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Tag Archives: Examine the trends that are influencing the consumer packages goods (CPG) industry to which Beyond Meat belongs.

December 26, 2023
December 26, 2023

Beyond Meat Case Study

Beyond Meat, a producer of plant-based meat substitutes, was founded by Ethan Brown and Brent Taylor in 2009 in Los Angeles, California. The company’s aim was to change the world and try to slow down average meat consumption for the well-being of humans and animals. Beyond Meat had many high- profile investors, including Bill Gates and Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Beyond Meat’s vision was for consumers to enjoy a meat-like taste and texture in their favourite dishes while avoiding many chemicals that were used in processed meat and reducing the number of animals killed every year for their meat. The company wanted to reduce global meat consumption by 25 per cent by 2020. While this seemed to be a huge goal, Beyond Meat was striving to educate consumers about the superior benefits that eating vegan meat alternatives would provide to not only the consumers, but also to the environment they live in and the animals they live around. The big questions for Beyond Meat were: How could the company market a product that was still in development? How could consumer behaviour and tastes regarding eating meat be changed?

Beyond Meat Case Study

Beyond Meat Case Study

COMPETITION A key strength of Beyond Meat was that it offered by far one of the more appealing innovations to the meat alternative, the vegan industry. There had been many vegan meat alternatives for quite some time now, but based on consumer reviews, the taste and texture of Beyond Meat’s products were almost like the real thing. Other products, such as Quorn and Gardein, could not meet the standards of Beyond Meat, whose chicken strips, for example, looked, felt and tasted closer to real meat, especially since they contained reduced sodium, an important feature for the company’s target market of health-conscious people. The organization’s strategy was also interesting: it pushed stores to stock its meat along the real meat counter instead of with vegetarian options such as tofu. In an interview in Slate, Brown stated that he wanted consumers to think of the product as protein, regardless of whether or not it came from an animal or a plant. Future goals for management included reducing prices once production ramped up to prices lower than actual meat and to expand into India and China so that much more of the world’s market share would satisfy their meat cravings with this vegan alternative. Brown was confident that, someday, modern society would accept his innovations as it had accepted so many other technological changes.

Beyond Meat Case Study

GOING VEGAN The main benefits of vegan products were the absence of the antibiotics, hormones, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), trans fats and cholesterol, among many other additives, that were normally found in the real meat products that so many people consume everyday. These chemicals played a huge part in developing illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. In addition, Beyond Meat suggested many other interesting benefits of cutting meat out of consumers’ diets. For instance, studies concluded that people on vegetarian diets had much better moods than people whose diets included meat and fish since they contained many fatty acids, particularly omega 6, that when consumed in large amounts could cause depression or bipolar disorder. Eating more vegetarian meals also improved hormonal health as a result of cutting out animal proteins, which contained many unsafe hormones. Additionally, the same studies concluded that reducing animal meat consumption could improve body odours and sexual performance. The main benefit for most consumers was that eating healthy foods and less meat could prolong one’s life: vegetarians had much lower incidences of heart diseases, cancers and other life-threatening illnesses. The company claimed to save more than 1.5 million chickens per year, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals gave Beyond Meat its company of the year award in 2013.

Beyond Meat Case Study

COMPANY BACKGROUND Brown received a Masters of Business Administration from Columbia University and a master of public policy from the University of Maryland; he was mainly inspired by his dad’s virtues as a farmer and his childhood experiences with farm animals. He developed a promising career in the private and public energy sector, where he held leadership positions including at Ballard Power Systems, where he reported directly to the president. Taylor was also fuelled by his passion for agriculture and food; he held several positions as a partner for a vegetable seed technology start-up and represented investors and operators in international markets such as India and Turkey. Taylor graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with Bachlor of Arts degrees in International Economics and Political Science and received his Masters Business Administration with honours from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. At Wharton, his independent focus was on agribusiness investments in emerging markets. According to its website, Beyond Meat was backed by private equity, venture capital and an angel investor. It used non-GMO soy and pea proteins for its beef crumble, chicken strips and new prototype, the “Beast Burger.” Being a producer of foods, its key competitors were Kraft Foods, Garden Protein International, Kellogg Company, Tofutti Brands and many others.

Beyond Meat Case Study

Because vegan meat was much easier and required less energy to produce, contained no saturated fats and saved animals, Beyond Meat’s production process was rather simple. The meat was made by forming a powdered protein — soy for chicken strips and pea protein for beef — into a liquid paste, which then was heated, extruded through a machine and finally cooled. According to Brown, the key was to get the heating/cooling sequence right and then apply the right pressure through the extrusion. The animal meat industry was worth approximately $177 billion dollars, and Brown hoped to take a chunk of that within 50 years by penetrating the market with meat alternatives. He performed a great marketing initiative when he went to a New York Mets baseball game to let athletes taste test the new beast burgers, which were known for enhancing performance as well. Claiming it had “as much protein as beef, more omega-3s than salmon and more antioxidants than blueberries,” he used these famous athletes to try to convince meat-loving Americans to make the change to vegetarian meat. Beyond Meat also paid for ads in Citi Field and presented sliders to fans outside the stadium before the game.

Beyond Meat Case Study

As meat prices were continually increasing in the United States, the total consumption of meat began to decline, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even though there was a huge demand for vegetarian options, the market was still relatively small. Total U.S. sales of frozen meat substitutes in 2013 was $394 million dollars, an increase of 5 per cent over 2012 sales. Beyond Meat was indeed leading the new generation of food producers, competing alongside another company known for its vegetarian Gardein brand chicken, Garden Protein International. In 2013, Beyond Meat started selling its newest product, the Beef-free Crumble, an approximation of cooked ground beef based on pea protein. The company’s products were priced higher than average chicken and beef products but were still lower than chicken strips and tenders made from real meat. The largest consumer market for Beyond Meats was the younger generation, which was more health and environmentally conscious and, ultimately, the driving force behind using plant protein for food source.

Beyond Meat Case Study

Could the company reach beyond this demographic to increase sales of its products? Would the food tastes of Americans change quickly enough to ensure that growing profits would attract more investors? These were the issues facing Beyond Meats in 2014. Use APA referencing style.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

  1. Examine the trends that are influencing the consumer packages goods (CPG) industry to which Beyond Meat belongs.
  2. Define the market for Beyond Meat. What segmentation variables should the company use and why?
  3. What can beyond meat do to shape consumer behavior and preferences regarding eating a plant-based meat substitute.
  4. Develop a marketing strategy to help beyond meat launch new products.