Ethan Brown Bashes Vegans at the Vegan Women Summit

Beyond Meat CEO still does not understand meat politics

Inexplicably keynoting the recent Vegan Women Summit, Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown sounded like a wounded child. Despite numerous accounts of the company’s failure to execute on his (very long) watch, Brown decided to use an event ostensibly about celebrating women to bash everyone from vegans to the meat lobby.

According to Adweek, Brown said “hard-core vegans” need to stop “attacking us” by saying “You can only have legumes, you can’t have plant-based meat because it’s quite processed”. He claims this is “harming the entire movement to transition meat away from animals if you keep saying that.”

First of all, most vegans don’t say such things. Sure, some whole food proponents do, but so what? How is that harming your business model? Should all vegans now check in with Ethan Brown before declaring our personal opinions on how to eat?

Brown also claimed such vegans are making for “strange bedfellows” with the “merchants of doubt” of the meat lobby who he declared are “out in full force—they’re selling fear, they are putting out propaganda that is designed to scare consumers away from making this change. It’s insidious.”

We have heard this argument ad nauseum and it’s ridiculous. It’s certainly true that the meat lobby has hired notorious PR shills who have placed a few ads here and there to criticize the likes of Beyond Meat. But what did you expect when you decided to take on a trillion dollar industry? That they would welcome you with open arms? You should take such backlash as a welcome sign that you are doing something right by threatening a massive incumbent industry. You should certainly not moan about it.

Adweek also reported on apparent talks among a few plant-based meat brands to form a “coalition” to provide a “united front” with a counter-ad campaign akin to the ubiquitous “got milk” ads. (Adweek first reported on this last August so it has not gotten very far.)

When I formed the Plant Based Foods Association in 2015, the idea was obviously to create a united front and I am proud to have accomplished that. (What has happened since I left at the end of 2020 I cannot say.)

In those early years, Brown would occasionally raise this idea with me: to create an ad campaign to compete with the animal ag industries. I would try to explain to him that this was simply not feasible, for many reasons. Now, all these years later, Brown is still stuck on this crazy dream he thinks will save his sinking ship.

Let’s review what these meat, egg, and dairy promotional programs are all about. They are called “checkoff programs” in policy parlance, and are the products of federally-mandated fees that every member of that particular industry sector is forced to pay. The money is collected into a fund that the U.S. Department of Agriculture administers for the purpose of promoting that commodity.

On what planet does Brown imagine something similar happening for the tiny plant-based foods sector? Even the much larger organic food industry tried and failed to implement a mandatory check-off program. Guess why? Turns out not every company is on board with the federal government telling them how to spend their limited cash. Moreover, smaller producers hate checkoff programs because they benefit the larger players and tend to promote the worst agricultural practices.

Moreover, the various plant-based meat companies have very different marketing messages, so I cannot imagine them coming together to agree on the messaging Ethan Brown says they should promote. They are far too worried about maintaining their few inches of shelf space in retail stores to help boost Beyond Meat’s stock price.

Now let’s turn to cold hard numbers. Even if Brown were to create a voluntary fund for his fantasy ad campaign without the need for government involvement, the spend would never come close to his meat rivals. Looking at just the beef checkoff program alone, the 2024 budget is $42 million. The pork checkoff budget is $75 million.

So just looking at the two parallel types of meat that Beyond Meat sells - beef and pork, we are looking at a combined budget of about $117 million. Good luck with that.

So stop your whining Ethan Brown, and focus on your own company. Neither bashing vegans who want to eat lentils nor beating up the big bad meat lobby will save you.

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