If you’re vegetarian, why do you want the uncanny valley version of meat? Be a vegetarian.
I have always thought that the target market for Beyond/Incredible/etc was not vegetarians, but rather partners of vegetarians. They don’t really want to give up meat but they want to support their partner and/or avoid conflict.
For some people, meat tastes good, but they want to reduce meat intake or remove it from their diet for health or environmental reasons. The status of 'be a vegetarian' is irrelevant to the material effect.
Apologies, I think I used "health" in a misleading way.
My intention was not to suggest meat substitutes are strictly better than meat for losing weight, or reducing heart disease, general public health advice (I am not qualified to even make those comments!).
The scope I was hoping to address was situations where an individual needs to replace meat for their specific dietary requirements. In this case, meat substitutes may be useful if, say, there is something in meat causing inflammation for the individual.
This is largely "what-if" though, and would probably require a doctor's consult to confirm.
As a vegetarian, I'm going to eat the vegetarian food I like, and that includes fake meat.
I've lived with dozens of other vegetarians, and I've heard the "I don't like fake meat" position a lot, but it's not a clear majority, and far from universal.
My grocery store sells five+ brands of fake chicken at this point, in addition to vegetarian burgers, fish, and sausage. There's very obviously a market.
The play was to be well positioned when the big meat brands (think McDonald's) eventually make the switch which they theorized will have to happen both because of climate change and because they'll have a cheaper, less resource intense substitute.
It's really the same play as any technology, the first generation jumps the gun and strikes too early given their ambitions.
But someone's gotta be the Yahoo! It's a necessary step in the path.
I have always thought that the target market for Beyond/Incredible/etc was not vegetarians, but rather partners of vegetarians. They don’t really want to give up meat but they want to support their partner and/or avoid conflict.