Beyond Meat's Marketing: Environment, Challenges, and Strategies

This case study analyzes Beyond Meat's marketing environment, challenges, and strategies. It explores the company's background, including its mission to revolutionize the meat industry with plant-based substitutes. The study identifies key challenges such as increased competition and changing consumer dietary preferences. It delves into the overall marketing environment, examining macroeconomic influences through a PESTLE framework, and discusses the company's goals, segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies. A competitive analysis highlights Beyond Meat's main competitors, while a SWOT analysis assesses its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The case study concludes with recommendations for global expansion and strategic initiatives to enhance market presence and consumer adoption of plant-based meat alternatives. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing and management of Beyond Meat
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary
The report was prepared to discuss and analyse the case study provided considering
the buying behaviours and intentions of people for the company named Beyond Meat. From
the topic, it was understood that the major challenges included the inability to make people
align towards consumption of meat based substitutes, because people mostly liked meat
based items much more than the veg food items. Due to this, the research was conducted to
analyse the marketing environment within which, the company operates and also the various
macro-economic factors contributing to the business functioning. The Strengths of the
company includes its healthy and environment friendly food items, which could promote
better health and wellbeing of the customers and even influence their buying behaviours
towards consumption of products consistently from Beyond Meat.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Company background................................................................................................................2
Present challenges faced by the organisation.............................................................................3
Discussions.................................................................................................................................3
Overall marketing environment.............................................................................................3
Impact of macroeconomic influences on Beyond Meat.........................................................4
Goals of the organization.......................................................................................................5
Segmentation, targeting and positioning................................................................................5
Competitive analysis..............................................................................................................6
SWOT analysis.......................................................................................................................6
Global expansion........................................................................................................................6
Conclusions................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The report is prepared to ensure analysis of the case study and ensure analysis of the
marketing environment as well as the various factors that have influenced the organisation to
achieve the business goals. The organisation chosen here is Beyond Meat, whose marketing
environment is analysed along with the analysis of competitive environment, SWOT analysis
is to be done and even the segmentation, targeting and positioning, because of which, the
company has aimed at expanding business locally as well as globally.
Company background
Beyond Meat has revolutionised the meat industry by producing plant based meat
substitutes that are required to meet the needs and preferences of the customers largely. It is a
Los Angeles based company, which has also set up in Canada and has offered plant based
meat substitutes for simulating the food items based on chicken, pork and beef
(Beyondmeat.com, 2020). The mission of Beyond Meat is to deliver mass market solutions
through replacement of animal based protein with the plant based protein as substitutes to the
animal meat. The consumption of meat plays a great role in the society and culture of United
States as well as Canada and thus chicken nuggets, hot dogs and barbeques are quite popular,
which has been a recurrent challenge for the company to evolve meat and bring some new
alternative to it, thereby, create change in customers’ behaviours too. Not only does the
introduction of plant based meat is essential, but also to make the people socially and
culturally fit for the consumption through adaptation would be needed and provide them
enough knowledge about the importance of nutritional content in it too (Beyondmeat.com,
2020). This would allow Beyond Meat to target the market segments easily and improve the
marketing efficiency too.

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Present challenges faced by the organisation
The present challenges that are being experienced by the company include increased
competition in the marketplace and dietary rends and concerns. It has been found that many a
customers have changed their behaviours towards consumption of meat based items and
prevented consuming vegetarian food items within very quick time. This has happened
because people stated the food items of Beyond Meat as highly processed, which might not
be healthy and thus the substitute products to meat based items might not be as healthier as
expected (Beyondmeat.com, 2020). Thus, the long term consumption has not been favoured
by people, which has taken a toll on the production as well as on the sales and revenue
generated by the company. Therefore, these are the challenges experienced by Beyond Meat
at present (Pirouz, Putros & Vimalathasan, 2018).
Discussions
Overall marketing environment
The marketing environment for Beyond Meat is huge and it tends to change with the
buying behaviours of consumers changing from time to time as well. The company operates
within the meat based industry, which also ensures targeting the different market segments
with different needs and preferences of the consumers as a whole. Based on survey, it has
been found that a large portion of market consisting of the customers believed in paying some
extra for the brands that support the wellbeing of the animals and make purchases of products
that are organic, free range or even grass fed meats (Beyondmeat.com, 2020). With the rising
health awareness among people and avoiding red meat consumption, Beyond Meat could
emerge as a successful business organisation aimed at marketing healthy meat based
substitute products and at the same time, analysed the changes in demographic conditions
too. To facilitate the buying behaviours among the customers, the company has turned the

