On one side is Beyond Meat, which has seen its stock decline to worthless paper. On the other is Planetarians, which is awash in debt. The world of plant-based alternatives to meat, having closed a series of investments (culminating in the immediate aftermath of Covid) has become a battleground: one crisis leads to another. Why? The market has been uninterested in processed-food offerings, as they are as expensive as the non-processed ones, in a nutshell. And now that the economy is turning sour, investors are pulling back.
One crisis leads to another
There was a time when Beyond Meat presented itself as the “frontrunner” of the plant-based alternatives of the meat revolution. That moment is past: not only because turnover is growing more slowly than budgeted (just an estimated +10% between 2021 and 2025). But because, Futuro Prossimo summarizes, the startup remains far from being profitable: for every dollar in sales it loses 45 cents. Beyond Meat’s stock, meanwhile, has plunged 98% in the stock market from its 2021 highs, while the maturity (March 2027) of one billion convertible bonds looms ominously. Similarly, California-based Planetarians, burdened with debt to be repaid by Aug. 7, is seeking partners to stay afloat: “It’s not liquidation”, the CEO tells AFN, “it’s a technological transition”.
The market for alternatives
As plant-based alternatives to meat fold in on themselves, we wait to see what will become of so-called “in vitro” alternatives. Certainly, and here comes the potential analogy with what is happening in the world of materials for fashion and design, we see a reaction of the public. Consumers haven’t taken the bait thrown by the startups’ marketing offices: quite the contrary. They continue to prefer meat over the posturing aggregates of soy and legumes.
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