Beyond Meat Sales Plummet, Shoppers Shift to Cheaper Options

Facts

• Sales at vegan food firm Beyond Meat have plunged by almost a third in recent months, amid a significant rise in living expenses for consumers.¹
• The company, which produces plant-based meat substitutes, has stated that net revenues fell by 30.5% in Q2 compared to 12 months prior. Shares of the company have fallen by almost 12% in extended trading.²
• The drop in demand comes as consumers seek to cut back on spending by switching to cheaper grocery alternatives. Vegan burgers are often significantly more expensive than other proteins, with a study by Which? last year finding that plant-based sausages were nearly twice the price of animal meat.³
• Executives at the company have attributed the falling sales to a "softer demand” in the plant-based meat category as well as high inflation, rising interest rates, ongoing concerns about the likelihood of a recession, and an increased scrutiny of the health benefits of vegan products.²
• Beyond Meat sold 22.9 million pounds of products in Q2, a decrease of nearly a quarter year-over-year. CFO Lubi Kutua has said the company has experienced a "relative underperformance" of its core products — burgers, ground beef, and sausages — so far in 2023.⁴
• Similar trends have also recently seen vegan food company Meatless Farm make staff redundant and halt trading, with the producer claiming the market for alternative meats has become too crowded. Sausage producer Heck has also reduced its vegan range citing a lack of demand.¹

Sources: ¹Currently, ²BBC News, ³MSN, and ⁴Business Insider.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The New York Times. Until global leaders begin taking real action to address the climate crisis, reducing the amount of meat our diets is the biggest single thing we can do as individuals to save the planet. Rearing livestock and poultry is resource and land intensive, while buying plant-based protein alternatives is better for the earth and demonstrates consumer demand for environmentally conscious products. Though not perfect, plant-based options are an improvement on animal protein.
• Narrative B, as provided by The Washington Post. The hype of plant-based food clearly got ahead of the reality. Apart from not delivering on taste, those brands which best imitate meat are often ultra-processed and high in sodium. At a time when living costs are rising internationally, the level of financial and sensory sacrifice that must be made to keep the alternative-meat market alive in its current form doesn't appear justified. This latest decline in sales does not mean people don't care about the environment, but they might be starting to see through the necessity for expensive and less tasty alternatives to animal meat.

Predictions