Beyond Meat, the California-based meat substitute brand, will one day be a business school case study of failure. The company's CEO famously declared that his aim was to "to completely replace animals in the food system by 2035". What happened? Beyond has never made a profit in 12 years. Each $1 of product it sold in 2025 cost it $1.95 to make and it has $1 billion of losses on its balance sheet. Beyond is not alone. The plant-based dairy and meat substitute delusion sucked up $20 billion of investment capital only to detonate on contact with reality. Plant-based substitutes sales are sliding across the board. The biggest lesson may be not to allow ourselves to be fooled again by the fantasies of consulting firms and university researchers.Time: 20 minutes
26 Mar 2026
PepsiCo embraces (grass-fed) meat as animal protein powers on
No-one predicted that meat snacks would become one of the biggest and fastest-growing categories in the American supermarket, totally
aligned with the needs of the health-conscious consumer. Nor did anyone imagine that "grass-fed" would be one of the messages that some consumers would value most, alongside the word "protein". Demand for grass-fed is quietly growing. Sales of grass-fed beef in the US are measured in billions and were up 35% last year. So perhaps it's no surprise that PepsiCo is getting into the grass-fed beef snack business. OK, so at NNB we did in fact predict, back in 2020, that meat snacks would grow, so we're taking a lap for that one. But we didn't get the PepsiCo prediction.
Time: 14 minutes
5 Mar 2026
A "real foods" idea breaks out into Trader Joe's and CostCo
Long overlooked as a wacky concept that was only successful in Australia and China, A2 dairy is breaking out. A2 is showing up in mainstream supermarkets from LA to Barcelona, in foodservice and now in one of Nestlé's biggest brands in Asia. A2's "feel the benefit" effect for people who want digestive wellness, plus its heritage of "farming as it used to be" and its "real food" identity are a powerful combination which is driving change and 30% annual sales growth.Time: 12 minutes
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 9 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
7
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
30
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