Morning All,

Before I dive into my note, I invite you to give the stories of our 2025 Climate Feed Fellows a read- each is excellent and features world-class reporting. So proud c. Also, don’t miss my take on MrBeast’s cultivated meat video.

This week, I want to talk more about Beyond Meat’s pivot to protein drinks, Beyond Immerse, a line of sparkling, fruit‑flavoured beverages with 10g or 20g pea protein, 7g fibre, electrolytes and 60–100 calories per 12oz can. The drinks, in flavors like Peach Mango and Lemon Lime, target gut health, muscle support and hydration.

It’s a bold, if eyebrow‑raising, move from a company that’s been bleeding cash and market share. Launched exclusively via their new Beyond Test Kitchen DTC site for a limited time, it’s the first non‑meat product in Beyond’s 17‑year history. While initial DTC sales data isn’t public, CEO Ethan Brown framed it as a low‑risk test to “gauge consumer response closely” amid 20% revenue drops in 2025’s first three quarters and the stock trading below $1.

Beyond Meat was founded in 2009 to create plant-based meats that mirror the taste, texture, and cooking experience of animal meat. The company’s core purpose was to drive a positive, systemic shift from animal to plant-based protein to address four critical areas: human health, climate change, natural resource conservation, and animal welfare. I’m not sure where sparkling protein drinks fit into this. When I first saw the news, I wondered if Beyond had lost the plot somehow. Has the company reached the stage where it is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Below, some of my ponderings.

Do customers want a drink product from Beyond? The short answer: probably not. Beyond’s core audience, aka flexitarian meat reducers, urban millennials and health‑conscious QSR shoppers, hasn’t historically overlapped much with the functional beverage crowd (think Prime, Celsius or Olipop drinkers). Social media reactions to the launch have ranged from confusion (“Beyond who?”) to mockery (“April Fools?”). If anything, I would argue the move dilutes brand equity.

Do consumers trust plant‑based meat brands on wellness? Beyond’s reputation is tied to meat mimicry, not clean nutrition. The brand has gotten caught in the UPF media wars (if anything, it’s the poster child for anti-plant-based-meat folks who argue these products are overly processed), and its long ingredient list/processed image has lingered, even as it’s cleaned up its formulas. Beyond’s sparkling pea protein with tapioca fibre feels almost gimmicky, especially at a premium price point that hasn’t proven very successful for their alt meats.

What’s the WHY? Brown has greenlit a range of new products in the past 24 months, and none has become a best-seller. Given how much the plant-based meat category is struggling, one could argue that chasing beverage trends risks commoditisation without a moat. That said, the functional beverage market is exploding ($10billion in 2025 sales for US protein drinks alone), so it’s not an entirely undefensible move. But does Beyond have the marketing and distribution chops to make this a success? Can the brand gain protein drink consumers’ trust? And should Brown be doubling down on its core CPG alt meat range and B2B offerings (blended meat/McDonald's) to drive stable revenue growth rather than distracting the market with fizzy experiments? Time will tell.

-Sonalie

💡 Only On Green Queen

😎 Deep Dive: Is MrBeast’s Cultivated Chicken Tasting Alt Protein’s Cultural Breakout Moment?
The world’s most followed influencer just tasted chicken made from cells on camera, giving cultivated meat the kind of “MrBeast moment” that could reshape how millions of young consumers think about the future of protein.

👭🏻 ‘Women Aren’t Just One Blanket Use Case’: Helaina is Flipping the Script for Female Wellness
Most of our nutrition toolkit was never designed around female biology, says New York startup Helaina, which ferments microbes to create breast milk proteins for a new dawn for women’s wellness.

🍄‍🟫 Industry Insights: How The Protein Brewery is Eyeing the Longevity Space with Mycoprotein Bioactives
Can fungi help humans live better and longer? Dutch mycoprotein startup The Protein Brewery is hoping to do just that by promoting multiple pathways of healthy ageing.

