Beyond Meat vs Impossible Burger | Interview | 5
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In the 2010s, fake meat that tasted real was all the rage. The company's Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods revolutionized what a plant-based burger could taste like. It's actually really good. Can you believe this chicken salad? Does it taste like chicken salad? Taste it. It actually does, Ethan. And I have a long relationship with meat, so I was very worried. Very good. That's a video from 2014 when Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown introduced his product to the team at CBS This Morning.

Over the course of a decade, these companies started winning over the hearts and stomachs of vegans and omnivores alike. Whether you were concerned about climate change or animal welfare, or just wanted to eat less meat, Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers filled a void. They even made their way onto fast food menus. Introducing the new McPlant, made with the first plant-based patty worthy of being called a McDonald's burger.

Introducing the Impossible Whopper with a patty made from plants. No beef. No beef. I've never had plants taste like beef before. But these days, it seems like the plant-based patty sizzle is more of a fizzle. The publicly traded Beyond Meat continues to suffer losses year over year. Meanwhile, the privately held Impossible Foods has struggled to turn a profit.

This has many wondering, was the plant-based meat market just another food fad? And what can these companies do to get back in the game? Helping us sink our teeth into the two biggest plant-based meat brands out there are Jason Cartallion and Michael Keller. The two host the Vegan Hacks podcast, where they share vegan recipes, news, and analysis.

With more than a quarter of a million followers on TikTok and another 170,000 on Instagram, the duo has a major platform in the plant-based world. And they're joining us today to share their take on the future of the meatless meat market. All that's coming up. You know, your team spends over half their time writing. And we all know how that happens. One confusing email turns into 12 confused replies and a meeting to get all lined up again.

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Jason Cartallion and Mike Keller, welcome to Business Wars. Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. And it's a pleasure to have you. How long have you guys been vegan for? Jason, start out for us. I'm a longtime vegan. I've been vegan for 15 years. And why did you decide to go vegan? It was a long odyssey. I spent a lot of my life being vegetarian. There was a spell in my life that I was a pescatarian.

And I think the last thing I did was give up cheese. It's a hard one to give up. That was the thing I gave up, and I never looked back. First, I was vegan for my health, and then I learned about animal agriculture and unsustainability, and I became really focused in on the environment and doing the things that I could do to try to help the environment.

And so it was just an odyssey that kind of moved to that in that direction.

Mike, what about you? How long have you been vegan and what was it that got you on that? Well, I was vegetarian since I was like 12 or so out of just sort of a general feeling of guilt from eating a hamburger or something. And then I went fully vegan when I saw this PETA video. This is like a couple decades ago. It's called Meet Your Meat. And it's like this 10 or 12 minute video that just shows what happened to animals in Africa.

factory farms and slaughterhouses. And I just washed my hands of any animal products from then on. You know, anytime I would think to pick up meat or milk or anything like that, I thought of what I saw in the video and I was just done. Wow. Well, it worked, it sounds like. So how many vegans are out there right now? Any estimates? And what about the lifestyle? Is it on the rise or where are we with veganism? Well, the vegan community is

is anywhere between two and 4% of the population. - Wow, I had no idea. - And the concept of veganism kind of ebbs and flows with popular culture.

You know, right now there's actually a lot of noise about veganism waning in popularity. But the vegan lifestyle is, you know, constantly being adopted. And it seems as though even if people aren't all strictly vegan, from what I hear, a lot of my non-vegan friends and family are just kind of trying to reduce meat, if only for health reasons.

Yeah, I've been picking up on that in among my own friends as well. I know your podcast Vegan Hacks is extremely popular online, specifically TikTok. I saw that, Jason, you even scored an invite to TikTok's creator event in Los Angeles. That's a pretty big deal. Let's let's play a clip from one of your most viral videos here. As a vegan, I don't need chicken eggs to make deviled eggs.

I don't need turkey to make turkey legs. And I don't need fish to make tuna sushi. This has six million views. What's the story behind the video? And how do you make a turkey leg without turkey? Actually, that's made with wrapped up tofu skin. Yeah, so basically...

I work to inspire people to cook, to learn about cooking, to learn about vegans. You know, a lot of people don't know how vegans are. They think we're like aliens or something.

