possibly go from here to continue growth?
Here's the thing. You might see a lot of these plant-based meat options in grocery stores and think "it's certainly not a flop! look at the grocery store sales!"
But now take a look at the major industry players. JBS, Tyson, Danone, etc. The ones with more capital than you can imagine and every reason to consider plant-based product lines.
Track their PR timeline over the past 5 years and it's easy to see that they tried to push this stuff into the market and it was not accepted in a way that generated profits.
Yes, I know big-meat is subsidized and not pricing in externalities. But that is the world we live in. These are just honest observations of a bizarre market.
If you are passionate about sustainable food systems, it's important to take a hard look at the truths surrounding meat production. Sexy tech and moral high-grounds only get you so far.
I agree. The marketing innovation that has made plant meat successful (at least where I am) has been marketing it to meat eaters in the meat aisle, stripping away the vegetarian identity association
Is the premise here that beyond beef et al. are trying to trick customers into thinking they are buying regular beef? A moment's thought reveals that to be utterly absurd. Their business model is entirely dependent on people buying their product specifically because it is plant-based. Seems like old-fashioned protection of a favored industry.
>Even the Beyond Meat brand, which is the one that skirts the closest to being deceptive here, by virtue of their name, still has "PLANT-BASED XXXX" written front, center, and in large contrasting color letters on the packaging of their products.
Do they though? I mean here look at this [1]. It totally supports your point, "Plant-Based" is front and center in big green letters.
But what about this product? [2]
And what about this one? [3]
And this one? It says Real Meat right at the top. [4]
And these are going in the meat aisle? Right next to real, actual meat? This is blatant false advertising and consumers are going to be tricked by these products.
>Banning words like "beef" and "meat" from the packaging sounds like something that would actually engender confusion among consumers, by effectively banning phrases like "meat free" from the packaging.
Oh come on, get real. This wouldn't be a problem if "PLANT-BASED" actually was front and center on all of these products.
>This whole effort reads to me as a rather blatant example of rent seeking behavior on the part of an incumbent industry in response to new entrants to the market.
Well you're welcome to read whatever you want into it. I'd really like to see you defend those beef crumbles though. What if those chicken strips are right next to actual chicken strips? You don't think some consumer fresh off work or wrangling a kid or what have you is going to grab them thinking they're actual meat products? Of course they are.
It is difficult now for me to avoid vegan and plant-based offerings. They are not always segregated or clearly labeled. There is precious little regulation on naming conventions. It's completely normal to hit the grocery store and come home accidentally with some vegan cheese, or plant-based patties. Except that the price of real meat has skyrocketed, so seeming bargains should give us pause, at least.
The food industry is on a definite trajectory to discourage us from consuming red meat and other necessities of human existence. Wholesome foods such as steak, fish fillets, dairy milk and cheeses are being replaced by highly-processed foods with additives, preservatives, and untold gobs of flavoring and colors from who-knows-where.
The medical establishment will give cover at every step for this anti-meat jihad, and why not? They will benefit in the long run through sicker patients and elaborate treatments. Isn't it ironic that our health concerns are weaponized, distorted, and then exploited for profit.
I agree! I think businesses trying to court more people in to trying plant based options may focus more on getting customers than being kind to the earth. Certainly veganism is often very aligned with the local food movement, but this processed packaged kind of product sure isn’t!
> I understand their gripe with plant products, that sounds like deceptive advertising.
It really isn't, though, in practice. All these products have packaging that is designed to make them immediately recognizable as plant-based products. They want, first and foremost, to be attractive to their core market: Vegetarians. They may make other overtures in an effort to attract people who do eat meat, but those invariably involve trying to sell their being plant-based as a thing that makes them a healthier product. Even the Beyond Meat brand, which is the one that skirts the closest to being deceptive here, by virtue of their name, still has "PLANT-BASED XXXX" written front, center, and in large contrasting color letters on the packaging of their products.
Banning words like "beef" and "meat" from the packaging sounds like something that would actually engender confusion among consumers, by effectively banning phrases like "meat free" from the packaging.
This whole effort reads to me as a rather blatant example of rent seeking behavior on the part of an incumbent industry in response to new entrants to the market.
This doesn't make any sense at all. Every one has different reasons for wanting most products. It's this nuance that is at the foundation of the entire field of marketing, and finding appeal for any product in the marketplace.
There are products that are extremely niche that serve very specific purposes that are considered very successful, and there are products that serve very broad appeal across a wide subsection of the population that by all metrics would be considered "failed" (e.g. loss leaders).
The mere fact that you can walk into most restaurants or grocery stores and see an explosion of plant-based alternatives, and that the meat industry itself has been one of the main investors in this space should provide all of the evidence that is contrary to the point you're making.
This article is, quite frankly, an author in search of a specific narrative.
I like the sentiment, but I'm an unrepentant "animal flesh once a day" on most days kinda guy, and various health markers all point to that working well for me.
The real issue to me is the branding: too many people think that just because a fancy label touts locally sourced organic whatnot that the product is automatically healthier than store-branded simple foods.
The issue is that the business strategy for all these companies was to convert meat eaters into plant eaters which is never going to happen in the long run. Sure sales surged in the beginning cause it was the "new thing" and everyone wanted to try them if nothing else, as a comparison. Like ever other gimmick though, once the surge ends the company has no idea what to do next.
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