Plant-based meat, food technology, investments, environmental impact, nutrition and profitability: six years after the initial enthusiasm, the sector enters the phase of industrial selection

Author: Marco Arezio. Expert in circular economy, polymer recycling, and industrial processes. Founder of the rMIX platform.

Date: April 3, 2026. Article updated from a version originally published in May 2020.

Reading time: 12 minutes

From visionary startups to the industrial selection of alternative proteins

When this article was written in May 2020, the world of alternative proteins seemed to be experiencing an almost messianic phase. There were famous investors, visionary founders, products that promised to imitate meat in an increasingly credible way, and a powerful narrative: saving the planet without asking consumers to give up the pleasure of the bite, the juiciness, the "meaty" sensation. Six years later, the question is no longer whether this industry really exists. It exists, it's visible on shelves, it has built production capacity, it has attracted billions, and it has forced the conventional food industry to take it seriously. But today the real question is another: can it grow profitably, sustainably, and credibly?

The necessary update from 2020 lies precisely here. Back then, it was enough to demonstrate that a plant-based burger wasn't just a vegan curiosity. Today, something much more difficult must be demonstrated: that the product can be industrially scalable, organoleptically competitive, economically accessible, nutritionally defensible, and environmentally more efficient than conventional meat. In other words, the sector has moved beyond the manifesto phase and into the balance sheet phase.

Why Bill Gates, Google Ventures, and Blue Horizon Invested in Plant-Based Meat

Big capital hasn't arrived because it's fashionable, but because the problem it addresses is so enormous. The food system significantly impacts emissions and resource use: food production is responsible for approximately 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions, uses about half of the world's habitable land, and absorbs 70% of the world's freshwater withdrawals. Furthermore, over three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock and feed, despite providing a much lower share of calories and protein than the crops grown directly for human consumption. For investors, this means that any technology capable of removing even a portion of demand from intensive livestock farming has enormous economic potential.

Bill Gates was among the names that symbolized the sector's first major push. Reuters reported in 2019 that Beyond Meat went public with Gates among its investors, and that IPO was one of the most powerful images of plant-based proteins entering the mainstream financial arena.

On the Impossible Foods front, the Google-linked venture fund appears in GV's portfolio under the heading "Impossible Foods," while Impossible itself has listed among its investors Bill Gates, Google Ventures, Temasek, Khosla Ventures, and other prominent individuals. In 2021, the company reported having raised nearly $2 billion from the foundation, following a further $500 million round.

Blue Horizon, on the other hand, played a different but equally strategic role: it didn't limit itself to financing a single recipe or brand, but helped build an integrated model. In 2020, Blue Horizon announced the launch of LIVEKINDLY with an initial $200 million, presenting it as a company capable of covering the entire plant-based value chain. In 2021, LIVEKINDLY announced it had raised $535 million in its first year, and in 2025, it announced its first months of profitability.

The lesson, seen through the eyes of 2026, is clear: Gates, GV, and Blue Horizon weren't simply chasing an ethical trend, but a potential industrial reconfiguration of the global protein system. Sustainable business wasn't the backdrop to the story: it was the heart of the challenge.

Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and LIVEKINDLY: What Really Happened to the Protagonists

Beyond Meat had the historic merit of demonstrating that plant-based meat could enter the mainstream retail and restaurant markets. But 2025 also revealed the market's more challenging side: the company reported annual revenues of $275.5 million, down 15.6% from the previous year, with a gross margin of 2.8%, in addition to costs related to the cessation of operations in China. The issue isn't just Beyond's difficulty, but what this difficulty tells us: brand awareness and pioneering ability aren't enough if the product can't find a stable combination of price, volume, distribution, and repeat purchases.

Impossible Foods has followed a different trajectory. It hasn't opted for a public offering, but has continued to raise private capital and build a highly technological narrative, based on biochemical research, proprietary ingredients, and product line expansion. In 2024, it also strengthened its management structure by appointing a new CFO with explicit responsibility for financial performance, planning, and sustainable growth. This signals a sector that can no longer live on climate promises alone: industrial discipline is needed.

LIVEKINDLY represents the third path: not so much the product startup, but rather the industrial and brand platform. After the initial expansion phase, the group emphasized the need to restructure to address a more volatile plant-based market, and in 2025, it reported its first profitable months. This suggests that the future of the sector may not be dominated by just a couple of media superstars, but also by operators capable of consolidating brands, plants, supply chains, and private labels.

How next-generation veggie burgers work

One of the points that needs to be corrected and explored in the 2020 text concerns technology. There's no single way to imitate meat. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, while addressing the same consumer, have built products with different logics.

In its most recent formulations, Beyond Burger focuses primarily on pea and rice proteins, along with fats, flavors, and physical processes that recreate the burger's fibrous structure, juiciness, and cooking behavior. The company also emphasizes the absence of GMOs, soy, and gluten in some product lines and positions the burger as a protein food with less saturated fat than its 80/20 beef equivalent.