And I think that I like Mike and I are city dwellers. We don't go to yoga class. We don't live in a commune, you know, and we have to, you know, live in our society. And so I basically created this platform, especially in social media, to inspire people to be more mindful about what they're eating.

and where their food comes from. And it's not a judgmental platform and I'm kind of a little clownish and I have fun. And that particular video shows, you know, vegan sushi made out of tomatoes. It also shows a really fun hard-boiled deviled egg made out of a potato. And then also the iconic giant vegan turkey leg made from tofu skin. Yeah.

Now, Mike, recently you guys put out an episode on Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, and we want to get into both businesses in just a bit. But I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the products themselves, Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger? Do either of you have a favorite? I think most people we know kind of prefer the taste of Impossible Burgers.

Right? Jason, wouldn't you say that? Okay. With me, there's no question. I feel that when we tried it for the first time, I don't know. I've talked to Mike about it too. When you bite into it. It was scary. And you haven't eaten meat in 15 years or whatever, 20 years. There's an uncanny valley that goes down. It was unsettling. Right. But again, I feel that Impossible rolled out their product when the product was ready.

Beyond didn't. They had this kind of Silicon Valley aesthetic where they pushed out this product and it wasn't ready. And in some ways, the customers and consumers became beta testers. And so especially the first iteration, I think they're on their fourth iteration of Beyond. The first iteration of Beyond emanated

unpleasant smell. And so they adjust their recipes. So they went to beyond 2.0 and beyond 3.0, which I felt was the best one that took the smell out, you know, and was their best recipe. And now they have introduced beyond 4.0. If you took your favorite, the 3.0 and the Impossible Burger, and

What would be the biggest difference between the two patties from a taste perspective?

the Impossible Meat, well, first of all, it has this kind of bloody hem, heme protein that gives it a kind of a meaty vibe. Also, I mean, you're familiar with Dippin' Dot technology? Sure, I absolutely am. It's the future of ice cream. That's what I hear. As of the 80s. So Dippin' Dots are these little, like, you know, ice cream chunks. They're using that technology and they put it in the meat as a...

As little fat bubbles. And those fat bubbles kind of expand and then become liquid when you're cooking it to get a meatier burger. And both of those burgers used the dip and dot technology that... But...

Impossible is a more refined cooking experience. It cooks like meat. It cooks like ground beef. And I've cooked ground beef. I have an omnivore family. And Impossible is a much more realistic meat analog than Beyond.

And also, when you bite into Beyond, it still has a certain taste that on my palate does not appeal to me. But in my opinion, Beyond is an inferior product to...

impossible. And we're just talking about the ground beef, which is their, I guess, their flagships. Yeah. Would you agree with all that, Mike? Yeah. For the most part, yes. I don't have quite the refined palate that Jason has, but I do prefer the taste of impossible foods. And most of my omnivore friends who do eat meat have told me that it is much more analogous to real meat. I've never heard anybody rave about a Beyond Burger.

Let's talk about the rest of the beyond and impossible products. I've seen chicken nuggets at the store, beef jerky. There are sausages. There are the hot dogs. Any major differences among each company's other fake meat products? Basically, the impossible chicken nuggets are top tier. And a lot of people cannot tell the difference between the impossible chicken nuggets and animal chicken nuggets.

But also that sphere of business, there's a lot of people making chicken nuggets. Beyond has a chicken that I think is okay. Every Beyond product from my perspective had a little bit of a problem. Like it wasn't 100% there. And I understand that some of those problems had to do with scaling from the laboratory perspective.

to mass consumption. And there was, there were issues with that. You've just mentioned a magic word here and that's laboratory. And, and I guess I, I think a lot of folks wonder if these burgers and other products can be truly considered plant-based if they're coming from a lab, what would, what would y'all say to that?

I don't think they're ordering chemicals. And, you know, if they're processing plants in a lab, it's just sort of the R&D of the product. But I'm more concerned with what's in it. And even though the ingredients are very processed, I don't think that's like a bad word.

Okay, so we have to make a delineation between the two things, okay? Even a product of, I don't know, when Frito-Lay is making their chips, they're making their chips in a lab. They're creating some kind of flavors and flavor profiles, et cetera. There are two separate things. There is plant-made chips.

which is beyond and impossible. And then there's lab-grown meat. And lab-grown meat is made in a bioreactor. And that's a totally separate thing. And isn't really commercialized at the moment. Well, the FDA did approve the sale of lab-grown meat in

There's two companies right now that are selling lab-grown meat. They're priming their products for market, and it's Upside Foods and Eat Just. However, they're having issues scaling those products to market, and allegedly they may be having financial problems. Also, there is legislation in states that have a lot of cattle that are

trying to ban lab-grown meat. But again, those are two separate things. There's meat made from plants, and then there's lab-grown meat, and they're completely separate. This is something I've always been curious about. I've always thought that if I were a vegan, and since I'm an omnivore, it's hard to imagine, but I do really like the Impossible Burger.

