Beyond Veggie
Impossible, you say, beyond belief. Yet to watch the shares of Beyond Meat, the maker of vegan meat alternatives, soar again yesterday it would appear that an expanding market just may exist for traditional meat eaters looking to cut back a bit and explore a few carnivorous alternatives. Said a piece in Bloomberg: As of the close, the market cap of Beyond Meat is nearly $4.5 billion. Meanwhile revenue for all of 2018 was less than $90 million. Obviously the market is thinking purely in terms of TAM (total addressable market) figuring that if Beyond Meat can capture even a tiny slice of the overall market for meat, then it will justify these valuations. The company's S-1 filing pegs the global meat industry at $1.4 trillion. Of course, they're not going to have the space all to themselves. They already have rivals, including the Impossible Burger (which many people seem to prefer on taste grounds) and incumbents looking to get in. As Bloomberg's Lydia Mulvany, Leslie Patten and Deena Shanker report, there's a slew of established food players who already have plans to enter the space, or are likely to do so. Tyson Foods, for one, said yesterday it will introduce a meatless protein in the coming months. Companies like Kraft, Kellogg, and Conagra are also likely to jump in, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. This corporate behavior underscores how the stock market can be a driver of real activity. Legacy companies see high valuations in the alt-protein space, and naturally they want to have something to show investors and analysts. It's easy to imagine them spinning off these units eventually if they get any traction. It all feels a little bit like the blockchain mania of 2017, but there's a difference: that was mostly about press releases, with nothing real to show for it. Here the business model is straightforward: Make a product, market it, and hopefully sell it for more than it cost to make. There's clearly a lot of demand, and the piles of money that Beyond Meat has made in the market will induce a lot more action.
What?? What's the fuss you might say? Haven't all sorts of veggie and vegan products already made it off the shelves of specialty health food stores and onto the shelves of our everyday grocers, even Costco for goodness sakes (black bean burgers come to mind). But it would appear that these new entries are exploring new avenues, one being "heme" and the other being that product now visible in all of your high-end grain-free pet food products...peas. So many peas in fact, that Barron's had to ask can farmers produce enough of them should these products catch on (and all brought to you by the same marketers that brought pomegranates out of the shadows): The U.S. grows about a million metric tons of peas annually. That works out to about 45 million 60-pound pea bushels. Peas are worth about $10 a bushel, says the Alberta Farmer Express Pulse Weekly. (A “pulse” is a legume, like peas.) That means annual U.S. pea production runs about $450 million, about an eighth of the value of Beyond Meat shares...We’re not saying Beyond Meat will run out of peas—annual output in North America and Europe is value at $5 billion. Besides, if the world wants peas, farmers will grow peas. Moreover, beef doesn’t grow on trees. It takes seven pounds of plants to make a pound of beef. Vegetable protein is more efficient; pea protein runs about 60 cents a pound versus $2 a pound for beef. And there’s always soybeans. All of those peas represents nine billion pounds of protein—or 27 pounds of protein for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. The average American chows down on about 170 pounds of meat annually. That’s a nice upside for Beyond Meat, if it can just persuade folks to abandon beef for a legume.
At Impossible Foods, their isolation of heme --loosely defined by the Oxford dictionary as: ...an iron-containing compound of the porphyrin class which forms the nonprotein part of hemoglobin and some other biological molecules-- has gained them entrance into a world far beyond the grocery shelves. The company's definition of heme is a bit simpler: Heme is what makes meat taste like meat. It’s an essential molecule found in every living plant and animal --most abundantly in animals-- and something we’ve been eating and craving since the dawn of humanity. Here at Impossible Foods, our plant-based heme is made via fermentation of genetically engineered yeast, and safety-verified by America’s top food-safety experts and peer-reviewed academic journals. Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are being served in restaurants and fast food chains such as TGIFridays, Burger King, Carls' Jr., and Red Robin, among others (you can check their websites to see if your location offers their products), which is quite a change from the traditional bean burgers and other veggie patties that would occasionally pop up in such places. Throw in the investors such as Bill Gates (owns shares in both companies) and Tyson Foods (which invested early but has since sold its shares, partially due to the family-controlled company venturing into its own alt-meat creation) and you have these two companies pulling away from the usual lineup of Amy's, Gardein, Boca and Morningstar (which Kellogg's bought out several years ago).
