Beyond Meat Launches Vegan Beef With Vitamin B12

Beyond Meat has released another vegan beef burger! The plant-based food company announced on April 27 that a second meat-free burger patty is joining its lineup. And, this one contains vitamin B12, just like conventional meat.

This new iteration, which is slated to hit store shelves on May 3, is billed as an “even-meatier, even-juicier” version of the Beyond Burger.

From a nutritional perspective, this vegan patty contains 35 percent less total fat, 35 percent less saturated fat. It also contains fewer calories than conventional 80/20 beef burgers. It also boasts B vitamins and minerals “comparable to the micronutrient profile of beef.” This includes vitamin B12, which is found in meat and must be supplemented on a plant-based diet. 

“The new Beyond Burger’s rich flavor profile resembles that of ground beef, and extensive testing with our consumers validated this new flavor direction with likeability scoring on-par with 80/20 ground beef burgers,” Dariush Ajami, Chief Innovation Officer at Beyond Meat said in a press release shared with LIVEKINDLY.

Consumers will be able to purchase this newbie in a 2-pack, a value 4-pack, and a 1-pound Beyond Beef pack.

Later this year, Beyond Meat intends to introduce another patty with half the saturated fat of an 80/20 beef burger.

Beyond Meat Establishes the Plant-Based Diet Initiative Fund

This latest launch is part of the brand’s ongoing effort to create flavorful and healthy plant-based products. 

To that end, Beyond Meat launched the Plant-Based Diet Initiative Fund at Stanford University’s School of Medicine on April 27.

Per a separate press release shared with LIVEKINDLY: “The five-year endeavor is designed to provide peer-reviewed, clinically-significant studies on the health implications of a plant-based diet, including plant-based meat, and will help to generate data to drive and inform Beyond Meat’s research and development.”

So far, the initiative has helped conduct research that suggests eating Beyond Burgers is healthier than conventional beef burgers. 

In a 2020 Stanford study that was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that participants who ate Beyond Meat’s plant-based meat for two months showed improvements in key health metrics such as “bad” LDL cholesterol levels compared to participants who ate beef burgers.

This research is especially important considering Beyond Meat’s continued expansion in several portions of the market. In February, the brand partnered with McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC to expand each chain’s plant-based menu offerings. And earlier this year, Beyond Meat and PepsiCo joined forces to develop vegan products that have yet to be announced. Additionally, Beyond Meat products are now available in 7,000 CVS locations around the country.