Beyond Meat - which now sells its plant-based wares at 112,000 retail and foodservice outlets in 85 countries – first launched its frozen products at Walmart in 2015 and has since moved into the fresh meat case with the Beyond Burger and Beyond Sausage. It also sells its Beyond Breakfast Sausage patties in Walmart’s freezer aisle.
“Walmart has been a terrific partner and we’re excited to strengthen that partnership in depth and breadth as we look to offer more Beyond Meat products at more Walmart locations, furthering our commitment to increasing accessibility of plant-based meat,” said chief growth officer, Chuck Muth.
Beyond Meat Q2
While COVID-19 dented foodservice sales, Beyond Meat experienced a 194.9% surge in US retail sales in the second quarter, with strong gains in the club channel and surging sales of its Cookout Classic 10-burger frozen value packs, priced at a 20% premium to conventional beef patties (whereas its refrigerated 2-packs are almost twice the price).
“Though the Cookout Classic only reached stores in the last two weeks of the second quarter, it accounted for 16 points of the year-over-year volume growth in our US retail business,” said CEO Ethan Brown during the firm’s earnings call in early August.
More households are buying Beyond Meat products; average spend per household is increasing; and repeat rates – which at almost 50% are “well above the success threshold for consumer packaged goods” - are also rising, said the El Segundo, Calif.-based company – which posted a 69% rise in net revenues to $113.3m and a net loss* of $10.2m in the quarter ending June 27.
International expansion
In June, Beyond Meat acquired another facility in the Netherlands to support EU extrusion operations. The site – which will work in tandem with its Zandbergen co-manufacturing facility – should become operational by the end of the year and will allow for end-to-end production of Beyond Meat products in the EU, “resulting in greater efficiencies and again, lowering our company's environmental footprint,” added Brown.
In Asia, Beyond Meat’s Chinese subsidiary recently struck a deal with Jiaxing Economic & Technological Development Zone (JXEDZ) near Shanghai to design and develop two manufacturing facilities.
Trial production is expected to begin within months with full scale production in early 2021.
Register for our FREE webinar October 14: Plant-based meat in focus
Beyond Meat chief growth officer Chuck Muth will be speaking at FoodNavigator-USA’s FREE webinar on October 14: Plant-based meat in focus, where he will join David Lee from Impossible Foods, Darcey Macken from Planterra Foods (JBS), Dr Tyler Huggins from Meati Foods, and Dr David Welch from the Good Food Institute to discuss:
- What’s the size of addressable market for plant-based meat, and is there a ceiling?
- Why is plant-based meat more expensive than conventional meat, and when will we hit price parity?
- What have we learned about how and where to merchandise plant-based meat products?
- As the market becomes more saturated, how are brands differentiating themselves and what factors are shoppers considering beyond taste and price?
- Are plant-based meats healthier and if so, why?
- Is extrusion the only game in town, or are other emerging technologies to texturize proteins showing promise?
- What are the key technical challenges the industry still has to overcome? Fat encapsulation? Flavor delivery? Color performance during cooking?
- Protein sources: What new protein sources beyond soy, pea and wheat show promise? Where do mycelia fit in? And what about a new wave of proteins produced via microbial fermentation?
- Do you need a background in synthetic biology, data science, and AI to make a decent plant-based burger these days?
- The industry has thus far focused on ‘processed’ products: burgers, sausages, grounds, nuggets… are whole cuts coming next, and what technology will underpin them?
Register HERE for this FREE event, which is sponsored by Exberry (GNT), Givaudan, Firmenich and LycoRed.