But the bottom line likely comes down to the taste? Here's a comical look by one Barron's reporter, eating an Impossible Burger side-by-side with a Burnin' Love beef burger and writing the column as a study for "carnivestors:" Until now, the pitch to go meatless has been largely guilt-based, and made by the carrot-murdering, but otherwise well-meaning, 3% of Americans who say they’re vegans. The Impossible Burger is good enough to lure new types of eaters: carnivore environmentalists, the vegetable-curious, Tinder daters faking veganism for love. I’m not saying I was sufficiently impressed that, after downing the 910-calorie Burnin’ Love, the beer, and some onion rings, I then circled back to polish off the Impossible. But I’m not not saying that, either...“It has the texture and taste of beef,” said a member of my research squad. But her past calls included marrying me, so believe what you will. “Delicious,” said another. But she’s eight with a suspect palate. The boy, four, wanted no part. I bit in. The patty can indeed pass for meat. The overall sandwich is quite good. The biggest tell is the springy underbun; my Burnin’ Love’s was half-soaked with grease, and I mean that as high praise for the kitchen. In my own opinion, the new offerings are not bad, but then my taste buds haven't knowingly tasted beef, poultry or pork since 1978 so perhaps they've lost their ability to distinguish the differences (on a side note, I took a grilled Beyond Burger to a house of proud-to-admit-it meat-eaters and they all said that they felt that they would eat that burger again and that it was quite passable for a veggie alternative).
Last year's United Nations environment report highlighted both of the above companies for their innovation, highlighting that: Using animals for food makes up the vast majority of the land footprint of humanity. All the buildings, roads and paved surfaces in the world occupy less than one per cent of Earth’s land surface, while more than 45 per cent of the land surface of Earth is used as land for grazing or growing feed crops for livestock. According to a research study conducted by the University of Michigan, a quarter-pound Beyond Burger requires 99 per cent less water, 93 per cent less land and generates 90 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions, using 46 per cent less energy to produce in the U.S. than its beef equivalent. And about those greenhouse gas emissions from cattle, the report adds that the founders discovered that: The greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that that of every car, truck, bus, ship, airplane, and rocket ship combined...
Of course the age-old debate of changing one's diet has adherents on both sides, even the entry of the term "flexitarian" for those who vascillate back and forth on reducing their consumption of meat in some form, as well as the "vegetarians" who still eat chicken and fish and eggs. Labels are everywhere, often self-imposed, and make little difference unless going to such a diet does indeed change your health or outlook, a premise advocated in popular documentaries such as Forks Over Knives and That Sugar Film. On a personal level my cholesterol runs high in my family and genetics is a difficult train to stop says my doc, but he finds that I am keeping it under control and still don't need meds to lower my levels; but is that enough of a convincer to change someone else's mind? Probably not. The meat industry is huge and in general controlled by just a few major corporations as reported in a recent issue of the Hightower Lowdown: Chickens, once a staple in farmyards, have now been almost totally corporatized and industrialized by a few powerful global conglomerates. The United States produces nearly nine billion of the birds annually (93 pounds for every man, woman, and child in our country), but few consumers realize that 97% of the chicken they eat comes from an assembly-line factory system tightly controlled by multibillion-dollar powerhouse processors, such as Tyson Foods and Brazil's JBS corporation (which) owns such US brands as Pilgrim's Pride and Swift & Co...the Big Four processing/marketing giants control production of 55% of all turkeys, 59%of chickens 66% of hogs, 70% of soybeans, 80% of corn, and 84% of beef.
One possible problem with such factory production and raising is the tightly confined areas that can lead to disease spreading rapidly and thus the use of antibiotics (in an earlier post I noted that 80% of antibiotics in the US are used in raising our beef, poultry and pork). The recent pig ebola virus continues, as well as the increase in the wasting disease appearing in wild deer, elk and moose herds, may be contributing to people seeking an alternative to meat or to a reducing of their meat consumption; but such results are generally difficult to pinpoint and such lifestyle changes can be short term...as clarification, the new wasting disease appearing in deer and other herds has been confirmed in 24 states and is a disease which is similar to Mad Cow disease which was known to pass from cattle to humans back in the 1990s (in the UK, a country perhaps hardest hit when the Mad Cow virus appeared, beef sales are down some 30% said the Independent).