Impossible Foods, on the other hand, has built its identity around the theme of heme. Its soy leghemoglobin is produced through the fermentation of genetically modified yeasts that express the corresponding gene; the ingredient is then filtered and concentrated to contribute to the "meaty" flavor profile. The company also recalled that in 2018, the FDA issued a no-questions letter on the ingredient's safety and in 2019 approved its petition as a color additive in the intended applications.

This step is crucial because it explains how the industry has moved beyond the simple "red-colored veggie burger" phase to enter a phase of advanced food engineering, where protein structure, fats, flavors, fermentation, micronutrients, and thermal behavior are designed to resemble the experience of animal meat. The product is no longer just an ethical substitute: it is a food technology platform.

How much is the global alternative protein market worth today?

A distinction that was less obvious in 2020 is needed here. When reading large numbers about plant-based foods, they're often referring not just to burgers or plant-based meats, but to the entire universe of milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, eggs, meat, and alternative products. According to the Good Food Institute, global retail sales of plant-based categories combined reached $28.6 billion in 2024, while the overall U.S. retail market for plant-based foods was worth $8.1 billion.

But plant-based meat, taken alone, is still a relatively small fraction of the meat industry. According to GFI, in 2024, the plant-based meat and seafood category in the United States was worth approximately $1.2 billion at retail, with a 1.7% share of packaged meat by value and approximately 0.8% of the entire meat category, including variable-weight products. The interesting data isn't so much the smallness itself, but the double truth it contains: the sector isn't insignificant, but it's nowhere near having significantly affected the conventional market.

On the investment side, 2025 confirmed a marked normalization. GFI estimates that the entire alternative protein industry raised $881 million, including $450 million for plant-based companies, $357 million for fermentation, and $74 million for cultured meat and cultured seafood. These are significant numbers, but far from the euphoria of previous peaks. The capital is still there, but now it requires more concrete evidence.

Why trade growth hasn't been linear in the United States

One of the naivete of 2020 was believing that improved taste would automatically boost volumes and loyalty. The real market proved more complicated. GFI notes that after a decade of growth, the plant-based meat and seafood category in US retail has experienced three years of declines in both value and volume, although the pace of decline in 2024 was less severe than in 2023. In 2024, dollar sales fell 7% and units fell 11%, while the average price rose 4%, more than conventional.

There's also a very revealing statistic: in 2024, only 13% of US households purchased at least one product from this category, compared to 97% for conventional meat. This means that the sector has a strong cultural presence, but still has modest household penetration. It's a classic case of high media visibility and a still limited market share.

Another useful insight comes from the comparison with plant-based milk. In 2024, plant-based beverages accounted for 14% of milk market sales by value, far more than the share achieved by plant-based meat in its segment. This suggests that not all protein alternatives are equally easy to spread: replacing milk requires less cultural and sensory disruption than replacing a burger or sausage.

What is the real environmental advantage of plant-based meat compared to beef?

On the environmental front, the core of the 2020 thesis still holds up. Not in a propagandistic way, but in a substantial way. The literature continues to indicate that plant-based meat alternatives have, on average, a lower impact than beef and pork, while the comparison with chicken is more nuanced.

At the corporate level, Beyond Meat reported in its 2025 LCA study that the Beyond Burger IV, compared to an average US beef patty, requires 97% less land, 92% less water, and generates 88% fewer climate-altering emissions. These are corporate data, so they should be interpreted as estimates produced within a precise methodological framework; however, they are consistent with the direction indicated by independent research, even if the extent of the benefits varies based on formulation, energy used, packaging, logistics, and the chosen benchmark.

The key point is this: the environmental promise of plant-based products shouldn't be dismissed as marketing, but neither should it be accepted as a magic formula. It's robust, especially when it replaces emission-intensive beef; it becomes less spectacular if compared to less impactful animal-based supply chains or if the plant-based product is energy-intensive, heavily packaged, and logistically dispersed. Sustainability, in short, isn't a label: it's a system assessment.

Nutritional concerns about plant-based alternatives to meat

Even on the nutritional front, 2026 requires a less ideological interpretation. Plant-based alternatives are not automatically healthier than meat, but they are not, by definition, worse foods either. The systematic review published in 2024 highlights that meat alternatives tend to have lower total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, but higher carbohydrates, sugars, fiber, salt/sodium, iron, and calcium; they also generally contain more ingredients, additives, and allergens. The same review found no associations with adverse health outcomes.

Another recent review notes that many PBMAs are good sources of fiber, provide phytochemicals, have comparable levels of iron, and are often lower in calories, saturated fat, and cholesterol than meat. However, the profile depends greatly on the formulation and level of fortification.

