US – Beyond Meat, a leading Plant-based burger maker, has completed the acquisition of its Pennsylvania co-packer for US$14.5 million in an effort to reduce costs and have greater control to test new processes and more quickly scale up new products.
The transaction follows the acquisition of a manufacturing facility in the Netherlands in Q2 which beyond meat expects to bring online by the end of the year.
The company has also leased a facility in China, which will begin production in 2020 and is expected to reach full scale in 2021.
In addition to the Pennsylvania co-packer acquisition, which produces finished products, Beyond Meat operates two manufacturing plants in Columbia, Missouri, where the company extrudes the proteins for its burgers.
For the last two years, Beyond Meat’s major concern has been producing enough product to meet demand, and the above moves have been aimed at allaying that concern.
“Beyond meat has the supply contracts in place as well as the capacity now. So that when the economy does recover from COVID, we’re able to resume the higher levels of growth that we’ve seen in the past,” CEO Ethan Brown said.
In addition to its grocery business, Beyond Meat sells plant-based burgers, sausage and chicken through Burger King, KFC, Carl’s Junior, Dunkin’ and Del Taco, and reported to be the supplier for McDonald’s new McPlant line.
Now that Beyond Meat has a more robust global supply chain, optimization is starting to come into view.
According to Food Dive, directly controlling more of its supply chain isn’t simply an effort to keep up with growing demand but also to reduce unit costs.
The plant based meat company is reported to have planned from its inception to eventually price its product on par with conventional meat.
“The capability to produce a certain portion of our finished goods completely in-house is a key part of our longer-term strategy to reach price parity with that of animal protein,” Brown said.
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