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Beyond Meat - This Los Angeles-based producer of plant-based meat substitutes is taking the world by storm.

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Rocketing stock value -

Since going public in early May, Beyond Meat's stock has soared more than 475% from its initial US$25 IPO, CNN reports.

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A cult-like following - Its market value is reportedly over US$8 billion, so it’s no wonder why people are hungry for it.

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Why the sudden interest? - Plant-based burgers have been around for a long time, but the advent of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat has seen a much larger impact.

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Who is it for? - If you look closely at the packaging, it doesn’t say "vegan" and in some cases emphasizes the "meaty" quality. That’s because they’re targeted entirely at meat-eaters.

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Bridging the gap - Beyond Meat is even trying to convince grocery stores that its products should be placed directly in the meat aisle, to better target meat eaters.

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Getting fast food on board - Impossible Foods partnered with Burger King to create the plant-based version of their famous Whopper in the US.

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The strategy - Partnerships with chains like Carls Jr. and White Castle are serving one goal: selling plant-based alternatives where meat eaters are actually shopping.

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McDonald's is a huge step - The enormous franchise is setting an example for the market with their move towards plant-based meat, one that could speed up the shift much more quickly.

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The mission -

Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, says their mission is “to completely replace animals as a food technology by 2035.”

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It’s working - In the first half of 2018, 93% of customers who bought Beyond Meat’s products in Kroger grocery stores also bought real animal meat.

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It’s working - Of those who bought the Impossible Whopper from Burger King, 70% said they regularly eat meat.

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People don’t have to change their taste -

Scientists focused on allowing people to continue eating meat, creating a product that has the same sensory cues and cooks in the same way.

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How do they get that meaty taste? - Impossible Foods uses heme normally found in hemoglobin (here sourced from soybeans) to recreate that blood-like taste.

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Is it considered meat? - Though the products look and taste just like real meat, some people have a problem calling it so. Vegans, however, are not the ones with the problem.

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Farmers are worried - The meat industry fears that fake meat (cultured meat in particular, which we’ll touch on later) will undermine their livelihood, especially if it can be made cheaper than the real thing.

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Government action - In the UK, the food ministry has sided with farmers and wants to restrict meat alternatives from using the word “meat.” Cultured meat, clean meat, or fake meat—whatever you call it, it won’t go away so easily.

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Let's talk about health - Traditional vegan and vegetarian options are still generally healthier, but fake meat remains better for you than real meat.

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Nutrition - Those who value more natural food choices, however, may not be so fond of the long list of ingredients in plant-based meat.

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Is it here to stay? - Analysts predict that meat alternatives will grow so rapidly that by 2040, 60% of the world’s meat likely won’t come from animals.

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Increasing food demand - According to the World Economic Forum, the amount of food we’re currently growing will only feed half the population (a projected 9.8 billion people) by 2050. By then, demand for animal products is supposed to increase by 70%.

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The world can’t keep up at this rate - If the world is to produce enough food, we’ll need more land for crops and livestock, but climate change is making resources scarce. Farmers will have to do more with less.

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Enter: plant-based meat - Beyond Meat’s plant-based burger, compared to a quarter pound of real beef burger, has 99% less impact on water scarcity, 93% less land use, 46% less energy, and emits 90% less greenhouse gases.

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The only obstacle left? - In the US, a quarter pound of plant-based meat is about US$2 more than real meat. In a world where you're still trying to convince people to go veg, that's a huge obstacle.

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Getting the experience, nutrition, and cost right - When all of these things align, from taste and nutritional value, to environmental impact and affordability, why wouldn’t people give up real meat?

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In two decades, our plates could change drastically - It's not just with beef either, but also pork, lamb, chicken, fish, and any other kind of meat that has a plant-based alternative.

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The next frontier? - Cultured meat, grown in a lab, could overtake plant-based alternatives like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods as early as 2040, according to a report from AT Kearney.

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How the Petri dish burger started - Lab-grown meat arrived with advances in cell culture, led by Mark Post, a vascular biologist. He created a burger by essentially knitting together around 20,000 strands of protein that had been cultured from cattle stem cells.

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The process - To put it simply, stem cells are taken from an animal's muscle and put in a nutrient-rich broth where they multiply and grow into muscle fibers. So, it’s real meat, hold the animal slaughter.

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Also environmentally sustainable - Along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 74-87%, it’s reported that to produce one billion quarter-pounder burgers, it takes 1.2 million cows living for three years on 8,600 square km of land, and then killing them. The same number of cultured burgers would require muscle stem cells of one living cow, and only about a month and a half to grow.

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It’s not available yet, but it's likely to sweep the market - The first lab-grown burger, produced in 2013, cost about US$325,000. Within just two years, it had dropped to US$8.15, and Future Meat Technologies said it could bring the cost down to less than US$4.50 per pound (453 g) by 2020.  

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The fact remains -

The meat industry is reportedly damaging the world at an irreversible rate, but the delicious race to replace continues at full speed.

See also: The fascinating reason you should be eating more insects

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