Vegan Steak From Beyond Meat Is Coming This Year

Whole-cut vegan steak will soon be available from California-based startup Beyond Meat. At The Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum, Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said, “It’s probably one of our best products to date.”  It is anticipated that this year will see the release of the new Beyond Meat vegan steak in sliced form.

While Beyond Meat is best known for its plant-based Beyond Burger, a substitute for ground beef, its new product will introduce the company into a new category of whole-cut meat, furthering its goal of upending the $1.4 trillion global meat industry with plant-based substitutes that are better for people’s health, the welfare of animals, and the environment.

The Global Market of Beyond Meat

Beyond Meat is sticking to its objective of rendering animal-based meat obsolete with new inventions, like its upcoming vegan steak, despite a rocky year for its stock values. With its similar Beyond Burger, Beyond Sausage, and new Beyond Chicken Tenders, Brown’s Beyond Meat brand has already changed plant-based beef, hog, and chicken.

The brand has a wide range of significant collaborations under its belt in the foodservice industry of Beyond Meat’s company. Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC are just a few of the fast-food company’s assets where it has been collaborating with Yum! Brands to provide plant-based options. Additionally, in 2021, fast-food tycoon McDonald’s and Beyond Beef agreed into a three-year global strategic agreement that has so far led to the restricted release of the McPlant, McDonald’s first plant-based meat burger. Despite the fact that this burger is still in the testing stage, Beyond Meat will continue to assist McDonald’s in developing its McPlant platform, which can include a variety of regional launches around the world like breakfast items and plant-based poultry.

The consumer goods portion of Beyond Meat’s business is also growing. In order to develop new goods that will take use of Pepsi’s huge marketing and production networks while Pepsi can profit from the expansion of the plant-based industry, the vegan company partnered with PepsiCo in 2021 to form Planet Partnership. Beyond Jerky, the first product under this collaboration, was made available in March by Beyond Meat and Pepsi. The brand has never before entered the snack category. After putting its Beyond Jerky on store shelves across the country, the company is now looking into sliced vegan steak as the next step in developing a multi-billion dollar plant protein market that may seriously disrupt animal agriculture with more ethical, sustainable goods.

$40 Billion Vegan Meat Company

Brown was questioned about if the “bubble” around plant-based meat has burst or if the category is losing steam during the WSJ event. “The reasons to do what we’re doing and the reason for the consumer to engage with what we’re doing strengthens every day… There’s the pandemic. There’s recession. There’s gas prices. There’s all this noise out there, but what continues to strengthen is the need to do what we’re doing… We’re getting better at that every year and with reason to do it in terms of climate, human health, the overall environment (land, energy, and water), and animal welfare… all those reasons continue to be present and increase in importance,” Brown said.

He said during the event that huge incumbents, like the global beef industry, are not often disrupted linearly and that he anticipates experiencing numerous downturns while maintaining focus on the objective as a whole. “You’re going to have disturbances and you’re going to have distractions as you build a new category… You go for a long run. You take a plateau. You go for another long run and then all of a sudden it’s mainstream… That’s what’s happening in [the plant-based] sector,” Brown said, explaining that similar trajectories have happened when technologies such as solar power or lithium ion batteries first emerged. 

Brown frequently uses the example of landlines being replaced by cell phones to frame what he believes will occur in the food industry, with new technologies (plant-based meat) displacing outmoded designs (animal agriculture). “What I see is an increasing global opportunity into a $1.4 trillion market… All of these things are about building the next global protein company. And my vision for this is a $40 billion company not a $4 billion company. So I don’t think in quarterly terms. I don’t think in annual terms. I think in a longer term perspective we will deliver on this. I am absolutely certain of that,” Brown said in regards to Beyond Meat’s major partnerships.

Source: “BEYOND MEAT CEO ETHAN BROWN SAYS VEGAN STEAK IS COMING THIS YEAR” by VegNews

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