Fake meats Company's collapsing

Companies behind lab-cultured meat are now collapsing due to lower sales, mainly driven by a strong backlash against wokeism linked to the product.

A Feb. 1, 2023 op-ed by the Raw Egg Nationalist (REN) elaborated on the downsizing. He zeroed in on the issues of two fake meat companies – Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat – in his article.

Impossible Foods recently laid off 20 percent of its workforce, the third such wave of firings at the Redwood City, California-based company.

Bloomberg first broke the news of the layoffs, citing an unnamed source. According to the business news outlet, around 140 of the company’s 700 staff are set to be given the ax.

In spite of this, Impossible Foods claimed it is simply streamlining its business so it can continue to “hyper-grow.” But a number of key executives have left the company over the past year, and former CEO Pat Brown is on leave the spring. The company’s reins are now in the hands of incumbent Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness, who is focusing on debunking the public’s negative perceptions of the fake meat company.

Similar to Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat was forced to slash its workforce by almost 20 percent – affecting 200 employees. The layoffs came amid shares of the El Segundo, California-based company plunging by 75 percent in the first three quarters of 2022.

The fake meat company was also embroiled in a food safety scandal. In November 2022, a whistleblower at a Beyond Meat plant in Pennsylvania revealed photos of mold in and around food production and storage equipment. The whistleblower also presented documents that showed Beyond Meat products testing positive for the foodborne pathogen Listeria at least 11 times over the previous year.