And I've wondered, you know, when I've had these other style burgers that are more like, for instance, they've got beans in them primarily. That's their main protein. I would almost sometimes rather have that than the Impossible because it's so close to meat, if you know what I mean. If you think about, say, a black bean or a chickpea burger, something like that.

Are there people you know, too, that would rather have that sort of patty? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah? I mean, before this so-called revolution with Beyond and Impossible, that's what a veggie burger was. You know, there's the veggie burger brand. I mean, and a lot of people do find, like, they don't really want...

My dad, for example, does not like the taste of meat. So if I were to give him an Impossible Burger, he wouldn't want to eat it. But he wouldn't mind an old-school veggie burger, the kind from decades past. And that definitely has a place. I think...

To a great extent, this new generation of like sort of tech company burgers, I feel like their intent was to displace meat, whereas the intent with previous veggie burgers was something for vegans and vegetarians to eat.

It's time for a quick break. My guests are Jason Cartallion and Mike Keller, co-hosts of the Vegan Hacks podcast. And when we come back, we're going to dig into how tastes have changed when it comes to Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and what that means for sales. Stick around.

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Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. Our guests are Jason Cartallion and Mike Keller of the Vegan Hacks podcast. The duo's spirited debates on the latest vegan news and plant-based recipe tutorials have garnered them more than a quarter of a million followers online. So, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods essentially make the same products, but in slightly different ways. How do they differentiate themselves when it comes to marketing? For example...

Is one emphasizing health benefits while the other emphasizes the environment, that sort of thing? Mike, I know you follow the industry rather closely. Yeah, I think recently Beyond has rebooted their grocery products to be more of like a health-based food. This grilling season, serve more than burger. Serve the ingredients for a healthier, more vibrant life.

And Impossible Meat has launched this really fun campaign with this sort of like Ron Swanson-esque figure with a mustache saying like, this is meat. Meat has problems and it's going to take us meat eaters to solve them. So when the world says too much meat is bad and we should eat less of it, we say no world, we should eat more. So it's less of a health food thing and more of a...

trying to capture the, like, you know, the masculinity of eating beef. Well, which strategy seems to be resonating more with consumers? Well, I mean, they're basically focused on two different consumers. Beyond has been almost a shapeshifter when it comes to marketing. Like they've been marketing, let's say, let's try celebrities. Let's hire Kim Kardashian to talk about the Beyond chicken. Let's try to find, you know, I don't know, sports people and show that they're healthy and athletic.

I do feel that overall, Beyond has always leaned towards the environmental message. And now- Look at their logo. Yeah. They have a cow with a cape, meaning it's like, it's a superhero. You're doing the right thing for the environment or for cows or for whatever, you know? They even said, I remember I was at an event and they were like, every time you bite into this burger, you're helping save the planet.

But the key difference between Beyond and Impossible is that Impossible made the break. They separated from their founder, Patrick Brown, and they have a new CEO who's not vegan, who's not really into the environment. He's just a food guy.

And he's doing the best he can to make it into a real food company. Meanwhile, Beyond is still, in my opinion, floundering. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's move in this direction. Let's move in that direction. And there's definitely a lack of focus of management in my opinion. You know, it's interesting, too, because unlike Impossible, Beyond Meat is a publicly traded company.

What was the market like for this product at the time when it IPO'd? And I'm curious what your reaction was when it did. I definitely tried to get in on the IPO and it totally got away with me. You know, Jason and I both have some beyond stereotypes.

stock. And I remember waking up on the IPO day and the, you know, the official price was supposed to be $25. It already opened at 50 and I couldn't even get it at 50, like ran off, you know? So there was a lot of hype baked into it and a lot of hope and expectation that this was going to be like, you know, disruptive technology, a new category. And so like the valuation was completely like divorced from reality and sales in the way that like a tech company is because you think

When you invest in tech, you think if this thing is a world-changing product, it doesn't matter what the sales are today. One day it catches up to the valuation. So far, that hasn't happened, but we still have our stock. We're hoping. Presently, Beyond, I guess, is valued at $460 million. However, they're...

