Beyond Meat says the attack just got stronger

Do you think they still do a good job?

I do. I think they changed the narrative. I think they took something that was a threat to them and characterized it in a negative way. And I think people believe it, so I think it was 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 did it get discontinued in the US?

Uhh. (pauses)

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

Now imagine having a lobby that is in almost every state. The ag industry lobby, right? The animal protein lobby. They have such a hold on Washington. So we’re going to have a different environment here in the United States in terms of the ability 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 nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. It is good against processed foods. How does Beyond fit into a Make America Healthy Again agenda?

Honestly, it should be at the forefront, and a couple of things really excite me about some of the views I’m hearing.

First, you know New system? It happened to include vegetable meat in the category of processed foods. That didn’t happen from the Sermon on the Mount or anything, it’s just a group of people putting a characterization. And we do not belong in that party. We don’t want to be here. We are a food that goes through a series of steps to reach a result, but it is a better process than what people experience when they consume factory farmed meat.

If you look at the benefits for the human body and the environment, it’s a strong win. My belief is that we can make this distinction in this administration.

The second piece is something that was early in Kennedy’s career, the concept of restoring nature. Our ability to enable the recovery of a significant percentage of the global landscape is unmatched. The only statistic that you should pay attention to is the 93 percent less land used in the creation of our products than animal protein. You can use that land, so not only do you capture the methane, but you can use the remaining land to replenish and remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Did you get to RFK Jr.?

Not yet, but I’m looking forward to it.