California food tech Impossible Foods has announced a new Beef Lite product with a lower saturated and total fat content that cooks like 90/10 lean beef from cows.

US plant-based meat company Impossible Foods has expanded its plant-based product portfolio with the launch of a new product dubbed Beef Lite, a leaner and less fatty version of their vegan-friendly Impossible Beef mince.

Beef Lite has been created to be “better than lean ground beef” according to the company. The product features 21 grams of protein per serving and no trans fats or cholesterol. Compared to 90/10 lean ground beef, it has 75% less saturated fat and 45% less total fat. In addition the company called out Beef Lite’s sodium content as 33% lower than plant-based beef product from an undisclosed competitor.

The company says Beef Lite can be used in the same cooking applications that consumers use beef for including tacos, lasagna, meatballs and stir-frieds and describes the product’s environmental footprint as being “a fraction of the land use, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions” of that of lean ground beef from cows. In addition, Beef Lite does not contain any hormones or antibiotics, both of which are uses heavily by the industrial livestock industry.

Beef Lite remains a more expensive option than lean beef from cows. A 12-ounce pack of Beef Lite retails for $8.99, which is approx. $11.98 per pound. This is compared to $5.64 for a pound of Walmart’s All Natural 90/10 Ground Beef Sirloin and $5.98 for a pound of Marketside Butcher Grass-Fed 90/10 Ground Beef (also sold on Walmart’s website).

“We’re constantly working to compete with beef in all of the ways that matter to consumers, including nutrition,” said Peter McGuinness, president and CEO of Impossible Foods. “A lot of health-conscious fans and shoppers are looking for a plant-based beef option that’s high in protein and nutrients with even less fat, and Impossible Beef Lite is our solution to that. It’s got 21 grams of high-quality protein, a whopping 75% less saturated fat than lean ground beef from cows, and of course no cholesterol. It’s a perfect plant-based way to customize all of the great recipes that call for lean animal ground beef.”

The is the fourth new Impossible product announced in 2023, with the news coming just a few weeks after the company debuted three new plant-based chicken products including Impossible Spicy Chicken Nuggets, Impossible Spicy Chicken Patties, and Impossible Chicken Tenders. In 2022, Impossible added sausage links, animal-shaped chicken nuggets, chicken patties and a range of eight ready-meal bowls.

Impossible products are available at over 30,000 grocery stores across the US. Beef Lite is being rolled out at select stores in the fresh meat aisle and will add more locations over the next weeks.

According to the company, Impossible is the fastest-growing plant-based meat brand in US retail with over 50% in sales growth in 2022, and its flagship Impossible Beef product is the the best selling-retail plant-based meat product in the US by volumes and dollar sales. The company has worked to improve taste, texture and the nutrition profile of its meat-free beef since its launch in 2016, updating the recipe both in 2019 and in 2022, when it reduced saturated fat content by 25%.

In a wide-ranging interview with TIME last month about the media controversy around plant-based meat in the US, McGuinness said that Impossible’s nutritional profile was a key driver for consumers of the brand: “It is zero trans fat, zero cholesterol. So you’re eating zero-cholesterol beef. No matter who you are—you’re crazy educated, you’re less educated, you’re rich, you’re less rich, you’re in the middle of the country, you’re on the coast—I don’t think people love cholesterol. So cholesterol-free meat that tastes damn good? Sounds pretty good to me.”

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Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown spoke to analysts during an earnings call with confidence and optimism for 2023, promising to better market the health profile of its products, improve the taste of one of its “core platforms” and lower prices.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that the company had a rough 2022 but after releasing better-than-expected results thanks to improved gross margins, Beyond may be turning a corner.

“As we navigate current conditions, we remain intently focused on positioning Beyond Meat to capture the vast opportunity to be a major protein provider in the $1.4 trillion meat industry and play a leadership role in transitioning global consumers to delicious plant-based meats in support of critically important health, climate, environmental, and animal welfare objectives”, Brown said in a statement.

BYND performance in numbers

In its latest earning reports, Beyond shared that fourth-quarter revenues are down 20.6% year on year, with net revenues at $79.9 million. While revenues are down 9.8% at $418.9 million for the full year of 2022 aswell, with net losses at $366.1 million, annual performance met the earnings expectations range of $400 to $425 million set by the company last October.

The stock may still be a ways off its May 2019 IPO price of $25, the BYND stock has rallied of late, closing at $18.77 yesterday (February 27) from a low of $11.82 in November.

In a bid to strengthen the company’s position, Brown outlined a strategy that looks to reduce operational expenses and improve margins. The company reduced its headcount by close to 20% this past October, is decreasing some marketing efforts and focusing on more targeted campaigns for key demographics, is lowering the number of co-packers it works with in North America from 8 to 3 and says it is reducing its inventory by 17%.

From growth above all to long-term sustainability

Brown told analysts that he believes the changes the company has made to transition from an “operating model that prioritizes growth above all” to a  “sustainable long-term growth” model are working. “We have confidence that the efforts properly done will over time generate outsized gains,” he said. “We are demonstrating clear and meaningful early progress.”

Brown spoke about the work the company continues to do to decrease product pricing: “As our volumes increase and we start to take advantage of some of the manufacturing improvements we’ve made and start to get to some of the lower-cost ingredients that we’ve been able to negotiate, you’ll start to see a more sustained, lower cost product.”