$1.2 billion in debt. That's rough. That is rough. You know, Impossible also went through a boom and bust. Because if you look at the secondary market, Impossible shares were up to like $40 something. I'm looking at it now. So they also lost it. Because at the same time when there was all this hype for Beyond, there was all this hype for Impossible too. Yeah, yeah. Well, Beyond had a lot of success during the pandemic, experiencing something like a peak in sales and revenue. But today, obviously, that's not quite the case. They've

In fact, they've been plummeting. In 2023, they dropped something like 25%.

since 2021, if you compared those two years, and things really haven't seemed to be getting better. What changed, do you think? I think during the pandemic, people had a lot more disposable cash and more time on their hands. They could take a chance on a double-priced food item, and also they could take a chance on a bad valuation on a stock. Beyond when they IPO'd, which was a little before the pandemic, it was during that time when

They had so much money. So when you have all this cash, you have to do something with it. And so they tried all sorts of different marketing angles. And if something didn't work, they could just spend money on something else. And it was a very different time than it is now. I also think that there is a certain amount of consumer fatigue. Like, I guess vegans, we're a captive audience. We're going to keep consuming these products. We'll keep buying them, yeah. But...

But the real key is what they call the flexitarians. You have to capture them and keep them.

And I just feel the novelty of these, oh, it's just like meat, only it's not. And it costs twice as much. Yeah, and it costs twice, maybe three times as much. So again, the price is a barrier. The novelty definitely lost its luster. But yeah, I do think that price is a big concern, especially when people are struggling to pay their bills and they see a pound of ground beef price

that's subsidized by the government, basically sell for three bucks or they can get the impossible, an eight ounce or a 10 ounce package for 10, $12. The math doesn't work. It's not math. Mm-hmm.

And it's particularly disappointing for us because we know you only get like one chance to make a first impression. So it's, it's so frustrating for us if, if these companies are shoving out half baked products, because we know that like, uh,

a flexitarian or an omnivore, whatever you call them, a meat eater, they're only going to try it once. Especially if they're paying double, they're only going to try it once or twice. So if it gives a bad impression, the product isn't really ready for prime time, you kind of lost that customer. Or if not, you lost that customer for a long time. What's impossible strategy here? Looking on the sidelines in a sense and watching Beyond Meat's fumbles?

I do feel that Impossible went ahead and they were very calculating how they released their initial product. They didn't put it immediately into stores. They started in like very select restaurants and it was kind of a foodie thing. And there was a lot of word of mouth. They didn't rely a lot on advertising, too. They relied on word of mouth.

And then they also had some really interesting, solid partnerships. The Beyond partnerships were a lot more shaky, obviously, because they'd come and go. But Impossible sort of was this kind of wall of like, you couldn't read them. Beyond was, look what we're doing. Like everything was a great press release. The news hits going on CNN business, you know, all these different situations where they could juice up their stock and get people excited about the product while Beyond

Impossible just kind of was under the radar, but really, really concerned about

Yeah. Now, have either of you seen any chatter about an acquisition in the future? I read somewhere that Tyson was an early investor in Beyond Meat before the company IPO'd. And I wonder, could you see Impossible or Beyond getting gobbled up by, say, a Tyson or another one of those? Peter McGinnis said they are looking for some kind of liquidity event, whether it's an IPO or a

private equity. He says they're not pigeonholed. But, you know, from a strategy perspective, I wonder if Impossible regrets not IPO-ing or doing their liquidity event in that more free-flowing time because, you know, now their valuation is so much lower. This gamble that Beyond took,

could have turned out a lot better. From a strategic perspective, Beyond could have taken all this cash and they could have swallowed up all the market share. And so I think they were going for that gold rush at the time of capturing as much as you could, thinking, you know, this is going to be like a winner-take-all situation. And Impossible held back. And that

Seems to have been good for the, you know, the taste of the product and the sustainability of the company. But now they're also in a bit of a tricky situation because, you know, if you look at the secondary market, their shares are not trading at a very high price. So they're not going to get the same results.

astronomical valuation. Unfortunately, it just seems as though Beyond had that opportunity, this influx of cash, and kind of fumbled it. There's also a history of vegan companies selling to larger companies. Recently, this company called Siete

which is a gluten-free tortilla chip company. Yeah, based just around the corner from me, yeah. What is it, like 1.25 billion or something from Pepsi? 1.2 billion, PepsiCo bought them. And so it's kind of an interesting terrain. But from my experience, companies that rely on factory farms like Tyson, Kroger,

