Plant-Based meat substitutes have seen retail sales jump in recent months, partially making up for the losses that companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods were forced to swallow amid COVID-19’s shutdown of most restaurants across the US. Additionally, expansion continues in key foreign markets like China. However, all of this success attracts more competition and major food and beverage megacorps like JBS and Cargill are answering the call, creating new hurdles for smaller pure play operations.
Related Stock: Related Stock: Beyond Meat, Inc. (BYND)
Alt-meat producer Beyond Meat, which offers vegan versions of beef and sausage, has seen a strong uptick in retail sales in recent months.
Though Beyond’s restaurant sales dropped (due to the Coronavirus pandemic) from about $58 million Q4 2019 to about $23 million in Q1 2020, retail sales picked up the slack, rising 157% year over year to almost $50 million.
Overall retail sales for the plant-based meat sector have ballooned 265% in the eight weeks to mid-April in the US, according to Nielsen, compared with 39% for fresh meat. That bump should continue with the help of similar products coming to market.
Recently, one of Beyond’s top competitors, Impossible Foods, scaled up their production of impossible sausage. The company says demand has surged, and it has already expanded distribution to more than 20,000 locations. Now it will be available to all restaurants nationwide, and will be carried by major food distributors, including Sysco andUS Foods.
Impossible sausage made headlines last month when Starbucks announced that they’d be offering it as part of a new plant-based breakfast sandwich across the US this summer.
Alt-Meat Reaching out to Asia
The company is seizing on the retail kick by launching their products in China as well…
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