Plant-based meat giant Beyond Meat has filed for a trademark on the name Beyond Milk, indicating that the company could be prepping for a move into alternative milk category. Food Dive was first to report the news, writing that Beyond’s application with the US Patent and Trademark Office would cover “making milk shakes; coffee or tea beverages with milk or milk substitutes.”
That Beyond would add a plant-based milk to its lineup is not that much of a surprise. According to the most recent data from the Good Food Institute, the plant-based milk category is worth $2.5 billion and accounts for 35 percent of the total plant-based food market. So there is money to be made milking plants.
Of course, where there is money to be made, there is also competition. The alternative milk space is already crowded with a number of incumbent and up-and-coming players. Big companies like Danone, which owns the Silk soy milk brand, already line supermarket coolers. Oatly recently went public, bulking up its warchest to solidify and expand its market share. But potentially the most interesting competitor is Ripple, which makes a pea-based milk. While we don’t know anything about how Beyond would make a plant-based milk at this point, pea protein is one of the main ingredients in its popular burger. So Beyond leveraging what it knows about pea protein to formulate a new type of milk makes some sense.
Another competitor on the horizon could be Beyond’s plant-based burger rival, Impossible Foods, which revealed last October that it was developing its own plant-based milk. The two companies have to this point been lock step in announcing similar plant-based products including burgers, sausage and chicken. It looks like in the not-too-distant future we’ll be able to wash those foods down with a glass of Impossible or Beyond milk.
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