Are Plant Based Businesses Good Investments?

“Where plant-based meat hasn’t cracked the code is repeat purchasing,” said investor Catha Groot, a partner at Radicle Impact.

**PhotoCredit goes to Daring Kourtney and Travis on IG. Your mom, everyone but me.**

“Plant-based dairy is much further ahead.” (This and other credits:Forbes Article 2022)

To try to stand out from the crowd, LA startup Daring Foods hired Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker to take photos of themselves eating the nuggets while wearing lingerie.

Sweet. I’m tempted to make a joke about fake people and fake meat but… that would just be mean and I kinda like Travis Barker. A F it, Fake people, eating fake meat?

Their photos and Instagram are legit so Daring has done a great job spending the Hedge Fund/VC cash to promote the brand and the bots at least like the chicken-less chicken foods

By the looks of the IG comment section their bots say that Daring Chicken-less Chicken Nuggets are their favorite and delish. (See above)

There were 1.2 million likes on Kardashian’s initial post and 5 million on a video Daring posted. Was it enough to boost sales?

In October of 2021, the Daring brand, based out of the glitzy metropolis of Los Angeles, raised a whopping $65 million in funding at a valuation of over $300 million, Investors like fund D1 Capital Partners, known for backing the likes of Instacart, as well as the electric DJ Steve Aoki and tennis sensation Naomi Osaka.

In total, Daring had managed to reel in an impressive $120 million. But, alas, less than a year later, the company finds itself floundering, struggling to keep its head above water."

Even Shaq, Lizzo and Jason Mamoa were on the Daring Foods fake chicken social endorsement list. Hot sauce makes everything better. <Do You Hear Me Switzerland Put some seasoning on your steak geezus. But I digress">

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My friend Mark is a literary agent for the likes of Eminem, 50 cent, Kevin Hart, Questlove.

More recently he’s repped Paul Saladino the ‘Carnivore MD’, Stephen Rinella ‘The MeatEater and yes- even the ultimate ‘Roid Machine Liver King.

I usually get advanced copies of these books and am thankful for them as an ardent Texas BBQ experimenter and two time Traeger Owner.

His 12 year old daughter gave me another book as a gift. “Fake Meat” Real Food for Vegan Appetites.

“No” I said.

She gave it to me anyways. 

At least the title is honest and it is a beautiful book. Will this convert me to the Church of Vegan? No, I don’t believe I’ll even make one thing out of this book.

While on a Delta flight in January I messaged Mark that one of the dishes on the flight was a Questlove “Meatless” Philly Cheesesteak.

Which… I would not be ordering. Is his client a Vegan?

No, he just invested in Fake Meat and needs to get a return on investment— which does not appear forthcoming.

Not science — but a data point for sure.

We won’t even get into the nutrition part of this rabbit hole.

Soy, seed oils, p-p-plastic?

I wonder- one thing is for sure actual chicken nuggets are pink meat slime and for sure have micro-plastics in them and are coated in a fried lard or seed oil batter. Just say no to this also kids. No dipping sauce can cover up these realities of your favorite lunch room + McDonalds Food.

Go buy yourself a 1/4 cow - which is now more expensive of course. Get a Traeger Grill and feed your family from the local farmers market or your own greenhouse/garden. Before they outlaw that and hoist Soylent on you.

Regular food? It’s had some rough times recently, sure. But it always deals with these cycles.

The bird flu has savaged chickens both layers (they give us eggs) and roasters (they give us something to roast or smoke) in the last year.

So maybe fake meat is an option?

No I think I will move to Italy.

If I have to. Twist my arm.

Or France. The French have the idea using small rich plates that satisfy you, have high quality but satiating flavors (reductions and such)

Food Startup Idea: Maybe the new food trend is French adapted to America favs. This would solve a lot of problems that Fake Meats and Cultural Marxism Veganism I don’t think actually does.

Do we need these fake meat foods? Are they better for us? I say ‘nyet comrade’

Are they more ethical? 

I’m not sure, don’t you have to kill all the voles, moles, rabbits in a field to make it all soy? All Quinoa? Kevin Costner in Yellowstone covered this with his daughter who was arrested protesting her own dad’s “evil mass animal farm” operation.

“You Ever Plow a Field Summer?” 

Ugh I might actually have to watch this show now. No Time

Needless to say not all VC backed adventures work out. That’s OK.

This space will see many consolidations and bankruptcies and there is a market there.

It is Something 79Million out of 335 Million Americans tried. They tried these products during the lockdown C’vid times. I’m curious if that was because it’s all that was left on the shelves during the grocery store raids of 2020/21

With repeat sales waning there will need to be fewer brands. For now entrepreneurs I believe do change the world. Sometimes they don’t.

Who knows maybe all the new kids will be eatin’ bugs. 

I could see that as a better trend than the TikTok Tide Pod one that ByteDance suspiciously boosted. Note: DO NOT EACH TIDE PODS OR OTHER BLEACH.

Try Bugs kids, cool kids gross each other out raising and eating their own crickets. Or beetles. Plus you can share food with your pet lizard. Maybe even your cat.

They can be tasty I hear; ++ High in bioavailable protein.

Most get ground into powder though and there is always the risk that the algae and the fields get kicked in the teeth the way chicken has this last year. But then what about the cool ick factor of eating the crunchy shell and eyes? Don’t miss out Tiktok on this trend. (Starts TikTok Account on Eating Bugs Before TikTok is Banned)

Nothing in startup land is a straight line.

Kudos to food-prenuers who took a crack. Now — and in the future. Some will, many will not. That is the Way of the Entrepreneur, particularly those venture backed.

While the e-commerce revolution has helped people with hard goods, many products in the hard goods or cosmetics or clothing space have gone direct to consumer. Food startups are mixed on this and typically play the grocer shelf space game.

Thats how this game works.

Like Daring Foods, there will be some cool packaged brands backed by well meaning paid celebs…. and some great Fake Meat cook books like I was gifted to come out of it.

For now dear conscious capitalists, be aware of the perils of an over estimated and overfunded market with too many competitors and too few grocery store shelves.

You do you, but also.. read the market and maybe bootstrap that food alternative at a bunch of farmers markets. Even with the VC or hedge cash, you’re still looking for a business that makes money and you can even exit from.

Many dreams will be dashed unfortunately in the great fake meat reckoning of 2023/24

Thats startup land! Learn from it and do something again.

Ok now in summary, and for your entertainment — I asked ChatGPT3 to rewrite this last part in the voice of Jack Kerouac:

"The game's changin', man. Investments in them food startups are goin' up in smoke. Ain't no one lookin' at Beyond Meat's stock price no more, it's fallen to a tenth of what it was.

All them tech investors throwin' money at the food tech market, valuin' them companies like they was tech firms, well, reality's catchin' up. Funds are now puttin' a price on these companies like they always shoulda been, which in many cases, cuts their value in half.

Dozens of these startups funded are gonna fail, go bankrupt or get bought out for their intellectual property.

Some already have, like Fora plant-based butter. Gonna be a shake-out, a consolidation, you hear me?

Quiet conversations goin' on between firms talkin' 'bout foldin' companies together to cut overhead and reduce burn. The game's changin'."