🥩 Op-Ed: British Supermarkets’ New GLP-1 Ranges Miss the Mark by Centring on Meat
Sara Ayech, UK director for Madre Brava, believes retailers in the UK have faltered by focusing on animal proteins in their new GLP-1 product lines.

🏆 2025 Climate Feed Fellows Reporting

Editor’s Note: We are thrilled to share the first three stories by our 2025 Climate Feed Fellows, featuring outstanding reporting at the intersection of food and climate.

🥣 No Veg On the Menu: Rethinking Lesotho’s Breakfast Culture in a Warming World
Dorcas (Molula) Mofosi explains how, in a warming world, a cold colonial legacy persists on Lesotho’s breakfast plates.

🇰🇪 Climate-Smart Food: Can Kenya’s Forgotten Indigenous Crops Save The Planet?
Eric Kasina dives into the actions Kenya must take to transform its vulnerable agricultural sector into a scalable blueprint for global climate resilience and public health.

🇨🇭Protein, Pulses & Policy: Is Switzerland Safeguarding Its Future Food Security?
Anne Jomard argues that Switzerland’s transition to a future-ready food system is being undermined by deeply entrenched government policies and subsidies that favour traditional meat and dairy. 

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇩🇪 German cultivated protein startup Innocent Meat raised €6 million ($7 million) to scale up and obtain regulatory approval for its products, which it is aiming to bring to market in 2028.
💡Alongside growth factors for cultivated meat and regenerative medicine applications, Innocent Meat has developed a “plug-and-produce” production system designed for meat producers to gradually replace their animal proteins.

🇩🇰 Denmark’s Octarine Bio secured €5 million ($5.8 million) to launch precision-fermented pigments for food, textiles, and personal care this year.
💡Last year, the FDA announced a ban on Red Dye No. 3, a petroleum-derived hue shown to be carcinogenic in rats. And Big Food has since followed suit, creating a significant potential market.

🧫 US cultivated meat pioneer Upside Foods is branching out its cell culture expertise by launching a new division targeting the life sciences sector, called Lucius Labs.
💡This foray into life sciences is likely a way for Upside Foods to generate revenue in the near term, not least since it hasn’t sold any products since hitting pause on its restaurant plans in 2024.

🤝🏼 Swiss startup Planetary has signed a partnership framework with DCM Shriram Bioseeds (DBO), a publicly listed Indian agro-industrial player, to bring mycoprotein production to one of DBO’s sugar mills in India.
💡 Planetary is pursuing what it calls a decentralised, multi-location network of production sites for its proprietary fermentation platform, which it licenses to partners rather than owning and operating every facility itself.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🌱 Danone-owned plant-based brand Alpro is launching Meal to Go, a line of meal replacement drinks packed with protein and over two dozen micronutrients.

🚓 Arizona’s House of Representatives is deliberating over two new bills that aim to restrict the sale of cultivated meat, with one suggesting an 18-month prison term for violators.

🌱🍔  Future Food Quick Bites 

In our weekly column, Future Food Quick Bites, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers organic plant-based kids’ milk at Walmart, cellular aquaculture AI partnerships, a UK Veganuary record, and US foodservice welcomes new plant-based shrimp.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 Don’t Miss the 10th Edition of Future Food Asia!

🇬🇧 Future Food Asia marks its 10th edition in Singapore on 12th-13th May, bringing together the region’s agrifood leaders to drive real impact across food, bioeconomy, and sustainability through bold ideas, collaboration, and collective action. Learn more here.

📝 The team at FoodTech Weekly has manually vetted thousands of investors - names, geo focus, previous investments, ticket sizes, and much more - to create the AgriFoodTech Investor Database. Find out more here.

Bridge2Food Europe 2026 lands in Copenhagen 9th-11th June, uniting Course Europe and Summit Europe in one must-attend event for alternative protein leaders to connect, collaborate, and shape the future of the industry. Find out more here.