Daily Planet #4: Plant Woes

Daily Planet #4

I am partial to veggie burgers. In fact, I had a couple yesterday night for dinner. These days my go to brand is Boca, which has been around for a while, but the two big kids on the block are Beyond and Impossible. And as you might know, they are both struggling to maintain their valuations and the massive amounts of investment.

I don't have any special fondness for these brands, but anything that reduces factory farming, which is an unmitigated evil, is a good thing. And frankly I don't get why people gobble sausages and (meat) burgers which are highly processed, but don't extend the same courtesy to a plant based alternative. And I really don't get why eating meat is such a thing for men. From the linked Vox article:

Making products that are delicious, widely available, easy to cook, and as close as possible in price to animal meat are just the minimum bar plant-based meat companies must meet. Beyond, Impossible, and some of their peers have made strides on all these fronts over the past decade. But to really put a dent in meat sales, they — and their allies in the animal protection, public health, and environmental sustainability movements — will need to redeem plant-based meat in consumers’ eyes and clarify what they really are: moderately processed foods with similar or better nutrition to conventional meat, and with a far lighter environmental footprint that doesn’t require the confinement and slaughter of animals.

Plant-based meat has been relentlessly — and unfairly — attacked as “ultra-processed.” Can the industry save itself?

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are placing big, divergent bets on the future of meat. Who will win?