Beyond Meat’s New Product Isn't Trying To Replicate Meat

Beyond Meat has launched a new product that it describes as a “first-of-its-kind innovation.”

The Beyond Sun Sausage is made from plant ingredients like fava beans, yellow peas, avocado oil, brown rice, and red lentils. The sausages are available in three flavors – Pesto, Cajun, and Pineapple Jalapeño.

A Beyond Meat spokesperson told Plant Based News that it made the sausages in response to increasing demand for “diverse and clean protein sources for various meals, occasions, and lifestyles.”

“For Beyond Sun Sausage, we wanted to offer consumers something new and unique, without being constrained to trying to mimic beef, pork or poultry,” they added.

Beyond Meat, which was established in Los Angeles in 2009, is a plant-based company that’s best known for its vegan meat products. Since its inception, it’s specialized in alternatives to meats made from chickens, pigs, and cows. These have always been made to replicate the meat as much as possible, targeting vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians looking to reduce their meat consumption.

‘Ultra-processed’ meat falls out of favor

A table featuring healthier Beyond Meat burgers made from avocado oil — Beyond Meat Beyond Meat is increasingly favoring healthier ingredients

In the last couple of years, however, Beyond Meat, as well as the vegan meat sector in general, has come under fire for producing “ultra-processed” products. The mainstream media launched an attack on the industry, with articles claiming that vegans are unhealthy because of these products. One even argued that vegans were “slowly killing themselves” with plant-based meat.

A number of studies have disputed such claims. A major review published last year, for example, found that plant-based meat did not appear to be associated with disease risk like processed animal meat is. It’s also worth noting that plant-based meats don’t tend to make up a significant proportion of the average vegans’ diet, as the media often implies they do. Vegan meat alternatives aren’t intended to be healthy foods, and many people just eat them on occasion. Nevertheless, the media onslaught against plant-based meat is giving it an increasingly negative reputation among the public. This means that a growing number of people are seeking alternatives made with whole foods, rather than highly processed ingredients.

Earlier this year, Beyond Meat announced a major shake-up to its Beyond Burger and Beyond Beef products. The company rebranded the products as “Beyond IV” and put them in green packaging. They feature avocado oil in place of canola and coconut oils, and “simpler” ingredients were used to make them.

The new Sun Sausages, which are launching at Sprouts Farmers Market stores across the US, are the latest product to showcase Beyond’s shift towards a healthier market.