Beyond Meat: How the Plant-Based Pioneer Became a Stock Market Loser | WSJ What Went Wrong

Beyond Meat’s shrinking sausage problem is such a hilarious metaphor for the public waning interest in their offerings

This picture of the modern CEO, the guy that lives on another planet and knows nothing about business management but knows how to pull money from investors its becoming very common in real life and its destroying a lot of good ideas.

Price. That’s the problem. We’re talking about smooshing beans and binding them together. There’s no reason why veggie burgers should be more expensive than animal flesh. These new plant-based meat companies are trying to spin their food as revolutionary when it’s not. It’s simple food. Price it that way. They could offer customers massive saving on their grocery bill at a time when a lot of people can barely afford animal meat, but instead they’re insisting upon selling 8oz packs of veggie patties at 30% more than a 16 oz pack of ground beef. And why are there no bulk options? This is hurting the animal rights and vegan movement in general and feeding into the false narrative that veganism is for rich snobs when it really shouldn’t be.

I feel like a big part is that Beyond products are not worth the price. There are a ton of much cheaper meat alternatives that taste the same or better, e.g. Tescos own brand Plant Cheff and Meatless Farm are both nicer in my opinion, and far cheaper.

Everything I have purchased from Impossible Foods is just so much better, and Beyond Meat is usually far too expensive to compete.

I enjoy it but it is much too expensive. You have to address that.

Have a good product and it will do well. Hype doesn’t last long.

I think it comes down to the product. The stock has fallen because the product's not that good. I think a lot of people tried it once like myself and never tried it again.

Veggie burger options were terrible when I stopped eating meat in 2007. You had nut or lentil burgers that didn't hold their shape and tasted nothing like meat burgers, and some restaurants served up large flat falafels. Seitan/wheat based burgers became a thing a few years later, but those, while tasty, aren't ideal for everybody. When Impossible and Beyond launched their burgers they were miles ahead of everything else and people - including myself - would pay the premium to get them. I personally, transported two frozen boxes of Beyond burgers from England to France with me on my summer vacation because they were so difficult to get hold of. Now though, just about every supermarket chain has their own version that is similar for half the price. Even in rural France, where I can't buy vegan cheese, decent plant-based burgers are easy to find. Not to mention the plethora of independent brands that have sprung up. Given the current state of inflation, it's not surprising consumers are chosing the cheaper options. The Beyond burgers are great, possibly my favourite, but they not twice as good as the ones that are half the price - only 10 to 20% better at most.

They should have concentrated on the items that made them famous for! Stop trying to flood the market with items that haven’t been thoroughly researched or planned. That’s just bad business practices.

I think a lot of people are like me, bought the Beyond Burger based on the hype and then discovered it was awful. Maybe the stock price rose based on the assumption that it was more than a novelty.

Just like many other meme stocks, Beyond was everywhere. Reality kicks in and the real value of the stocks and company start showing.

Slow and steady is the best way to grow. Introduce the product through partnerships and through restaurants before trying to go all out. Focus on a few key products that do well, build and improve on those before offering too many side products.

The video didn’t mention the collaboration with McD on its McPlant, this drove the stock price up. Later in Aug 2022, McD mentioned that they aren’t rolling out McPlant since demand wasn’t strong enough.

I always remember what a consumer said when interviewed: But does it taste good? Unless it tastes so good the consumer can overlook the health issues (highly processed food), I'm not sure this has the reach they are expecting.

I'm from Europe. The price of Beyond products in my area is around 1.5-2 times larger than other vegetarian brand options. Even if I liked Beyond products a lot, they are too expensive.

The price is what went wrong -the plant-based meat costs the same amount as real meat; the company tells you exactly how much resources are saved by their product, but then they sell their product for the same amount as meat - when you sell plant-based meat at the same price as real meat -your capitalizing off of all the resources that you didn't even use -which means they're saying screw the people, screw the investors, and then they milk the profits from the non used resources......that they are still charging you for............. they should be making their plant-based Burgers cheaper and more available to the public ,but instead they're still selling you the resources that aren't even being used. They are slitting the throats of all the people who actually care.....its called greed

I always say: Don't 'bite' more than you can 'chew' Especially true when growing a business. Precision is key.

Interesting video! I think the competitors issue is pretty massive. It’s not just Impossible, there are tons of options in the grocery store now.

I can tell you as an early investor... i used to eat beyond brats, they were brown, they tasted fantastic, and had the texture of ground meat... about 2 months in i happened to notice their recepie changed and was awful, its purple color, the flavor was cat food, and the texture was wavy like intestine or paper... i dont know why they changed the recipie, if it was cost or safty, but that killed demand, i noticed no one was buying the packs in grocery stores anymore, and i sold my stocks