The Category Best Positioned to Deliver the Next Beyond Meat

The non-alcoholic beverage revolution is on the horizon, and it’s only a matter of time before it lands on your shore. Your doorstep.

Designed by RICKiRICKi

At 9:30 am on May 2nd, 2019 the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange rang, and thing’s got wild. May 2nd was the day that Los Angeles’s plant-based meat substitute producer Beyond Meat went public. Shares opened up 84% and by the end of the day, shares of Beyond Meat, now BYND, had traded hands 23,118,966 times.

84 Days Later, one share of Beyond Meat was worth $239.70.

Beyond Meat launched one of the most successful IPOs in history. It went public at a $1.5 billion valuation and less than three months later it was worth more than $13 billion, up 859% from its initial IPO price of $25 per share.

This surprised many people, and the few that took advantage were in the vegan, vegetarian, or in-the-know categories.

I was one of those vegans and vegetarians, though my intolerance for any type of risk stopped me from making the decision to invest.

I’m kicking myself. The same way Adam Grant did once Warby Parker blew up.

In hindsight, I was in the know and didn’t trust myself, the next time I will.

And the next time I’ll start the day off with a drink to celebrate what it will mean: That the non-alcoholic revolution will have arrived.

“Think of sober curiosity as a ‘wellness’ approach to (not) drinking alcohol.” — Ruby Warrington

Nearly a century before the term sober curious became a Wall Street Journal headline, American’s were rejecting alcohol. Through the decades, these decisions came with attached stigmas, but today they’re beginning to reach a mainstream normalization.

On the heels of plant-forward plates, has come equity for alcohol in the conversation of harmful substances, both socially and physically. Companies are even beginning to react to the hypocrisy of banishing one of the three leading causes of preventable death while inviting in another: Alcohol.