"I thought we had something special" - Beyond Meat to Starbucks Canada
What a plant-based player... When it comes to alt-meat, Starbucks is not monogamous. After linking up with Beyond Meat in Canada and China, Starbucks has moved on to Impossible Foods sausage in the US. The Impossible Breakfast Sandwich will be available at 15K Starbucks stores - and it's all about the mass exposure:
Impossible wants to be "basic"... It doesn't want to be viewed as a niche alternative. But it's running into the (vegan) chicken and egg problem: to get more meat eaters, Impossible has to lower prices to compete with cheaper regular meat — but to lower prices, it needs a large mass of regular meat eaters. So big new partnerships are key.
The road to mass appeal could be rocky... First, Impossible has a bigger rival: Beyond Meat has a publicly traded $9.4B market value, compared to Impossible's ~$2B private valuation. Second, big consumer brands like Kellogg, Kraft, and Nestle have money to churn out cheaper alt-meat competitors (which they're already doing). Impossible thinks its quality is way better, but it needs growth ASAP to compete. It's already a viable acquisition target for these bigger brands, and may even be open to it.