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environmental benefits of avoidance from meat consumption into a major marketing tool or
technique for the products and services offered.
Impact of macroeconomic influences on Beyond Meat
Considering the recent trends, the consumers in large numbers have shifted from meat
based products’ consumption towards plant based products that act as meat substitutes. The
rising health awareness and consciousness have made people influenced to turn towards plat
based substitutes and expand the product category by changing itself from the traditional food
processing. Moreover, Barakat, Elgazzar and Hanafy, (2016) highlights that the products start
from the range of $25 to be delivered to the clients, which ensured influence on consumers’
buying behaviours too. The PESTLE framework helped to determine the political factors,
economic factors, social factors, technological, legal and environmental factors that
contributed to the influence on Beyond Meat. The economic factors, on the other hand,
include focus on balancing the needs and supply. The excess supplies might be a problem
when adhered to by a cost and this might increase the level of expenditures for the
organisation, furthermore affect the flow of cash within the organisation largely. The social
initiatives undertaken by the company could also help in the effective management of labour
divisions worldwide, furthermore, ensure proper human resource management too. According
to the perceptions of Oxelheim, (2019), the training sessions and programs could also be
beneficial for keeping the employees acknowledged about the resources and how those could
be managed to ensure smooth business functioning. Moreover, the technological
advancements could help the company to emphasize on the management of innovation and
creativity, furthermore, drive technological improvements by improving the business
management and functioning too. The environmental factors include focus on the social
responsibilities and also keeping the environment protected largely so as to ensure
maintenance of ecological balance in nature too. The protection of business through

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intellectual property rights and limitations through contracts have also influenced the
business functions and ensured that it could bring positive impact on the business and the
environment within which, it operates (DeSarbo, Blanchard & Atalay, 2017).
Goals of the organization
The goals and objectives of the organisation are to introduce plant based substitutes
for the meat based items and make food more sustainable and health friendly for the people
all over. Another major goal or objective of the company is to increase the sales in the
upcoming few years by using plant proteins for the production of various food items that act
as substitutes to the meat based products. This has been aimed at producing a final product
that should taste, look as well as feel like real meat (Beyondmeat.com, 2020).
Segmentation, targeting and positioning
The segmentation has been based on the way Beyond Meat has segmented the
marketplace into various market segments and understanding the different needs of people in
different market segments, which ensures fulfilment of their needs and preferences
effectively too. Moreover, the demographic segmentation could allow the company target the
people aged between 18 to 24 years of age and also the people aged over 30 years too. Due to
this, he younger clients would be ready to consume the meat based alternatives at a young
age, thus, raise the chances and ability of the company to ensure that more people start having
the meat based substitutes effectively too (Schlegelmilch, 2016). The positioning of the
products represent Beyond Meat to make the products available online as well as offline, i.e.,
at the retail stores, which could ensure better accessibility from the customers’ ends. The
company’s products could also be purchased online from the website managed by Beyond
Meat to ensure smooth business transition and steady flow of cash (Pirouz, Putros &
Vimalathasan, 2018).