Changing one's diet is an individual choice and generally all the statistics and brochures will do little to change habits (picture cigarette smoking). For me it was a book long ago, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, that got me to look into production methods and to view slaughterhouse films, both of which were not pleasant (and still aren't, even if slaughter methods have somewhat "improved"). That and the book Ishmael, the first winner of the Ted Turner fiction award and a book that talked of humans being "takers" and not "leavers" (you'll have to read the book to find out what those terms meant). And with that, I changed. Do I feel healthier or more alert or anything since not eating beef, poultry or pork? Maybe, and maybe not. How can one gauge that? What I tell people who ask is that I've discovered only two things: 1) that "preaching" to people about the advantages or disadvantages of their diets does absolutely zero good (with the exception of the phosphoric acid damage caused by most sodas); and 2) about the only physical difference I can feel is that I rarely have that over-full feeling after eating, that uncomfortable lie-on-the-couch feeling that I remember after a big holiday meal. But do I offer my guests a bite of my veggie burger and veggie nuggets?...absolutely. It might eventually prove an "impossible" choice to take it or leave it...
What?? What's the fuss you might say? Haven't all sorts of veggie and vegan products already made it off the shelves of specialty health food stores and onto the shelves of our everyday grocers, even Costco for goodness sakes (black bean burgers come to mind). But it would appear that these new entries are exploring new avenues, one being "heme" and the other being that product now visible in all of your high-end grain-free pet food products...peas. So many peas in fact, that Barron's had to ask can farmers produce enough of them should these products catch on (and all brought to you by the same marketers that brought pomegranates out of the shadows): The U.S. grows about a million metric tons of peas annually. That works out to about 45 million 60-pound pea bushels. Peas are worth about $10 a bushel, says the Alberta Farmer Express Pulse Weekly. (A “pulse” is a legume, like peas.) That means annual U.S. pea production runs about $450 million, about an eighth of the value of Beyond Meat shares...We’re not saying Beyond Meat will run out of peas—annual output in North America and Europe is value at $5 billion. Besides, if the world wants peas, farmers will grow peas. Moreover, beef doesn’t grow on trees. It takes seven pounds of plants to make a pound of beef. Vegetable protein is more efficient; pea protein runs about 60 cents a pound versus $2 a pound for beef. And there’s always soybeans. All of those peas represents nine billion pounds of protein—or 27 pounds of protein for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. The average American chows down on about 170 pounds of meat annually. That’s a nice upside for Beyond Meat, if it can just persuade folks to abandon beef for a legume.
At Impossible Foods, their isolation of heme --loosely defined by the Oxford dictionary as: ...an iron-containing compound of the porphyrin class which forms the nonprotein part of hemoglobin and some other biological molecules-- has gained them entrance into a world far beyond the grocery shelves. The company's definition of heme is a bit simpler: Heme is what makes meat taste like meat. It’s an essential molecule found in every living plant and animal --most abundantly in animals-- and something we’ve been eating and craving since the dawn of humanity. Here at Impossible Foods, our plant-based heme is made via fermentation of genetically engineered yeast, and safety-verified by America’s top food-safety experts and peer-reviewed academic journals. Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are being served in restaurants and fast food chains such as TGIFridays, Burger King, Carls' Jr., and Red Robin, among others (you can check their websites to see if your location offers their products), which is quite a change from the traditional bean burgers and other veggie patties that would occasionally pop up in such places. Throw in the investors such as Bill Gates (owns shares in both companies) and Tyson Foods (which invested early but has since sold its shares, partially due to the family-controlled company venturing into its own alt-meat creation) and you have these two companies pulling away from the usual lineup of Amy's, Gardein, Boca and Morningstar (which Kellogg's bought out several years ago).
But the bottom line likely comes down to the taste? Here's a comical look by one Barron's reporter, eating an Impossible Burger side-by-side with a Burnin' Love beef burger and writing the column as a study for "carnivestors:" Until now, the pitch to go meatless has been largely guilt-based, and made by the carrot-murdering, but otherwise well-meaning, 3% of Americans who say they’re vegans. The Impossible Burger is good enough to lure new types of eaters: carnivore environmentalists, the vegetable-curious, Tinder daters faking veganism for love. I’m not saying I was sufficiently impressed that, after downing the 910-calorie Burnin’ Love, the beer, and some onion rings, I then circled back to polish off the Impossible. But I’m not not saying that, either...“It has the texture and taste of beef,” said a member of my research squad. But her past calls included marrying me, so believe what you will. “Delicious,” said another. But she’s eight with a suspect palate. The boy, four, wanted no part. I bit in. The patty can indeed pass for meat. The overall sandwich is quite good. The biggest tell is the springy underbun; my Burnin’ Love’s was half-soaked with grease, and I mean that as high praise for the kitchen. In my own opinion, the new offerings are not bad, but then my taste buds haven't knowingly tasted beef, poultry or pork since 1978 so perhaps they've lost their ability to distinguish the differences (on a side note, I took a grilled Beyond Burger to a house of proud-to-admit-it meat-eaters and they all said that they felt that they would eat that burger again and that it was quite passable for a veggie alternative).