The critical issue remains the overall quality of the product. A 2025 study of meat and sausage analogues found that many products were high in salt, only about 60% had good protein quality, and just 12% were fortified with key micronutrients such as vitamin B12 or iron. An analysis of the Belgian market adds that, compared to their animal counterparts, several plant-based products had less saturated fat and more fiber, but sometimes less bioavailable protein and more salt. In short, the protein transition works best when consumers don't just search for "meat-free" products, but also learn to understand recipes, salt, protein sources, fortifications, and the overall quality of their diet.

Price, taste, and repeat purchases: the real battle in the industry

If there's one key point that defines the transition from 2020 to 2026, it's this: taste isn't enough, sustainability isn't enough, brand awareness isn't enough. Perceived value is key. GFI notes that in 2024, plant-based meat prices in the United States increased again, albeit more moderately than previously, and more than their conventional counterparts. In an inflationary environment, this has weighed on the category.

For this reason, the future of the sector will depend not only on the ability to "imitate blood" or muscle fiber, but on the ability to produce large volumes at competitive costs, use less expensive ingredients, simplify formulations, improve textures, and increase repeat purchase rates. Plant-based meat must no longer be a one-time surprise; it must become a normal, repeated choice, compatible with the family budget and the habits of those who don't define themselves as vegetarian.

Beyond Meat, with its recent results, has shown how difficult it is to square this equation. LIVEKINDLY, with its emphasis on profitability and consolidation, shows another possible path. Impossible, with its emphasis on research and organizational capabilities, shows a third. There's no definitive winner yet, but there's a clear direction: the models that are simultaneously good, accessible, reliable, and industrially rigorous will survive.

The future of sustainable business: plant-based, fermentation, and public policy

In 2020, it seemed like the whole game would revolve around the plant-based burger. Today, it's clear the field is broader. GFI reports that in 2024, for the first time, public investments in fermentation exceeded those in plant-based proteins: $203 million versus $146 million. In the same report, the organization estimates approximately $510 million in new public commitments announced for alternative proteins and approximately $560 million in disbursements in 2024, still far below the theoretical amount needed to truly develop the sector on a global scale.

This tells us that the sustainable alternative protein business isn't dead, but is evolving. Plant-based meat remains the most visible and immediately marketable segment, but fermentation promises more sophisticated functional ingredients, flavors, fats, and proteins; meanwhile, cultured meat is advancing more slowly, with a still complex regulatory and industrial path. The result is that 2026 doesn't mark the definitive victory of plant-based, but rather the beginning of a multi-platform ecosystem.

The conclusion, therefore, is less spectacular but more solid than what we would have written in 2020. Bill Gates, Google Ventures, and Blue Horizon correctly saw a major issue: animal protein is no longer the only industrial way to meet the demand for meat. However, they had invested in a sector that had yet to discover how difficult it is to transform a good climate idea into a mass habit. Today, we know that plant-based meat wasn't a one-off. It has become a test case for understanding whether sustainability can truly enter the heart of the food industry, not as a slogan, but as a process, technology, and profitability.

FAQ

Is plant-based meat still a growth business?

Yes, but not with the linearity that many imagined in 2020. Global plant-based sales as a whole have grown, but in the United States, the plant-based meat category alone has seen a slowdown in recent years, with recent declines in units and value at retail.

Are Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods the same thing?

No. They operate in the same market, but with different approaches. Beyond focuses heavily on plant-based proteins like pea and rice and on physical structuring processes; Impossible has built its distinctive advantage around fermented soy leghemoglobin.

Are plant-based alternatives really more sustainable than meat?

Generally speaking, yes, especially when compared to beef. Research indicates lower environmental impacts, although the extent of the benefit varies depending on the recipe, logistics, packaging, and the basis of comparison.

Are they always healthier than meat?

Not always. Many products have less saturated fat and more fiber, but they may contain more salt, more ingredients, and less-than-optimal fortifications. Quality must be assessed on a product-by-product basis.

Why do big investors continue to care about it?

Because the food system is a huge environmental, industrial, and geopolitical issue, and alternative proteins represent a possible response on multiple fronts: emissions, land use, food security, manufacturing innovation, and new markets.

Sources

Beyond Meat, 2025 results and official financial data.

Reuters, Beyond Meat IPO and Bill Gates' presence among investors.

GV portfolio, presence of Impossible Foods.

Impossible Foods, funding round and list of investors.

Blue Horizon and LIVEKINDLY launch their platform and integrate their strategy.

LIVEKINDLY, 2021 collection and 2025 profitability announcement.

Good Food Institute, retail sales, market share, and investments 2024-2025.

Good Food Institute, public policy and global investment in alternative proteins.

Our World in Data: Environmental Impacts of the Global Food System.

Recent scientific reviews on the environmental impacts and nutritional profile of meat alternatives

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