Beyond Meat is a Los Angeles-based producer of plant-based meat substitutes founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. The company’s products became available across the United States in 2013. In May 2016, it released the first plant-based burger to be sold in the meat section of grocery stores, on an international basis. The company has products designed to replace chicken meat, beef, and pork sausage.
The aim of the company is to create plant-based meat to remove the animal from the protein production chain simultaneously and powerfully address four major problems attributable to livestock:
- Improve human health by reducing cancer and heart disease risk
- Positively impact climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions driven by livestock rearing and processing (51% of global greenhouse gases come from animals)
- Address global resource constraints by reducing the surface area for livestock
- Improve animal welfare by avoiding the slaughter of animals
Beyond Meat, by shifting from animal to plant-based meat, tackles four growing issues attributed to livestock production: human health, climate change, constraints on natural resources and animal welfare1. Since meat production has a very relevant effect on climate change, Beyond Meat is actually a solution aiming to offset this climate change effect. Somehow, Beyond Meat is benefiting from the increasing awareness from customers that are willing to tackle climate change and who modify their meat consumption behavior accordingly.
Thus, rather than the climate change having a specific effect on the business model of Beyond Meat, the company has adapted the business model to tackle climate change effect. When moving from animal to plant-based meat, the business model radically changes in some of the steps of the value chain, especially in the meat manufacturing process.
The vegan meat substitutes are made from mixtures of pea protein isolates, coconut oil, and other ingredients2. The ingredients are mixed and fed into a food extrusion machine that cooks the mixture while forcing it through a specially designed mechanism that uses steam, pressure, and cold water to form the product’s chicken-like texture3. This process, compared to the one required to produce animal meat, utilizes 99% less water, 93% less land, 90% fewer greenhouse gas emission and 46% less energy1.
Beyond meat tackles a very important point to climate breakdown, the consumption of meat and consequently greenhouse effects by shifting the demand from meat to plants, raising awareness among costumers that the actual consumption rate is no longer sustainable nor viable to planet Earth. By increasing the conscience of their customers, they are able to capture a new demand of people that cares about the world environment and take actions towards it.
The company is also leveraging the climate change importance by redefining what is protein and its definition. By affirming “Who says protein needs to come from Animals?” they actually swap costumers perception towards eating healthy protein fake-burgers/fake-chicken without being concerned by the lack of proteins on a diet.
In terms of the production, Beyond Meat takes several actions to be more efficient and productive when manufacturing their food. They utilize far less vital components to climate change such as water and land, ultimately reducing their greenhouse gas emission. Not only that, but also their energy costs are significantly less when compared to the traditional meat producer.
Although Beyond Meat claims their products are less harmful to the planet, some questions have been raised in terms of their sustainability. The health consequences of eating since most ingredients are highly processed and chemically treated. Also, in terms of nutritional facts, some plant-based meat products have more saturated fats and sodium than grass-fed beef.
These critiques are not stopping the company of going beyond and expanding to other types of meat, like pork and chicken even though they have a much smaller environmental footprint than beef.
In terms of operations, the company should start thinking of ways to help the traditional meat industry to transform into this new business model. This way the impact on the meat business working population would be reduced and the utilized land transformed.
Beyond Meat has found a way to provide a solution for growing dietary trends and at the same time leverage the global climate change situation. It’s innovative ideas like this one that changes consumer habits and eventually helps us reduce our footprint on the planet.
Mateo Kossmann, Mikel Narbaiza, Michael Riga, Adriel Soares Santos
References:
- https://www.beyondmeat.com/
- Stephanie Strom (April 2, 2014). “Fake Meats, Finally, Taste Like Chicken”. New York Times. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
- Alton Brown (Sep 2013). “Tastes Like Chicken”. Wired. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
- Associated Press (May 2019). “Meatsplainer: How new plant-based burgers compare to beef”. NBC News
Interesting and definitely a trendy area
Very interesting post! I would be curious to see if “clean meat” that is grown in a lab will be as readily adopted by customers in the future as these plant-based meat substitutes that both Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are selling, since this would be able to reduce environmental impact even further, on both the livestock and agriculture resource fronts.
If it really tastes like meat, this would be amazing. I heard about similar ideas with using insects, but I guess that sounds a bit more off-putting…
Either way, I think meat substitutes are difficult to market to true meat lovers, but may be able to convince the regular/occasional meat consumer who doesn’t self-identify so strongly with the meat lover image