Don't try this at home
I spent Saturday at the National Restaurant Show here in Chicago, tasting samples of nearly two dozen versions of alternative meats. Other than making sure I didn't need, or want, to eat for more than a day afterward, it was a delightful grazing session across the trade show floor.
Delightful, because at trade shows — even in those claustrophobic booths — the samples are prepared by chefs and other foodservice professionals.
So taste-testing at a trade show is not, I think, the most informational way to try alt-meats. The most rigorous experience is to put these sometimes finicky products in the hands of a truly incompetent cook — like me.
Note: Our Taste Test feature in every issue of our print magazine sends retail packages of alt-proteins to a panel of consumers and includes their cooking experiences as part of the research. It makes for great reading, but, I wouldn't assume that the panelists are as rudimentary with their pots and pans as I am.
On recent trips to our local Whole Foods, I grabbed four packages of products that were new to me, and one that was sort-of new: jack & annie's breakfast sandwich, Meati's formed "steaks," Nature's Fynd breakfast sausages, and Beyond Meat's Version 4.0.
First up was the jack & annie's frozen sandwich. I was eager to try the jackfruit-based alt-meat because I've had jackfruit "pulled pork" and thought it was excellent, and also because our upcoming June print issue will feature the company's CEO Annie Ryu on the cover; she was a great interview.
A pop-it-in-the-microwave egg-and-sausage sandwich is right up my alley in the morning, along with my coffee, light. And I was impressed with j&a. If the sandwich was a little smaller than the retail package would suggest, well, that's par for the course in this category.
The sausage spices were spot-on, in my opinion. The biggest drawback was not the fact that it was made with jackfruit rather than pork — honestly I couldn't tell the difference — but, like other frozen breakfast sandwiches, nuking doesn't do the product any favors. The egg becomes rubbery and the sausage was chewier than I would have preferred.
Next up was a package of Beyond Meat 4.0 — a sort-of repeat purchase because I've tried Beyond at home before, but a long time ago. This is my first experience with the much-vaunted 4.0 version. I bought it separately from the other three packages, and so it didn't make it into the photo at the top, but it did make it into the frying pan.
Version 4.0 started much like its predecessors: The uncooked patties are not especially visually appealing (not that raw ground beef is appetizing, either). The aroma from the just-opened package still reminded me of opening a can of Alpo for our four-legged kids, which I chalk up to the legumes in both.
But, Version 4.0 cooked up much more nicely. They caramelized on the outside with a more pronounced umami experience than I remember from my earlier Beyond Meat sample.
I added cheese to one patty, but not to the other. I put both on hamburger buns with a little ketchup and mustard (I couldn't find the pickles). I was pleased with the outcome: toothsome without being too chewy, juicy, and the flavors with or without cheese melded well.
Immediately afterward I detected the soy-beany undertones that would, along with the price, still stop me from substituting Beyond at every backyard cookout or random Sunday dinner, but they were much less pronounced than I remember them in a previous Beyond incarnation.
Next I cooked up Meati's mushroom-root "steak." I've had several of Meati's products before, but always at restaurants and at tasting events where they have been meticulously prepared. My preparation was anything but meticulous: I treated each side of the steak with Montreal steak seasoning — the same stuff we like to put on our beef steaks — and the extra oil that the package recommends using before cooking.
I left the seasoning rub on a few minutes, then heated the cuts up in the pan to the recommended 165°F internal temperature.
There's not getting away from the fact that these are formed products; they're shaped like a steak, but there's no crossing that uncanny valley — they just don't look right, at least not in the package. They cooked up nicely, though, browning on both sides, and they smelled good, only some of which I chalked up to the seasoning.
Eaten alone, I thought the texture and the flavor were just okay. But added to the corn and bell peppers I'd prepared alongside, the Meati products took their place with the other elements of the meal and made for a multi-layered, savory bite, each time. I loved it all.
Finally, I tried Nature's Fynd's sausage patties. I've been wanting to taste test them a long time, because I find the product's origin story to be irresistible. And I've heard rave reviews.
They did not disappoint. Cooked up with some extra oil, as recommended, the patties were the perfect complement to eggs, served with and, on another occasion, without toast. The patties are small, for a breakfast sausage. And I did feel that they were fairly dense — not "tough" as some meat can be, but chewy just the same. But that rich, spicy seasoning put it at the top of my list.
That is, then, the feedback from a focus group of one. And I am reminded always of how differently diners experience the same dish — too salty for one but perfect for another, for example. But always, for retail products, the consumer is the last hurdle the product has to get over to be a success. If it can survive being prepared by someone as unschooled as I am, you're off to a great start.
At what point does Beyond go beyond?
At some point, the company formerly known as Beyond Meat will reach a point of no return — but when, and no return from what, exactly?
On the one hand, Beyond disappointed yet again with its quarterly financial results, reporting a nearly 20% slide in net sales for the second fiscal quarter, to US$75.0 million, a level below its own projections for the quarter. Meanwhile, it held net losses essentially flat, at -US$33.2 million, or a loss of 43 cents per common share, compared to net loss of US$34.5 million, or 53 cents per common share, in the year-ago period.
For the first half of Beyond's fiscal year, ended June 28, 2025, net revenues dropped 14.9%, to US$143.7 million, with a net loss of US$86.1 million, also essentially flat with the results for the same period in 2024.