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Competitive analysis
The competitive analysis should allow Beyond Meat to compare the prices of its own
products and the competitors, thereby, set the right prices for the products and services to
influence consumers’ buying behaviours largely (Jambulingam, Joshi & Kathuria, 2018). The
major competitors of the organisation are the Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats, Hungry
Planet, etc. Both these companies have also similarly worked on replicating the meat based
items and replaced those with plant based items as substitutes.
SWOT analysis
The most important strengths of the company are that all these food items are
environment friendly and because of this, the trend for plant based substitutes to the protein
based products has increased as well. Moreover, the research and development activities
further helped in enabling innovation and creativity. Liu and Tyagi, (2017) are of the view
that the products are non-GMO and soy free, which also ensured improvement of health and
wellbeing of people all over.
The weaknesses include presence of competitors, lack of knowledge and likings for
plant protein based items that act a substitutes to the meat based products. These weaknesses
have been overcome with the management of various scopes and opportunities required to
manage global business expansion while at the same time, promote healthy living and
wellbeing of individuals as well (Pirouz, Putros & Vimalathasan, 2018). The threats are based
on the emergence of new entrants, substitute products and presence of meat based products
which tend to be more popular among people rather than the plant based items (Gürel & Tat,
2017).

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Global expansion
The company should expand globally definitely, as it would create a better chance for
sustenance in the competitive business environment, while even allow the company to reach
out to newer market segments comprising of the customers. Moreover, Lasserre, (2017)
opines that this would also be beneficial for creating a major trend among the consumers
regarding adoption of healthy behaviours and consuming behaviours of people too.
According to Michael, Storey and Thomas (2017), this would result in higher revenue
generation and greater competitive advantage in business as well.
Conclusions
The report presented information about the marketing aspects of the organisation
named Beyond Meat and the objectives to become one of the largest meat based substitutes’
delivery companies while forming a new trend about consumption of meat based alternatives.
The segmentation, targeting and positioning helped in targeting multiple market segments
and targeted the right audiences to meet their needs and preferences effectively. Lastly, it was
concluded that the company needs to expand globally and gain competitive advantage too.
Recommendations
 It is recommended to manage global expansion for reaching out to the new market
segments and generate higher revenue
 The cost leadership strategy should be implemented to set the right prices for the
products and ensure that the people’s behaviours are influenced
 To deal with the challenge of the meat consumption trend that might have hindered
the consumption of these meat based substitutes, the company could aim at promoting
health campaigns so as to make people acknowledged and aware of the benefits of

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healthy consumption, thus, drive their behaviours towards healthy consumption of
meat based alternatives too
 It is also recommended to emphasize on the involvement of social media platforms to
create awareness and influence the buying behaviours largely as well
References
Barakat, M. R., Elgazzar, S. H., & Hanafy, K. M. (2016). Impact of macroeconomic variables
on stock markets: Evidence from emerging markets. International journal of
economics and finance, 8(1), 195-207.
Beyondmeat.com 2020. About us. Retrieved 19th March 2020 from
https://www.beyondmeat.com/
DeSarbo, W. S., Blanchard, S. J., & Atalay, A. S. (2017). A new spatial classification
methodology for simultaneous segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP
analysis) for marketing research. In Review of marketing research (pp. 95-123).
Routledge.
Gürel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International
Social Research, 10(51).
Jambulingam, T., Joshi, M. P., & Kathuria, R. (2018). COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS OF
CRM STRATEGIES USING ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS. Management
Dynamics, 18(1).
Lasserre, P. (2017). Global strategic management. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Liu, Y., & Tyagi, R. K. (2017). Outsourcing to convert fixed costs into variable costs: A
competitive analysis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), 252-264.

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Michael, S., Storey, D., & Thomas, H. (2017). Discovery and coordination in strategic
management and entrepreneurship. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new
mindset, 45-65.
Oxelheim, L. (2019). Optimal vs satisfactory transparency: The impact of global
macroeconomic fluctuations on corporate competitiveness. International Business
Review, 28(1), 190-206.
Pirouz, D., Putros, K., & Vimalathasan, V. (2018). Beyond Meat: Changing Consumers' Meat
Preference. Ivey Publishing. Retrieved from https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/W15607-PDF-
ENG
Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2016). Segmenting targeting and positioning in global markets.
In Global marketing strategy (pp. 63-82). Springer, Cham.