Last year's United Nations environment report highlighted both of the above companies for their innovation, highlighting that: Using animals for food makes up the vast majority of the land footprint of humanity. All the buildings, roads and paved surfaces in the world occupy less than one per cent of Earth’s land surface, while more than 45 per cent of the land surface of Earth is used as land for grazing or growing feed crops for livestock. According to a research study conducted by the University of Michigan, a quarter-pound Beyond Burger requires 99 per cent less water, 93 per cent less land and generates 90 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions, using 46 per cent less energy to produce in the U.S. than its beef equivalent. And about those greenhouse gas emissions from cattle, the report adds that the founders discovered that: The greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that that of every car, truck, bus, ship, airplane, and rocket ship combined...
Of course the age-old debate of changing one's diet has adherents on both sides, even the entry of the term "flexitarian" for those who vascillate back and forth on reducing their consumption of meat in some form, as well as the "vegetarians" who still eat chicken and fish and eggs. Labels are everywhere, often self-imposed, and make little difference unless going to such a diet does indeed change your health or outlook, a premise advocated in popular documentaries such as Forks Over Knives and That Sugar Film. On a personal level my cholesterol runs high in my family and genetics is a difficult train to stop says my doc, but he finds that I am keeping it under control and still don't need meds to lower my levels; but is that enough of a convincer to change someone else's mind? Probably not. The meat industry is huge and in general controlled by just a few major corporations as reported in a recent issue of the Hightower Lowdown: Chickens, once a staple in farmyards, have now been almost totally corporatized and industrialized by a few powerful global conglomerates. The United States produces nearly nine billion of the birds annually (93 pounds for every man, woman, and child in our country), but few consumers realize that 97% of the chicken they eat comes from an assembly-line factory system tightly controlled by multibillion-dollar powerhouse processors, such as Tyson Foods and Brazil's JBS corporation (which) owns such US brands as Pilgrim's Pride and Swift & Co...the Big Four processing/marketing giants control production of 55% of all turkeys, 59%of chickens 66% of hogs, 70% of soybeans, 80% of corn, and 84% of beef.
One possible problem with such factory production and raising is the tightly confined areas that can lead to disease spreading rapidly and thus the use of antibiotics (in an earlier post I noted that 80% of antibiotics in the US are used in raising our beef, poultry and pork). The recent pig ebola virus continues, as well as the increase in the wasting disease appearing in wild deer, elk and moose herds, may be contributing to people seeking an alternative to meat or to a reducing of their meat consumption; but such results are generally difficult to pinpoint and such lifestyle changes can be short term...as clarification, the new wasting disease appearing in deer and other herds has been confirmed in 24 states and is a disease which is similar to Mad Cow disease which was known to pass from cattle to humans back in the 1990s (in the UK, a country perhaps hardest hit when the Mad Cow virus appeared, beef sales are down some 30% said the Independent).
Changing one's diet is an individual choice and generally all the statistics and brochures will do little to change habits (picture cigarette smoking). For me it was a book long ago, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, that got me to look into production methods and to view slaughterhouse films, both of which were not pleasant (and still aren't, even if slaughter methods have somewhat "improved"). That and the book Ishmael, the first winner of the Ted Turner fiction award and a book that talked of humans being "takers" and not "leavers" (you'll have to read the book to find out what those terms meant). And with that, I changed. Do I feel healthier or more alert or anything since not eating beef, poultry or pork? Maybe, and maybe not. How can one gauge that? What I tell people who ask is that I've discovered only two things: 1) that "preaching" to people about the advantages or disadvantages of their diets does absolutely zero good (with the exception of the phosphoric acid damage caused by most sodas); and 2) about the only physical difference I can feel is that I rarely have that over-full feeling after eating, that uncomfortable lie-on-the-couch feeling that I remember after a big holiday meal. But do I offer my guests a bite of my veggie burger and veggie nuggets?...absolutely. It might eventually prove an "impossible" choice to take it or leave it...
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