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posted by martyb on Thursday May 09 2019, @03:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the grilling-investment-decisions dept.

After exiting Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods will launch meatless products this summer

After exiting Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods said that it will roll out its own plant-based meat substitutes beginning this summer.

The Jimmy Dean owner sold its stake in Beyond before the company went public, citing its desire to produce vegetarian meat substitutes under its own umbrella of brands. CEO Noel White told analysts on the quarterly conference call Monday that the plant-based product will launch this summer on a limited basis, with a wider rollout in October and November.

[...] Beyond made the strongest market debut so far this year on Thursday, surging 163%. The stock has a market value of $3.97 billion, dwarfed by Tyson's own market value of $22.66 billion. Tyson shares gained more than 2% Monday.

Despite the difference in market value, Beyond and other makers of plant-based meat alternatives — such as Impossible Foods — pose a threat to Tyson. Beyond Meat's CEO, Ethan Brown, told CNBC that the company is trying to capture the meat industry's customers. Its gluten- and soy-free products are meant to more closely resemble and taste like meat than previous iterations of veggie burgers.

Also at CNN.

See also: Beyond Meat goes public with a bang: 5 things to know about the plant-based meat maker
Competitors Sink Their Teeth Into The Meatless-Meat Industry


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  • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday May 09 2019, @07:10PM (3 children)

    by Alfred (4006) on Thursday May 09 2019, @07:10PM (#841487) Journal
    I respect your position because you are not an ass about it. I like to eat plants also and I appreciate that you will let me eat meat with them in peace.

    You are right on about developments for space travel and having products that have a status/signal attached to them. Seeing how they couldn't get the biosphere 2 thing to work out right I don't want to be on a spaceship unless there have been significant strides in food quality and production.
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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 09 2019, @08:21PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday May 09 2019, @08:21PM (#841517) Journal

    I haven't ditched meat. I just had some today. But I am pretty sure that I could go weeks, months, or years without it, and that is what I will shoot for at some point down the road. One way to look at it is: if shit hit the fan and you had to become a subsistence farmer (maybe with some robot assistance), would it be more efficient to raise livestock or grow plants for meat substitutes? There's also an animal suffering argument that is compelling for some people, although we can only care about that so much (it's a first world problem).

    We are entering a golden age of meatless products. Early versions like Boca and Morningstar were tolerable or kinda bad, rubbery nonsense. The marketing was very premature, laughably portraying people fooled into eating meatless products, when the actual difference was obvious. Just like nobody would mistake turkey bacon for the real thing. But in the last decade or so there was a lot of engineering as Silicon Valley types started pursuing the ideas further and throwing money at it (you've got Bill Gates investing in egg substitutes [npr.org], for example), and that has resulted in a new generation of meat substitutes that can credibly replace actual meat [pri.org]. To the extent that eating it would probably disgust some vegans/vegetarians as they are not used to it. Check out the photo [pri.org] in the article, showing a technician pouring heme. Lol.

    There is probably some unnecessary tension between meat eaters and vegetarians/vegans because of activism [youtube.com], PETA, and meat eaters having bad experiences with overhyped beta-version meat substitutes. But now people are getting curious again and finding that Impossible Burger tastes like meat. Dressing it up also helps disguise it. Apparently, I tried someone's leftover Impossible Burger from Cheesecake Factory two days ago. It was good, but I'll have to try it fresh sometime.

    Lab-grown meat is a whole different story. With lab-grown meat, there is the potential to precisely replicate traditional meat, create novelty cuts of meat (rearrange meat, fat, and bone cells in new ways), with no ambiguity (other than industry FUD) that the substance *is* meat. It obviously isn't ready for the prime time, and if it was we would probably have similar stuff like 3D printed organs and bones in widespread use, when we clearly don't. But it's probably coming, and we could eventually see a situation where the market says you can't have anything but lab-grown meat unless you make a special order to a small farm or go to a fancy restaurant. Meat substitutes and meat can co-exist, meat substitutes and lab-grown meat can co-exist, but will all three co-exist after a few decades? Not for most people.

    Of course, there is another option. Be like Gaaark and eat mealworms and crickets. Some people are used to this and even enjoy it, others see it as a slap in the face or a globalist plot (refer to Snowpiercer for more... details). We'll see if space travelers and Martians are forced to eat bugs.

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    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 09 2019, @11:35PM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 09 2019, @11:35PM (#841604) Journal

      We are entering a golden age of meatless products

      Oh, you mean that shiny yellowish luster? That's fools gold

      (grin)

      Seriously though, the Chinese developed their cooking so that will eat things well beyond what the Westernized world would (i.e. they could adjust to a lack of meat in their food easier than the westerners). And I don't see them giving up meat as yet, on the contrary.
      What this says about the "golden age of meatless products " is left as a homework.

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      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @12:02AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 10 2019, @12:02AM (#841615) Journal

        I say golden age because there are more choices, more investments, consumers spending more money on it, better taste, etc. More fast food places carrying these is also a very interesting trend, with a lot of action in just the last few months.

        https://vegnews.com/2016/2/meatless-meat-market-will-reach-52-billion-by-2020 [vegnews.com]

        A new report from Allied Market Research predicts that the meat alternatives market will reach $5.2 billion by 2020. The research profiled meatless meat producers such as Amy’s Kitchen, Beyond Meat, Garden Protein International, Inc. (Gardein), Quorn, and Morningstar Farms to reveal that meat alternatives—such as tofu and soy products but increasingly vegetable-based proteins—are slated to experience a compound annual growth of 8.4 percent overall. According to the report, “increasing health awareness coupled with increasing consciousness towards environmental sustainability and animal welfare have been the major factors driving the growth of meat substitute market.” The report also revealed that while Europe and North America are the largest consumers of meat alternatives, Asia-Pacific is the largest-growing market.

        https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/business/mcdonalds-meatless-burger-germany/index.html [cnn.com]

        McDonald's is inching closer to getting fully on board the meatless burger bandwagon with a new version in one of its biggest international markets.

        The burger chain is now selling a vegan burger, the Big Vegan TS, in Germany, one of its five leading international markets. Nestle is making the meatless patty for McDonald's, which first started selling the burger late last month.

        The plant-based protein trend is growing rapidly as consumers look for ways to eat healthier and reduce their environmental footprints. Unlike veggie burgers, which long had a mediocre reputation, the new proteins are designed to look and taste like meat and to appeal to meat eaters as well as vegans and vegetarians.

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