It’s not exactly the best moment to pitch ultraprocessed foods as healthy and delicious, but that’s exactly what two major producers of plant-based meat are trying to do.
Beyond Meat wants to convince people that its vegan versions of meat products are good for you. So does its competitor, Impossible Foods, which recently changed its packaging colors from green to blood red, all the better to woo carnivores.
In the last year, Beyond Meat has reformulated some products to cut saturated fat and sodium and simplify its ingredient list. Impossible Foods launched a “health hub” and rebranded to emphasize tasty meatiness. Products from both companies have been deemed healthy by the American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association.
It’s all part of an effort to reverse sagging sales of plant-based meat at a time when foods made through industrial processes, with lengthy ingredient lists, have come under increasing scrutiny. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, ordered a crackdown on ultraprocessed foods, new research has shown a link between ultraprocessed foods and adverse health effects and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for health secretary, has criticized processed foods.
Plant based meat is ultraprocessed, but not necessarily unhealthy, according to several experts. The products generally have less saturated fat, no cholesterol and more fiber than animal meat, and zero hormones or antibiotics.
An analysis of dozens of studies that was published last year in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology found that compared with meat, plant-based alternatives “generally lie on the range from roughly neutral to beneficial,” said Matthew Nagra, a naturopathic doctor in British Columbia who led the review.
The studies found no evidence that some of “the concerning aspects” of plant based meat, such as food processing and higher sodium, outweighed the potential cardiovascular benefits of eating it instead of animal meat, he said.
Health and nutrition concerns are among the top reasons people seek out plant-based meat, and Beyond Meats and Impossible Foods want to distance themselves from the ultraprocessed label, or at the very least add nuance. Ethan Brown, the founder and chief executive of Beyond Meat, said the company’s method of extracting proteins from legumes and converting them to meat-like products simply skipped using animals as the intermediary.
“It’s a beautiful process that is direct from the soil and from the farm in a way that a CAFO or factory farmed animal is not,” he said, using the acronym for concentrated animal feeding operations.
If plant based meat must be categorized as processed food, the argument is that they are more like canned beans than Twinkies, and a long way from processed meats, the category that includes hot dogs, bacon and deli meat, which the World Health Organization has classified as carcinogenic to humans.
“Processed, if you really want to look at it from a food perspective, means highly artificial and very little nutritional value,” said Peter McGuinness, chief executive of Impossible Foods.
“We are a nutrient dense product,” he continued. “That’s not the traditional definition of processed.”
It remains to be seen whether more consumers can be swayed. In recent years, the plant based food sector has taken a drubbing.
Five years ago, protein alternatives appeared poised to take on the primacy of red meat by offering an option that was healthier, more ethical and better for the climate. The market has since contracted and a shadow hangs over the sector, due in no small part to the saga of Beyond Meat. Since the company went public in a blaze of glory in 2019, its stock price has tumbled from $234 to less than $4 a share, and the company is more than a billion dollars in debt.
Mr. Brown blamed attacks from the meat and livestock antibiotics industries and criticisms from whole foods purists. Plant based meats were also increasingly seen as “woke,” while a series of blistering ads linked with the former tobacco lobbyist and public relations strategist, Richard Berman, characterized the products as chemically laden. Between 2020 and 2022, the number of plant based meat consumers who believed the products to be healthy fell from 50 percent to 38 percent, according to FMI, the Food Industry Association, a trade group.
Mr. McGuinness said the sector had also likely been too hot and overhyped, causing other companies to rush in with inferior products that failed, spurring critics to say plant based meat was a fad.
Impossible Foods, which is privately held, is on surer footing than Beyond Meat. Mr. McGuinness said it was “on a path to profitability,” with a strong balance sheet and no debt. Still, it faces similar challenges as Beyond Meat in trying to win over meat eaters, the vast majority of whom have never tried plant based products.
“I think this is one of the greatest communication challenges in the history of business,” Mr. McGuinness said.
Compared with meat, the market for plant-based alternatives is relatively tiny. Plant-based meat and seafood accounted for $1.2 billion in retail sales in the United States in 2023, compared with $100 billion for conventional meat and seafood, according to the Good Food Institute, a research organization. And global meat consumption is growing.
Emma Ignaszewski, a senior associate director with the Good Food Institute, said expansion of the plant based sector depended on consumer priorities and how quickly companies could innovate, improve taste and bring down price — plant-based meats can cost at least twice as much as their animal counterparts.
“Growth is not inevitable,” Ms. Ignaszewski said. Still, she said research showed the majority of young consumers in 10 countries planned to spend more in the future on plant based products out of concerns for health, sustainability, animal welfare and climate change. Plant based alternatives have on average 11 percent the environmental impact of meat, according to the Good Food Institute.
Beyond Meat is hoping its reformulated burgers and beef, which include more legumes and avocado oil, will help silence critics and win over consumers. The company consulted with Joy Bauer, a registered dietitian and nutritionist, and Dr. Matthew Lederman, co-author of the “Forks Over Knives Plan” and “The Whole Food Diet” books. Both said the point of plant based meat was to provide healthier options when people craved burgers.
“For most people, myself included, putting beans and lentils on a hamburger bun simply won’t satisfy that need,” said Dr. Lederman. When his patients swapped plant based meat for red meat, they often made other lifestyle changes such as getting more exercise and eating more vegetables, he said. “It catalyzes a healthier living transformation,” he said.
Dr. Lederman also challenged perceptions that conventional meat is natural; an estimated 99 percent of farmed animals in the U.S. live in factory farms.
“They feed them abnormal diets,” he said, referring to livestock raised on factory farms. “They put them in abnormal conditions. They pump them up with hormones and antibiotics. They’re in these small, confined areas. Their bodies are flooded with stress hormones.”
Not everyone will be won over. Michael Pollan, the influential writer who once urged people to not eat any food their great-grandmothers would not recognize, has been critical of plant based meat. Mr. Pollan declined to comment for this article.
Marion Nestle, emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said that plant-based products were still ultraprocessed, and that long term studies on their impacts were needed. Still, she allowed there were likely relative benefits. “I’m sure it’s environmentally better than beef, everything is,” she said. “My prediction would be if you’re not eating beef and you’re eating this instead, you’re going to do better than people who are eating beef.”
Even if more consumers are swayed by its products, Beyond Meat’s challenges remain immense. The company reported revenue growth in the third financial quarter of 2024. But John Baumgartner, a consumer food analyst at Mizuho Americas, a financial services group, said the growth was driven by increased prices and that it was unlikely that Beyond Meat’s stock could rebound. He also said that while Beyond Meat had been working to improve its burger, Impossible Foods likely benefited from launching a wider array of products, including faux chicken options.
Notably, with their latest messaging, both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have downplayed the climate benefits of their products compared with meat, which is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and water pollution. Under Mr. McGuinness’s leadership, Impossible Foods has been plugging a “delicious and nutritious” message. “Once you cover that, then you can talk about climate, but people are also pretty selfish,” he said.
