Beyond Meat, a newly public veggie-burger company invested by Bill Gates, which its shares skyrocketed in 2019, is getting all the attention due to its beef-like burgers.
Juicy and tasty veggie burgers on the table, which either nutrition or texture is similar to real beef, is plant protein-based food products developed and manufactured by Beyond Meat. The company released products such as the beyond burger, beyond sausage and beyond beef® crumbles.
Beyond Meat made a profit of US$8.8 million and notched up 10 times growth last year. The company is rolling out its plant-based products to 15 countries through 35,000 different routes. Beyond Meat went public on the New York Stock Exchange on May 2 and the IPO was priced at $25 a share. The stock climbed 163% in its first day of trading to close at $65.75 per share, which was the highest first day gain in 2019.
Technical Support Provided by Taiwanese
Fu-hung Heish, a Taiwan-born biological-engineering professor at the University of Missouri, whose profession in food sciences for decades. He is working on the processing and utilization of soy protein since the 1990s and he successfully produced the prototype of plant-based chicken strips in 2008. Heish is invited to cooperate with Ethan Brown, the CEO of Beyond Meat, to produce the first product of Beyond Meat in 2012.
Meat Industry is Contributing to ‘Climate Change’
Not only factory pollution and car exhaust, but animal husbandry is also contributing to global warming since it generates 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions. According to CNN, the 1kg of beef releases greenhouse gases emission are equivalent to the amount of CO2 released by 55 cars every 1600 miles. Texas, located in the south-central region of the United States, has 12 million cattle.
In order to breed a huge number of animals like cattle, a large piece of land has been occupied by the animal husbandry. These lands, which cannot be used to do tree plantation, only can grow crops for cattle rearing like corn. The lands used by the animal husbandry are nearly the sum of the total areas of the U.S., Europe, China and Australia.
Beyond Meat always takes producing a 1/4 lb. of the patty as examples, saying that their products are able to reduce 46% of energy consumption and without wasting water and land resources. Ethan Brown said his life goal is to ameliorate the issue of climate change and plant-based meat would solve the problem of global warming.
Ethical Eating Affects Millennials’ Consumption
Beyond Meat hopes to lower the dependant on livestock industries, solve the health issue of carnivore and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. According to the survey of Beyond Meat, Americans eat 3 hamburgers per week, which equals 50 billion hamburgers per year. Predators are willing to stop eating meat only if there are no differences between being herbivores and carnivores.
Millennials, who pay attention to healthy eating and environment protection, become the major consumers. They prefer eating healthy, ethically and environmental-friendly than eating enough, in order to present their attitudes to lives and life value.
In terms of marketing, Fitch research shows meat is the largest category in the good industry. Meat is estimated to be US$1.4 trillion in the global market and there are 95% of the U.S. citizens are reliant on meat products. Hence, the company aims to create ‘the future of protein’ to provide a more alternative option but not to reduce meat.
Beyond Meat’s product are placed in refrigerated meat department but not vegan section, plus the burger is sold at US$5.99 and 4 sausages are sold at US$9. The production price is lower following the updates of the producing process even though the selling price is higher than real meat now. But for consumers, the success of Beyond Meat represents there are opportunities to purchase plant-based meat through a cheaper and more convenient method.