[biztos]

> just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat

Does that actually describe a commercially relevant segment of the population?

Intuitively, having known a lot of vegetarians, I'd expect the people whose primary concern is animal cruelty to be specifically turned off by realistic fake meat.

[jfengel]

If you ask a bunch of meat eaters how they feel about animal cruelty, they'll get uncomfortable. Many will admit that they would like to avoid it but don't think it's practical. Look in particular at the kind who seek out organic, free range, and other (honestly, not very effective) ways to reduce suffering.

I suspect the market research turned up a large contingent of such. Perhaps not sufficient to justify a whole separate product line, but enough to hope that economies of scale would reduce price and create a virtuous cycle.

So I'm sure it seemed worth a shot. I'm sorry but not surprised that it didn't work.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Count me as a conflicted meat eater. It is terrible, but…delicious. I would be willing to switch to Impossible Foods (much better than Beyond Meat) for most of my hamburger consumption. Yet the price is such a premium that it is hard to justify. Yes, there are scaling problems, meat subsidies, etc which are hard challenges to overcome, but not surprising to me that most consumers are unwilling to switch to a novel product that is more expensive.

[Digit-Al]

I'm a meat eater, but don't eat much red meat as I have mild arthritis and too much red meat causes me to get flare ups. I tried one of those burgers a few years ago (can't remember if it was Beyond or Impossible now) and didn't like it. The taste and texture had a bit of an uncanny valley vibe as they were sort of almost there, but not quite the same. The taste was a bit odd and then I was left with a pea protein after-taste for hours, which was not pleasant at all.

[chickensong]

> honestly, not very effective

Care to elaborate?

[jfengel]

Unfortunately, the legal definitions are the result of regulatory capture. Commercial organic farming has effectively nothing in common with JI Rodale's use when he coined it. (Well, popularized it.)

If you want to know how the animals are treated you need to visit the farm. Which you cannot do for commercial organic farms.

If you can, you could satisfy yourself that the animals are being treated in accordance with your conscience. Unfortunately it will cost at least twice as much. (And, aggravatingly, possibly emits more greenhouse gases.)

[HWR_14]

Beyond Meat isn't designed to appeal to vegetarians. It's designed to appeal to people who would be vegetarians but aren't because they like meat.

[Tepix]

That’s inaccurate (source: vegatarian)

[HWR_14]

I'm happy you enjoy the product, and hopefully you find it to be tasty and healthy. Certainly vegetarians can enjoy it! But the original goal of Beyond Meat was to move people away from eating animals.

Beyond Meats original mission statement starts: "By switching from animal to plant-based protein sources, Beyond Meat..."

[joseda-hg]

I'm not vegetarian, but I have a family member that is

He never disliked the taste, on the opposite, he enjoyed, but didn't stand by the means neccessary to put it in his plate

So eventually he stopped eating it, but having always been a curious eater, he's always missed a taste similar to meat

As far as he's told me Burguers and some kinds of Chorizo are passable enough, but still, depends on presentation and it's been so long I don't know if his comparissons are still good

[exe34]

That's me. The first time I had a seitan dish at a chinese restaurant, I was certain they had given me chicken and asked them to check. The poor guy went and dug the empty tin out of the bin to show me.

[bluebarbet]

Amusing. Seitan (which is - also amusingly IMO - just pure wheat gluten) is functionally identical in texture to reconstituted meat.

[j7ake]

Chinese Buddhist cuisine is essentially the art of tasting exactly like meat without the meat.

[anon84873628]

Well, that's why that thesis seems to have failed. There has not been a huge cultural sea change driving meat eaters towards the products.

[kuschku]

Has it failed?

I've been vegetarian since January 2011. Back then at restaurants I had to eat side dishes or go hungry, and while I spent months searching I couldn't find any kind of imitation meat that didn't make me wanna puke. But with the modern imitation meat, be it Beyond Meat, Moving Mountains, Nestlé's Garden Gourmet or Rügenwalder, that's not the case anymore.

Food is also a part of the culture, and German culture traditionally contains a lot of meat. Which may be why here in Germany, these products are hugely successful. Rügenwalder (which is a conventional meat factory) is now selling more imitation meat products than actual meat. Recently they even phased out their meat currywurst because the vegan currywurst was selling so much better.

While often times you can just remove meat from the recipe (e.g., Bratkartoffeln uses Speck just as seasoning, so you can replace it with a bit of soy sauce and MSG) or replace it with a simple alternative (e.g., Falafel-Döner), that doesn't work all the time. Sometimes imitation meat (whether store-bought methylcellulose based, or DIY marinated soy or seitan) is the best option.

Even though I had disliked imitation meat for over a decade, nowadays even I'll enjoy veggie currywurst.

[anon84873628]

I don't think anyone disagrees that 1) vegan/vegetarianism is growing, 2) vegans/vegetarians are being served better than ever, 3) Beyond Meat and similar products will be part of the constellation of choices.

The rest of the thread is full of people saying why vegetarians will mostly keep eating regular vegetarian food and meat eaters will mostly keep eating regular meat. And indeed what we haven't seen is the mass one-for-one substitution by meat eaters that Beyond seems to have bet the firm on. That's not to say the whole category will fail.

I don't live in Germany so haven't had the pleasure of trying the brand you mentioned. It sounds like they found better PMF than Beyond with a more sustainable, incremental growth model. It also sounds like they might not be trying the same one-for-one raw ingredient strategy. Curryworst and packaged meals are already a value-added, prepared product with unique flavor profile that seems more amenable to substitution.

Tangentially, I think Beyond does deserve some credit for taking the first mover risk and bringing the topic into the limelight, where other brands can now benefit from the consumer awareness.

[kuschku]

> It sounds like they found better PMF than Beyond with a more sustainable, incremental growth model.

Indeed, and I believe the flaw is that food products are a low-margin, zero-sum market with no potential for moats and limited growth opportunities.

It never made sense to start a typical VC funded startup in this space.

But it certainly makes sense for a food manufacturer to expand into the vegan market, increasing their market share and improving their margins.

> It also sounds like they might not be trying the same one-for-one raw ingredient strategy. Curryworst and packaged meals are already a value-added, prepared product with unique flavor profile that seems more amenable to substitution.

Ah, maybe that wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about prepared, pre-packaged meals. Just the same like for like replacement products beyond meat products.

e.g., 250g veggie minced meat: https://www.ruegenwalder.de/de/produkte/vegane-produkte/vega...

[IAmBroom]

Every single vegetarian I have known admits they miss meat to some degree, especially bacon.

[razakel]

I spent a year vegan just to see if I could. What I really missed was cheese.