Its Over


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 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.

>>21526058 (OP)
Excellent

People can't even afford real meat in this economy, and fake meat costs even more.

People who are avoiding meat for whatever reason, will just buy canned beans. Not artificially meat flavored bean paste with lab grown plant hemoglobin

It's expensive and doesn't actually taste of meat. LightLife was the only fake burger that actually tasted like a real one and it was discontinued for some fucking reason.
Then, in their infinite wisdom, LightLife released fake beef crumbles and they taste like ass.
These companies don't know what the fuck they're doing. They think they've achieved Veblen good status but haven't built up the reputation for it.
>>21526064
>fake meat costs even more
To their credit, both the burgers and the crumbles from LightLife were/are cheaper than next when on sale and only barely more expensive when not. The crumbles, for example, were on sale recently for $2.49 and they come in 12oz packages. Shame they taste like shit.

Who would have ever guessed that marketing a product that simulates a product toward people who are disgusted by the thought of the original would fail

Another USAID company goes bankrupt, crazy. Please do not notice this.

Q predicted this

>it's not a defensible business. Once Beyond Meat BYND created the category, it was inevitable that the product would become commoditized.
I don’t understand what this means, can you please explain it in terms a simple man can understand?

>>21526058 (OP)

What went wrong?

>>21526247
Same as with any ersatz product.
You may with food technology fool the taste - but not the body.
Sooner or later it notices "Waaaiiitaminute.. That does NOT have the effects of meat", and then it demands the real thing again. Same thing happened with all those vegan restaurants and products. There is usually a rush phase when it's still new. Then the bodies start noticing and soon the market breaks away.

>>21526247
Overpricing and fierce competition that's selling cheaper.

>>21526148
Beyond Meat was a pioneer in establishing the category
That just paved the way for Tyson and Kraft and similar megacompanies to copy them and undercut their price with their scale, and in a limited market for this niche a product an indie producer cannot survive

>>21526316
So why innovate spend all the money etc… if a big player will just swoop in and undercut.

>>21526316
>for Tyson and Kraft and similar megacompanies to copy them
Why would they bother when they can produce real food instead?

>>21526333
mostly triumph of naive hope over experience

>>21526334
vegans don't want real food, they want virtue signalling.

>>21526333
What anyone else could have done was sell it at the peak to one of them and make off with cash, they did not. Must be a reason they held on
>>21526334
Because it is a new market for them, they are the direct audience that would not eat their regular products for being vegetarians so it is attracting opposite audience no matter how small

>>21526333
Soak up investor money, cash out at IPO and earn a handsome salary the entire time. It doesn't matter if the product sells well or even exists

Have no fear my friend, they're making butter out of petrolium waste products now
https://x.com/pnwguerrilla/status/1954383716610117828?s=46&t=qJFRVw--rXXzPeQKanen8w

It literally never made money, it was propped up by california tech investors.

>>21526371
Lmao, bet you also saw the SLOP tank.

>>21526136
I don't think that's what it is. A lot of vegans/vegetarians say they would eat meat if it didn't involve killing. They aren't repulsed by the meat itself but what has to be done to get it. So if you had meat without killing, there shouldn't be an issue.

It just tastes like shit. If you make a burger and add a bunch of ingredients so you don't taste it as much, it's fine once in a while. But if you keep eating it or taste it by itself, it starts to taste like yeast extract and a multivitamin and that's pretty unpleasant. And it's pretty expensive for something to taste not that great. I would rather just eat beans which actually taste good.

>>21526316
So you are saying the product still exists, but the company is facing collapse?
Shouldn't you be posting this on /biz/ and not /ck/?