Usually when these companies absorb these smaller plant-based companies, innovation is stifled. Do either of you think Beyond can bounce back from the slump that they've endured? I mean, what's the next iteration going to look like? They have a lot of debt. And I heard they tried to renegotiate their debt. So their options are to maybe convert the debt into equity.

or they could declare bankruptcy. You know, like General Motors, for example, they've been continuously making cars, even though they at some point declared bankruptcy, washed out all their stakeholders, and they still operate. So Beyond could

declare bankruptcy and be bought out of bankruptcy or they could be acquired. But whatever acquiring entity would then have to, if it wasn't through bankruptcy, they would have to take on all that debt. I don't personally know how much debt Impossible has on the books. We're touting it as this, like Beyond is this big failure, but it might just be because we are able to scrutinize Beyond. Right.

Right. I don't know. I hope Ethan Brown's listening to this. I hope not. And Ethan, you're a nice guy. I appreciate all of you done, you know, helping the environment, you know, making vegan food more accessible. But perhaps you need to hand over the management to food industry professionals so that

there can be some stability with your company. Wow, that's quite the call there. We are talking with the hosts of Vegan Hacks, Jason Cartaglione and Mike Keller, and we're going to be back with more on the future of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods when Business Wars returns. As business owners and managers, you use software for your business every day. You use one piece of software to manage your customers, another to manage your employees, another to manage your finances, and the list goes on.

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Hi, welcome back to Business Wars. Jason Cartaglione and Mike Keller host Vegan Hacks, a podcast that dives deep into vegan recipes, news, and the occasional debate. Now, guys, tell us more about the partnerships between Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and the major fast food companies. I think I had my first Impossible Patty at Burger King, so I guess it's accomplishing something there, no?

Did you like it? How did you feel about it? I liked it. I really did. I mean, that was what kind of got me turned on to it. And, you know, I go back and forth, but I've ordered it more than once. That's for sure. I've ordered it several times. Are they actually selling? Beyond has really struggled to make sustainable restaurant partnerships, whereas Impossible has managed to keep pace.

their restaurant partners. They have a great partnership with like Fatburger, which, you know, it's one of my favorite vegan foods at a non-vegan restaurant is the Fatburger Impossible Burger. It's very satisfying. And Beyond has lost KFC. It lost Del Taco. I happened to run into the founder of Del Taco accidentally once, and he still owns a few restaurants. And even when they were doing their, you know, Beyond partnership in great volume,

He said that his restaurants didn't carry it because he saw the sales and they just weren't that good. Oh, that's really interesting. There's a lot of elements to it, but the Panda Express Beyond Orange Chicken is very successful in places where there's an urban center. And then in the rural areas, they're not as successful. And so the first release was successful in some places and not successful in others. They've re-released it, but it's...

but in select markets. To some extent, maybe other countries are ahead of us. Because like, for example, Burger King in Germany made their vegan burger the same price as meat. So, you know, it's like we're not getting a fair competition when the plant-based option is

is charged a premium. And so it's very hard for these plant-based companies to compete on an even playing field. I wonder what that means for Beyond Meat's efforts to stay on some of those fast food menus. What do you think? Beyond has lost a lot of ground in these fast food wars in a way that, you know, Impossible has managed not to. You know, Impossible sells nuggets at AMC theaters. You know, there's just not the same splashy hype

over their placements and there's not the same disappointment when they lose them. You know, there's some kind of like riverboat gambler situation with Ethan Brown and it's like, yeah, let's get it in McDonald's and let's get it here. Let's get it here. And maybe it costs them extra money to get it in. Maybe they lose money on the releases.

But there's a burning desire to get these products into fast food establishments. Impossible has been way more calculating, way more controlled with their partnerships. What about other vegan versions of animal-based foods? I know, Jason, you've talked a lot about Just Egg, an egg substitute made of mung bean, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm actually kind of semi-famous for my vegan scrambled eggs. And I have kind of my own business war with just eggs. And I'm not crazy about the company. I don't like the product. I think it's too expensive. But I like to make my own vegan egg from mung beans and water. You basically just blend split mung beans together.

