What’s Going On Here?Beyond Meat reported worse-than-expected results late last week, even as the plant-based brand desperately tries to convince foodies that it tastes just as good as the real thing. What Does This Mean?Beyond Meat makes more than half of its revenue from selling its beef-free burgers, pork-free sausages, and chicken-free chicken at US stores. But weak demand, higher discounts, and more competition from other plant-based brands all conspired to push the company’s US retail sales revenue down 20% last quarter from the same time in 2020. So it didn’t matter that it sold more internationally and to American restaurants: Beyond Meat’s overall revenue shrank by 1% last quarter. Worse still, supply chain hiccups and higher material and manufacturing costs caused the company’s losses to triple last quarter. Investors couldn’t stomach another bite: they sent its stock down more than 10%. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Is Beyond Meat a flash in the plant?
Beyond Meat’s outlook for 2022 missed expectations too, which is indicative of a wider issue: the growth of the plant-based meat market is slowing down fast. In fact, US sales of plant-based meat – which grew 46% in 2020 – fell 0.5% last year, according to data provider SPINS (tweet this). Maple Leaf Foods has a theory as to why: the owner of plant-based brand Lightlife thinks consumers might not actually like the taste of meat alternatives, and their lofty prices certainly don’t help them go down any easier.
Zooming out: Quick, someone get the quinoa.
There’s another – arguably more pressing – food problem in the world right now: Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of the global trade in wheat between them, as well as a fifth of corn sales. The recent conflict between the two countries, then, could threaten supplies of the grains, pushing up their costs and leading to a spike in already record-breaking global food prices. | 
