Profile

Beyond Meat is a Los Angeles-based producer of plant-based meat substitutes founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. The company's initial products were launched in the United States in 2012. The company has products designed to emulate chicken, beef, and pork sausage. The company was founded as a California-based startup called Savage River Inc. by Ethan Brown in 2009. Brown initially contacted two University of Missouri professors, Fu-hung Hsieh and Harold Huff, who had already been refining their meatless protein for years. The duo spent nearly a decade in the University lab working different temperatures and pressures to get their mixture of soybean and pea proteins “as close to the look and feel of real chicken as possible.” It took them another five years to come up with a recipe for Beyond Meat’s first product, “Chicken-Free Strips,” which the company released to limited locations in 2012. The company has received venture funding from GreatPoint Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Obvious Corporation, Bill Gates, Biz Stone, the Humane Society and Tyson Foods. The company began selling its plant-based chicken products in Whole Foods supermarkets across the US in April 2013. In 2014, it developed a simulated beef product. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals named Beyond Meat as its company of the year for 2013.In 2014 Beyond Meat expanded its presence from 1,500 to 6,000 stores across the US.