You put a little what they call black salt, which gives it an eggy taste. And I just think it's an inexpensive way and easy to make. And they don't have to spend a lot of money making the food. And I want to say, I think it's still a very exciting time for this vegan food revolution from an innovation standpoint. Whether or not the customers are there yet, there's...

there's still a lot of really exciting things. Like for example, we talked to a company called Juicy Marbles and they were making a very like accurate roast. So this IP of all these interesting food products, whether or not they work yet from an investment standpoint, it's still really interesting stuff. And we're hoping that the culture catches up to this. Let's talk culture for just a second, because for a long time, and I think you both are intimately familiar with this,

Vegans and sometimes vegetarians got a bad rap. I mean, you know, you'd see people sort of roll their eyes if they found out a vegan was joining for dinner, that kind of thing. But now it seems much, much more mainstream. How have you seen the reception of veganism change over the years? And maybe you can compare it with a few years ago.

We still get some eye rolls. I'm in the trenches. I'm in the front line when it comes to getting abuse. Every day I get abuse and people are angry. They get mad even seeing me.

The deviled egg that looks like a potato. It makes them angry. Yeah, that video was rage bait. That's why it was so popular. Maybe some people are maybe vegan inside and they don't know it yet. And the only way they can express it is through anger. Well, you know, I'm not as out there in the public eye as Jason is.

And I'm pretty low key about being vegan. I don't make a big deal out of it. I don't preach to people. I don't tell them what they should or shouldn't do. Because when I was younger, I went through this and just nobody was very receptive to it. So I just keep to myself. But it almost sometimes feels as though

People take it as an indictment of their – just the fact that I don't eat meat. It's like I'm criticizing them for eating meat even though I'm not. I'm just existing. But at the same time, I mean I can't tell you how many times I've been getting ready for a meeting and one of the first questions –

Out of the planter's mouth is, so do we have any vegans or vegetarians here? That didn't used to happen. I mean, so there's something seems to be happening culturally, notwithstanding the fact that you guys must still feel like you're pummeled quite a bit. There does seem to be some kind of momentum in a different direction, no? I also see like a situation like with my family.

where they didn't understand me. Like I'm growing up, I'm a vegetarian and then I became a vegan and then, and I was the only one. And then like I go to their Thanksgiving and they're making stuff for me. And then I look in their refrigerator and they have vegan cheese and vegan products and like,

okay, well, there's a change here. People are seeing that there are alternatives that they can put in their refrigerator. I didn't tell them to put the vegan cheese in the refrigerator. It isn't for me, it's for them. And so I feel that as we get older, as we gray, we're trying to prolong our lives, we're trying to make our lives more productive, we're gonna have to change the way we eat. You're right, David. I think things really are changing and I'm so thankful that we have more

more and more options. And Jason and I, probably when we started out, when we go out to eat with friends, our food option was fries and a salad. And I'm so thankful that there's a lot more that we can have now. You know, there's been a psychology, it seems to me, when it comes to a lot of the alternative foods, and that is sort of baked into the word alternative, as opposed to

just like this for what it is, not for what it is imitating or what it's emulating or replacing, what have you. I'm curious, since both of you have expressed in the course of our conversation this desire to have people just try it and see what they think on its own terms. What's your favorite vegan meal? What's your go-to that you think others would really enjoy, too?

I would really like a vegan pizza. Those are, you know, when they get the cheese right and it's melty, it's delicious. Those can be great. I've had one. Those are good. Yeah. Right now, I feel like the most perfect food is Vietnamese food. It has the savory, the sweet, the herbaceous quality.

And just hand me a banh mi and I'll be happy. And I just I love like a tofu teriyaki banh mi, maybe something with a mock steak. There's a couple of like Vietnamese joints that I go to that make amazing vegan banh mis. I feel like that's the perfect food.

Good answers from both Jason Cartallion and Mike Keller, co-hosts of the Vegan Hacks podcast. And you can catch their episodes on all the podcast platforms or follow them on TikTok and Instagram. Jason, Mike, thanks so much for joining us on Business Wars. Thank you. Thank you, David. It was really a pleasure. Coming up, it's pizza night and we're slicing into what makes a killer pie. Don't miss it.

If you like Business Wars, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

From Wondery, this is Episode 5 of Beyond Meat vs. Impossible Burger for Business Wars. I'm your host, David Brown. Kelly Kyle produced this episode. Peter Arcuni is our Senior Interview Producer. Our producers are Emily Frost and Grant Rutter. Our audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Our managing producer is Desi Blalock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Plews. Our senior producers are Karen Lowe and Dave Schilling. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marshall Louie.

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