“For me, it is an opportunity to reshape the company around very real food that is directly from plants,” said Beyond President and CEO Ethan Brown, who founded the company in 2009. “It’s about delivering all those benefits of the plant kingdom to the consumer in ways that they’re going to be able to easily integrate it into their lives.”
Eat Just, which makes plant-based eggs, introduced a protein powder made with mung beans last spring. In January, Impossible Foods announced a partnership with Equii Foods to develop protein-packed breads and pastas. Silk, a plant-based dairy brand, also unveiled a protein drink in January.
After peaking in 2020, U.S. retail sales of plant-based meat have plummeted, falling 26% over the last two years, according to NIQ.
“There’s a lot of fillers and gums and texturizers and things that give those products a more familiar feel,” Costagli said. “I think as people have been paying closer and closer attention to what they’re actually ingesting, it’s causing some products to stumble.”
Brown said the company will increasingly focus on products that showcase plants, like chickpea sausages or faba bean strips. Brown said Beyond wants to “celebrate the realness” of its products and its simplified ingredients. He also hopes the new products will lead customers back to its plant-based meats.
“Hopefully, at some point people will say, ‘Wait a minute, how did we get here, where protein taken from red lentils, peas and brown rice and oil taken from avocado and mixed together into a burger is somehow not good for you?’” Brown said.
For now, new products like Beyond Ground and Beyond Immerse are only available online through a website the company has dubbed Beyond Test Kitchen. Brown said the company wants to to innovate and collect feedback quickly, but will eventually put its products in stores.
Brown still believes plant-based meat will be a “much more dominant choice” over the next decade or two, but the company has to navigate what he calls “a period of confusion.”
“It’s just not the moment for plant-based meat right now,” he said.
