Meat Yes, Nah Animal palpitation plummets: Data, Psychology & Market
Apart from whip hand in health issues and climatic change, Beyond meat, brand of plant based or vagen ingredients but cook and taste like meat; Taking a nose dive. In this blog, i will perform data analysis on its original impetus with various aspect like environment , psychology and others
2.5 billion was Beyond Meat’s market cap the day the company went public.14.1 billion was the company's market cap three months later. Today, Beyond Meat is worth 2 billion dollars, holding its lowest valuation since going public and a 90% loss since its apex. Beyond Meat had a deal with McDonald’s, to offer a plant-based burger at certain stores called the “McPlant”, but McDonald’s just ended the deal.
Numerous governmental and scientific reports delineate the consequences of flash meat in terms of health, environment, or humanitarian reasons. A recent journal from the guardian connotes that Meat accounts for nearly 60 % of all greenhouse gases from food production and the global production of food are responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods and easily explained by the graph below.
Additionally, The report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that, for each dollar, investment in improving and scaling up the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in three times more greenhouse gas reductions compared with investment in green cement technology, seven times more than green buildings and 11 times more than zero-emission cars
However, when we inclined our necks toward the psychological background, the overall situation would get reversed, a plethora of highly cited systematic research reports illuminate, and Psychlogists Dobersek U, Wy G, Adkins J, et.al, demonstrated in his recent study representing 160,257 participants (85,843 females and 73,232 males) with 149,559 meat-consumers and 8584 meat-abstainers (11 to 96 years) from multiple geographic regions, outlined as Meat and mental health: a systematic review of meat abstention and depression, anxiety, and related phenomena, that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. There was mixed evidence for temporal relations, but study designs and a lack of rigor precluded inferences of causal relations. The study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health.
After looking with a cursory glance at the whole, two questions come from this.
- Why did Beyond Meat flop?
- Is plant-based meat a fad?
For one thing, the deterioration of Beyond Meat. Figuring that out, it’s just searching a list of vegan brands. From a quick search, the biggest sellers are the following. Impossible Foods Beyond Meat Tofurkey Gardein Morningstar Farms Lightlife Boca Burger Garden Burger All currently selling some form of plant-based burgers, with the biggest company involved being Kellogg’s, which owns Morningstar Farms. Kellogg’s bought MorningStar in 1999 for 307 million dollars, when they catered more to the veggie burger market, versus plant-based meats, which are meat imitations, that they sell today.
This brings up an issue, which is valuation. Kellogg is currently valued at 24 billion dollars. In 2019, it was about 18 billion dollars, meaning it was only 30% more valuable than Beyond Meat during its peak. Kellogg had 13.6 billion in revenue and 900 million in profit, during 2019. Beyond Meat in 2019 made 298 million dollars, with a 12 million dollar loss. Kellogg made 3x in profit what Beyond Meat made in revenue, but the two had similar valuations. This is why Beyond Meat stock flopped. It was hyped as a tech stock but doesn’t have large margins and there’s nothing very unique that Impossible Foods or others aren’t doing. There are also more investments than ever, where it was reported that 7 billion dollars in the last twelve months in VC investments have gone into tech for lab-grown.
Beyond Meat just doesn’t have enough going on and larger companies are outselling them with similar effects. That’s the fall of Beyond Meat, but the next question is the impact this has on plant-based meat as a whole. Checked the numbers, which show mixed signs. 39% of adults want to reduce meat consumption. 40% don’t believe in plant-based meats as a good alternative. Also, the growth in the sector was 80% less in 2021, versus 2020 or 2019.
Despite that, plant-based meats only being 2.7% of the US market for meat products, which would mean growth can happen. Even companies like Beyond Meat have issues, where growth is stagnating. 2019–298 million 2020–407 million A 36.5% growth 2021, revenue was 465 million, for a 14% growth. 2022, will likely see growth fall by even more. The good news is that plant-based milk, yogurts, cheese, and eggs are growing much faster, but the meats aren’t seeing growth levels the industry wanted. So, was it a fad? I don’t think so. The market clearly showed interest, where when Burger King introduced a plant-based burger, it was the highest-selling new item in years. There’s a clear market interest, but two problems.
Problem A — Mediocre products Impossible and Beyond Meat have redone their burgers several times, trying to improve a recipe that they know for most consumers don’t stand up to meats. Also, looking at the labels, the sodium content is so high, that it doesn’t really please the crowd of people looking to leave meat.
Problem B — Fast food probably isn’t the best starting place. When the Impossible Whopper launched at Burger King, vegans tried suing Burger King after learning most Burger King’s were cooking them on the same stove meat touched and meat grease was still on. Fast food places tend to not have a customer base that wants this product or a staff/franchise ecosystem that understands vegan food. Final thoughts McDonald’s discontinued the McPlant, but likely due to them being years behind Burger King, Dunkin, and KFC, which all did similar products. There was no novelty in it for them and anything sold, would just be a hundred-million-dollar marketing campaign for them. There’s still a huge market here, but better products need to happen.
