Beyond Meat is headed to Chapter 11 bankruptcy | Hacker News Reader

Beyond Meat is headed to Chapter 11 bankruptcy

thestreet.com

18 pointsgeox18 comments

From a health perspective I think they find themselves in an odd spot, at least from my perspective. Absolutely there are other products on the market that are similar with similarly high amounts of salt.

I also see it as "highly processed" food which if you're not looking to eat meat you might also be looking for an alternative to meat that isn't any more processed than red meat, of which Beyond Meat is more processed.

> at least from my perspective.

If you are afraid of salt I guess. That's an old idea and somewhat a religion formed off a misdirect marketing campaign.

Any Who even with salt is evil not much difference at McDonalds -

McPlant https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/mcplant.html#acco... (510 Cal.)

Quarter Pounder with Cheese https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/quarter-pounder-w... (520 Cal.)

I don't see Beyond Meat as a replacement to steak, it's very unhealthy compared to that.

Reducing livestock is the most 2nd most pressing environmental issue in the world, to fixing fishing. I can't think of anything else that matters more than those two. We need to farm the oceans (70%) and leave land (30%) for hunters.

I love pictures of Chinese diamond factories - https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=chinese+diamond+fact...

It's not that I am afraid of salt, but that many of our foods have an added amount of salt that cumulatively is fairly high. No different to not being afraid of sugar, but there are foods which are abnormally high in it.

My point being is that you're not going to win over enough people to eat Beyond Meat if its just due to environmental factors. You also need to give people an additional benefit, in the case of Beyond Meat whilst its better for the environment, its not better for our bodies given how highly its processed.

Does this headline need to state it is an opinion? I didn't see this as a "fact" anywhere in TFA.

Who the heck downvoted the parent comment?

This isn't a news article, it's an opinion from some journalist who thinks Beyond Meat is doomed for bankruptcy. I googled "beyond meat chapter 11" and this HN discussion is on the second spot.

Interestingly I noticed a prediction site currently with ~30% chance of that happening by 2026: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/12112/will-beyond-meat-f...

they never managed to get the cost down to near the price of actual meat, despite the ingredients being dirt cheap. overhead and/or greed?

glad they're failing

Actual meat is highly subsidized. There’s no way for them to compete on price alone. That was never going to be the case.

They're using protein (the generally expensive part of food) from peas, beans and rice. All of these are gram-for-gram much cheaper (definitely less than half the cost, maybe closer to a quarter) protein sources than ground beef (at my local retail).

Good. The "food" they were producing was anything but healthy.

It’s always disappointing to me, as someone who does not want to eat meat, when I see the vegetarian option is a beyond burger, the most aesthetically similar meat analogue they could think of.

Not to call out Beyond Meat specifically. I stopped eating the Burger King veggie burger when they switched from their Morningstar patties to the Impossible Whopper.

As a meat eater I can tell you that for me I just need to feel something substantial and somewhat large I can bite into and that doesnt give way right away. Something seared on a flame. Maybe a nice savory flavor too.

So for example biting into celery or bread with a crust gives that feeling. Whereas salads and rice, small beans etc. lack these elements. It’s just some mushy mass of small things going into your mouth, you don’t get to really use your teeth much at all.

So it’s not really the burger aspect at all for me. As a chef I could probably whip up a lot of vegetarian options that scratch that itch for carnivorous humans.

I think I understand what you mean. I.e. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajapsandali for me is a very "meaty" dish despite having none, while "pirates" kids' pork sausage from Lidl is not "meaty", despite being almost meat-only.

I think this is just a personal preference and has nothing to do with meat. I was a meat eater for many years and love meat, but even then I would go for weeks sometimes when I was busy on just Soylent meal replacement shakes (which are vegan, and liquid, so no biting at all).

It’s just a habit, what you’re used to. You can adjust.

I mean, most of what you do in life is a habit. Diogenes of Sinope lived in a barrel. Your ancestors lived without electricity, some without running water.

If you want to drastically cut down on wasteful spending today, I remember a great blog: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/

In any case, humans do seem to need the vitamins and minerals in meat, but if the animal is older then this can cause them to age faster as well over time.

I didn't know BK stopped offering veggie burgers.

There used to be the Veggie burger and the Impossible Whopper, and they were two completely different products.

As a meat eater, I'm a big fan of the Impossible Whopper. It does taste different from the regular Whopper, but it's just as good. That's how good Impossible is (better than Beyond any day).

Neither are healthy, but if I had to stop eating meat, I would have no trouble with the Impossible Whopper.

> That's how good Impossible is (better than Beyond any day).

I can remember at Beyond's IPO, thinking "wait, wtf guys, this isn't the one trying all the complex stuff to simulate meat, this is the other one, what are you doing funding this?"

Impossible’s product is a zillion times better than Beyond’s. It’s a mistake to conflate them.

I’m glad Beyond is going away, hopefully this means the people who were serving them switch to Impossible, which is actually good.

haha. i still have never tried it.

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