On the subject of cashflow CFO Lubi Kutua kept things open-ended, saying the company would go out for funding “if it makes sense for us to do some sort of a raise and put more of a buffer on the balance sheet” adding that the company says it plans to be cash flow positive by the second half of the year.

“Skeptics, rarely, if ever, make progress happen”

Concerns around the future of the US plant-based meat industry can feel like misinformed media hype, with Beyond competitor Impossible Foods experiencing strong growth and markets like Asia showing steady and long-term potential.

Seth Goldman, founder of Honest Tea and Chairman of the Board at Beyond shared his thoughts on the company’s evolution to date and commented on its naysayers in a social media post today, writing: “As with any disruptive idea, there will be skeptics. It’s easy to second-guess the innovator – and since most start-ups don’t work out, skeptics often get to claim they were right. But skeptics rarely, if ever, make progress happen, and we certainly can’t rely on them to reinvent our grossly distorted food system. As BYND continues to make advances, such as Beyond Steak, it becomes easier to envision a day when our grandchildren will find it hard to believe our diets were centered around a system that relied on the misery and slaughter of billions of sentient creatures – animals that have as much personality and desire to live as the dogs and cats we welcome into our homes.”

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Amidst record sales growth, Impossible Foods has grown its ‘meat made from plants’ range with three new retail plant-based chicken products while additional layoffs confirmed.

California food tech Impossible Foods has expanded its plant-based chicken offerings with the launch of three new products namely Impossible Spicy Chicken Nuggets, Impossible Spicy Chicken Patties, and Impossible Chicken Tenders that will be available in the frozen aisle at select retailers, with national availability coming in the next few months. 

These new additions add to their existing selection of plant-based beef, pork and sausage, as well as the chicken nuggets they launched back in 2021 and the Wild Nuggies aimed at children that come in various endangered animal shapes. Impossible tested a chicken patty format last year when it tested them at Burger King US at select locations in Ohio.

The plant-based chicken space is becoming increasingly busy. Competitor Beyond Meat debuted its plant-based chicken tenders in 2021 and launched them at retailers last year. Newer entrant TiNDLE announced a new line of retail products including plant-based chicken patties, nuggets, tenders, popcorn chicken and wings in Germany and says it will debut them in the US later this year. Other popular brands in North America include Daring Foods, Nuggs, Quorn, Alpha Foods, Vegan Fried Chick*n (VFC) and Gardein.

The Impossible difference

In a press release, the company cited the results of a blind consumer test that showed their nuggets outperformed those of a leading animal chicken brand 3-to-1, with participants ranking them higher on flavor, texture and overall appearance.

“Our chicken products caught on fast with consumers, and they’ve served as a successful entry-point to our brand,” said newly appointed Chief Demand Officer Sherene Jagla. “In retail, our original nuggets are leading the plant-based chicken category in dollar sales, and in food service, consumers prefer them to animal chicken nuggets. We’re excited to expand on the platform’s success, and we expect this category to continue to be valuable for our brand.”

Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 by Stanford scientist Pat Brown with a mission to help end industrial animal agriculture by creating meat from plants. The company’s signature Impossible Burger made headlines across the world when it was first unveiled in 2016. According to a lifecycle analysis published on the company’s website, Impossible chicken products use “44% less water, 49% less land, and emit 36% less greenhouse gas emissions than their animal counterparts.”

Media backlash amidst ‘record sales’

The plant-based meat industry has faced strong media backlash and flat sales of late, but Impossible has repeatedly said it is on a growth trajectory, with retail sales up 55% year on year. When asked if the growth included food service and other business verticals, a company spokesperson told Green Queen the company was doing across the board.

Impossible Foods said in a statement it has “achieved record sales in 2022” and is the “fastest growing plant-based meat brand in US retail stores” with its plant-based beef product described as “the best-selling product by volume of any plant-based meat brand in the US”.

In an interview with TIME magazine, CEO Peter McGuinness said that the plant-based category was in its earliest days and critiques were one-sided, commenting, “You have a $7 to $8 billion global category of plant-based meat that’s been around for 20 years, and it’s a fad?”

He added that the category is still relatively unknown by the average consumer “I believe it’s yet to be built and created” and has plenty of room to expand. “Right now, we have 17% awareness. So 83% of the country’s never even heard of us. We have 5% household penetration; 95% of the country hasn’t even tried us yet, and we’re still growing at those growth rates”.

The company’s products are stocked at over 30,000 grocery stores and used in over 45,000 food service locations across the US, and the brand has entered 8 different countries and territories worldwide including Australia, the UK, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

More layoffs announced

Like many Bay area companies, particularly in the tech sector, the company has announced layoffs, first in October, when it confirmed a 6% reduction in staff, and earlier this week, with Food Dive reporting the company had cut 132 jobs including engineers, researchers and scientists, citing filings made with the California Employment Development Department.

When asked if the job cuts would impact Impossible’s near-term R&D plans, a company spokesperson told Green Queen: “We took steps last week to position our business for sustainable, balanced growth over the long term by bringing our costs more in line with our revenue, which includes reducing our workforce. We remain very confident in the strength of our business and our future growth, and we’re grateful to all of the talented, dedicated employees who have contributed to our mission”.

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