At the same time, CEO Ethan Brown announced layoffs of about 6% of Beyond's global workforce, or about 44 employees. The company expects to incur one-time cash charges of between US$800,000 and US$1.3 million in connection with the layoffs, with most of the charges taken in the third quarter of 2025. In the coming 12 months, Beyond calculated the layoffs will save it as much as US$7 million in cash and non-cash compensation costs.
It was unclear at press time whether the layoffs announced this week are in addition to an identical announcement made in February 2025, or if they are the same announcement, and the action has simply been delayed.
“We are disappointed with our second quarter results, which primarily reflect ongoing softness in the plant-based meat category, particularly in the U.S. retail channel and certain international foodservice markets," Brown is quoted as saying in an earnings release. "We are responding by accelerating our transformation activities, including more rapidly and aggressively reducing our operating expenses to fit anticipated near term revenues; prioritizing increased distribution of our core product lines; and investing in margin expansion initiatives across these core products.”
And Beyond has hired a turnaround firm, AlixPartners LLP, and named one of its partners, John Boken, as Beyond's interim Chief Transformation Officer.
"We welcome John Boken to the team to support enterprise-wide implementation of [our] objectives. Finally, even as we navigate this difficult operating environment, we continue to pursue our goal of strengthening our balance sheet for the longer term.”
Will Beyond ultimately be able to navigate out of this financial morass?
Possibly, but it may be navigating in a different sector altogether soon: The company that, along with rival Impossible Foods, planted its toothpick in the ground on the idea of plant-based offerings that taste like meat, just days ago told Fast Company that it will drop "Meat" from its name and instead focus on new products that highlight plant-based proteins without trying to be a facsimile of beef, chicken or pork.
We may find that that change in strategy will be the winning pivot point — or that Beyond already has gone beyond a point of no return with the 180° turn in messaging from the very reason the company was founded.
True, there is no shortage of evidence that efforts to mimic the experience of eating animal protein has proven far more difficult than consumers were initially led to believe; across the board, plant-based analogues have run into a consumer brick wall.
But Beyond made the mimicry central to its selling proposition. It's the basis of the company's logo.
Now that it's at least expanding its focus to include veggie burgers and the like that are not analogues, are consumers going to trust the brand again — or find more reasons to turn away?
Editor's blog: who's wearing sheep's clothing?
Trappist monks brewing beer in the 1600s (some of whose breweries still exist) would fit the definition of microbrewers, although it would take the mass consumption society of the United States and the UK to make microbrews a trend in the 1980s and '90s. American consumers were slow to pick up on the fact that many of their vaunted craft labels were, in fact, brewed by the majors: Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors and the like.
I remember when I learned that the rustic-sounding Plank Road Brewery, which made the Icehouse brand rolled out in the 1990s, was in fact Miller Brewing. I thought I'd been let in on some great commercial grift. I mean, you wouldn't find the word "Miller" anywhere on the packaging or the label.
I can sympathize, then, with consumers who learn that their favorite — or any — alt-meat brands are the product of the biggest meat processors on the planet, and/or are made by co-packers on the same equipment they otherwise use for beef or turkey burgers or chicken nuggets. The news catches many off-guard.
Consider, for example, the editors of Axios Chicago, a daily newsletter of business and politics produced by the Axios news organization. The two editors of our local operation both are food enthusiasts, so they write a lot about food trends and the local scene. And they both are on the eat-less-meat-and-better-meat bandwagon.
In a recent issue they waxed poetic about the Wild Fork retail store that opened nearby: "I was amazed by the offerings from this Brazilian company with a U.S. base in Florida. For those looking for dry-aged, grass-fed, pastured, organic, heritage or antibiotic-free meat, Wild Fork has your number. ... Beyond meat and seafood, it offers high-quality plant-based proteins, desserts, pasta, appetizers, vegetables, side dishes, spices, sauces and grilling supplies."
To be fair, they had bought, and liked a lot, the grass-fed, dry-aged skirt steak and the Argentine chorizo. In an email to them, though, I couldn't resist pointing out that the mysterious "Brazilian company" is, in fact, JBS S.A. Surprise!
JBS, too, is behind the Ozo plant-based brand that earlier this summer signed a deal with the Chicago Cubs to serve its products at Wrigley Field. Axios editors reviewed those eats, too — favorably, for the most part — and correctly called out the parent company.
In another setting, our publisher, Bill Kinross, sat in on a presentation by the chief growth officer of the Nowadays brand of plant-based chik'n nuggets, which boasts just seven easily understood ingredients. The audience was largely vegetarian, even vegan, at this event. In the Q&A session that followed the presentation, the CGO was asked how they get their nuggets produced, as she had explained they did not have manufacturing operations of their own.
Nowadays co-packs, of course, and she named a mid-size meat company in Texas. The audience was aghast; the Nowadays CGO was perplexed. This is news?
Yes, it is, for the majority of consumers who are too busy, or just don't care enough, to pull aside the curtain to peek at the nuts and bolts. The alt-meat industry's players are hard-marketing themselves as "other than" the conventional meat industry — more aware, more conscientious, cooler. And while that hasn't yet become the industry takeover that the early proponents promised, the cool factor is working.
I say there's no harm in making consumers feel "cool," if it's important to them. No need to point out that the industry that's been portrayed as the wolf at the door is in fact the lamb laying at their feet. Consumers will figure it out in time; a wave of consolidation in the sector is inevitable, and more Big Food companies will be playing in the space. They'll have to, if alt-meat prices are to come down and availability is to increase. And JBS and Cargill and Maple Leaf and so many other oft-vilified meat companies will have an additional source of revenues and profits.
That's the nuts and bolts of this business. Baaaa!