Inside Beyond Meat's lab, where the company transforms plants into faux meat with microscopic analysis and robot mouths
Crafting the perfect plant-based meat alternative requires copying the original down to the microscopic level. Beyond Meat analyzes the differences between real meat and their attempts to replicate it, as minuscule differences can deeply impact the end result.
These differences are sometimes too minor to be accurately described by humans — even if they can tell something is off. So, Beyond uses the "e-nose" device to identify and isolate aromas in meat.
Foods have aromas that are impossible for the average human to place. Meat contains thousands of chemical compounds, including tinges of some unpleasant aromas, such as rotting eggs. Beyond scientists work to balance all of these compounds and replicate them using plants.
Beyond also uses an "e-mouth," which can determine how closely chewing on a plant-based product replicates the experience of eating meat. For something like sausage, Beyond needs to achieve both the initial snap as well as the breakdown of the product as it is chewed.
The four main components the company studies are flavor, aroma, appearance, and texture. Beyond divides its teams between components, as opposed to simply assigning different products to different groups. Beyond also conducts more traditional taste tests, allowing people to decide whether the different factors work in harmony.
Beyond Meat has all the equipment it needs to create and test new products under one roof — something that changed over the last year, as the company built out a new production area in its headquarters. Previously, the company had to send recipes to Missouri to get a product to test; now employees only need to walk down the hall.
Beyond Meat has three offices in El Segundo, California, up from a single location in early 2019. The company is looking to expand even further, eyeing international sales including in China, where the demand for pork alternatives is swiftly growing.
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