Beyond Meat says being attacked made them stronger

Do you think they are still doing a good job?

I do. I think they changed the narrative. I think they took something that was threatening to them and labeled it in a negative way. And I think people believe it, so I think it’s been effective. Yes.

I’m in the UK, where the McPlant burger, with a Beyond patty, has been available for a couple of years at McDonald’s. How was it stopped in the United States?

Yes. (Pause.)

Without commenting specifically on McDonald’s – which I don’t really want to do – think about the structure of the United States. You have Michigan, you have South Carolina and Tennessee as an auto industry, right? These three states, plus a few others, could be really strong in Washington, DC.

Now imagine that you had a lobby that existed in almost every state. Agricultural industry lobby, right? Animal protein lobby. They have such control over Washington. So we’re going to have a different environment here in the United States in terms of being able to communicate directly with the consumer. In general, we tend to do better with the consumer in Europe than we do in the United States.

Speaking of Washington, RFK Jr. is Trump’s running mate Secretary of Health and Human Services. It’s pretty against processed foods. How does Beyond fit into the Make America Healthy Again agenda?

Honestly, it should be at the forefront, and there are two things that actually interest me about some of the viewpoints I’m hearing.

First, you know Nova system? This has led to plant-based meats being included in the category of processed foods. And this doesn’t happen from the Sermon on the Mount or anything like that, it’s just a group of people putting the characterization together. We do not belong to this party. We don’t want to be there. We are food that goes through a series of steps to reach the result, but it is a better process than the one people experience when they consume factory-produced meat.

If you look at the benefits to the human body and the environment, it’s a solid win. I believe we can bring that distinction to this administration.

The second piece is something from earlier in Kennedy’s career, which is the concept of restoring nature. Our ability to enable rewilding of a large proportion of the global landscape is unparalleled. The only statistic you should pay attention to is that the land used to produce our products is 93 percent less than the land used in animal protein production. You can use that land, so not only are you removing the methane, but you can also use the remaining land to rewild and take carbon out of the atmosphere.

Have you contacted RFK Jr.?

Not yet, but I expect so.