It Looks Like We'll Soon See the Death of Fake Meat Made From Plants. It Will Mourned by No One.

Aamulya. Getty Images.

I think it's fair to say that on the whole, Americans have had a complicated relationship with so-called "plant-based meats" since they first hit the market. 

On the one hand, there's the obvious contradiction in its name. Generally, when you have to call a thing by an oxymoron, you're off to a bad start. As the inventors of non alcoholic beer, non-dairy whipped topping, and plastic silverware can attest. You're facing an uphill climb with the consumer the moment you call a thing what it is not. 

On the other hand, this is still America. For now. You'd like to believe that the people who braved harsh ocean voyages to escape monarchies didn't come ashore just to start telling their neighbors what to eat. Well, except for that religion. And the other one. And that one too. OK, maybe we do like to push our food related beliefs on each other. Still, Freedom of Eats is one of the reasons those boys bled the ground red at Bunker Hill, at least in theory. If someone wants to suck much of the joy out of this life for themselves by subsisting on nothing but fruits and vegetables? Well then, more of the good stuff that makes life worth living for the rest of us. 

But where I draw the line is this insidious plot to get others to eating plants through deception. By forming them into vaguely delicious shape and textures and trick us into thinking it's something we actually desire to eat. My Spirit Animal on this issue is Ron Swanson, who, when served as salad famously said, "There's been a mistake. You've brought me the food my food eats." And who, when handed meat that was not made from meat, took swift and decisive action to save us from the scourge (1:00 mark):

Well the good news for all of us who like our meats to be meat based, which is to say, the actual flesh of delicious animals who failed to beat us to the top of the food chain, is that we may be at the beginning of the end of this wretched social movement:

Source - Customers and investors alike are sticking a fork in fake meat. …

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat captured headlines — and plenty of legitimate interest from consumers — with their plant-based "hamburgers."

• Both companies' plant-based burgers were a hit — the "meat" looked and tasted similar enough to beef that many diners couldn't notice the difference.
• The meats were so popular that fast food giant Burger King noticed and added an Impossible Whopper to its menu. …

But now, sales are collapsing.

• Impossible Foods plans to lay off roughly 20% of its workforce amid falling sales, per a Bloomberg report.
• Impossible's primary competitor, Beyond Meat, also cut roughly 20% of its workers, and lost several executives, amid its own stock slump.
• Beyond Meat's sales fell more than 22% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to 2021. In an Q3 earnings call, company executives blamed inflation for consumers' souring tastes on pricier plant-based meats.
• Beyond Meat's stock is down roughly 67% compared to a year ago. 

We can all be sorry for our fellow Americans losing their job. And any industry potentially going out of business is a sad thing. But as the animals the rest of us will be dining on this week learned the hard way, that's Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. These companies chose to build their habitat in an ecosystem where they couldn't flourish, so they're starving to death. Nature is a cruel mistress. 

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They based their business model on a belief that given the choice of fresh ground beef formed into a patty, cooked until it's pink in the middle, and then placed inside a bun - perhaps our nation's greatest contribution to world culture - we'd pick something else. And their something else consists of: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Methylcellulose, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Yeast Extract, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), L-tryptophan, Soy Protein Isolate. 

Amazing that didn't catch on the way they'd hoped. 

Again I say, if you want to harvest plants, prepare them, and serve them as the only option in your daily diet, have at it. Just knock it off with this business of trying to make it look, feel and (chuckle) taste like our food. It doesn't work any more than if we started making ears of corn made out of sausage or bananas that are actually veal. You keep serving what you serve, we'll keep serving what we serve, and let the public decide. Which it sounds like they very much have.

The people have spoken. You don't make friends with salad. Or salad pretending to be a hamburger.