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. BeyondMeat had manyhigh- profile investors, including Bill Gates and Twitterco-founders Biz Stone and EvanWilliams.²

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.³

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?

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 reviews⁴,the taste and texture of Beyond Meat's products werealmost like thereal 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 theycontained

¹ This case has been written on the basis of published sources only.Consequently, the interpretation and perspectives presented in this case are not necessarily those of Beyond Meats or any of itsemployees.

² Brad Stone, "Venture Capital Sees Promise in Lab-Created Eco-Foods," Bloomberg Business, January 24, 2013, www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-01-24/venture-capital-sees-promise-in-lab-created-eco-foods, accessed January 25, 2015.

³ Farhad Manjoo, "Beyond Meat's Fake Chicken Tastes So Real That It Will Freak You Out," Slate, January 20, 2015, www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/beyond_meat_fake_chicken_that_tastes_so_real_it_will_freak_you_ out_.2.html, accessed January 25, 2015.

⁴ Brad Stone, op .cit.

reduced sodium, an important feature for the company'starget market of health-conscious people. The organization's strategy was also interesting: it pushed stores to stock its meat along the real meat counter insteadof with vegetarian options such as tofu. In an interview Sinlate, 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 rampedup to priceslower 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 technologicalchange⁵s.

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 everyday⁶.These chemicals played a huge part in developing illnesses such as Type2 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 sincethey contained many fatty acids, particularly omega 6, that when consumed in large amounts could cause depression or bipolar disorder.⁷Eating 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'slife: vegetarians had much lower incidences of heart diseases, cancers and other life-threatening illnesses.⁸The 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 2013⁹ .

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. ¹⁰ 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

⁵ Farhad Manjoo, "Beyond Meat's Fake Chicken Tastes So Real That It Will Freak You Out," Slate, January 20, 2015, www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/beyond_meat_fake_chicken_that_tastes_so_real_it_will_freak_you_ out_.2.html, accessed January 25, 2015.

⁶ Rachel Tepper, "Beyond Meat's Chicken-less Chicken Strips Aren't Fooling Anyone," The Huffington Post, January 20, 2015,www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/beyond-meats-chicken-strips_n_3094296.html, accessed January 25,2015.

⁷ Beyond Meat, "5 Surprising Health Benefits of Eating Less Meat,"http://beyondmeat.com/blog/view/5-surprising-health- benefits-of-eating-less-meat, accessed April 9, 2015.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Jane Black, "Beyond Meat," Fast Company, February 10, 2014,www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative- companies/2014/beyond-meat, accessed January 25, 2015.

¹⁰ Beyond Meat,http://beyondmeat.com/about, accessed April 9, 2015.

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.¹¹

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 newprototype,

the "Beast Burger." Being a producer of foods, its key competitors were Kraft Foods, Garden Protein International, Kellogg Company, Tofutti Brands and many others.¹²

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.¹³

The animal meat industry was worth approximately $177billiondollars, ¹⁴ and Brown hoped to take a chunk of that within 50 years by penetrating the market withmeat alternatives. ¹⁵ He performed a great marketing initiative when he went to a New YorkMets 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.¹⁶

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. salesof frozen meatsubstitutes in 2013 was $394 million dollars, an increase of 5 per cent over 2012sales.¹⁷

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'sproducts were priced higher than average chicken and beef products but were still lower than chicken strips and tenders made from realmeat.¹⁸

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. Could the company reach beyond this demographic to increase sales ofits products? Would thefood tastes of Americans change quickly enough to ensure that growing profits would attract moreinvestors?

These were the issues facing Beyond Meats in 2014.

1. What are the important problems confronting this firm? This includes anticipating problems before they occur so the firm can take steps to prevent them, as well as existing problems.

2. What information does the decision-maker have that may be the cause of, or is useful for addressing these problems?

3. What are the various solutions to these problems? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Is there a consumer behavior theory or concept that's relevant here?

4. Which solution should the decision-maker choose, and why is it better than the other solutions? How should the decision-maker implement this solution?