Ways that Beyond Meats Differentiates Their Products in a Monopolistic Competition Industry
As Beyond, and other plant-based meat alternatives, work to remove the product differentiation between them and traditional meat providers, although it will lead to them having a costly to duplicate product, each individual company also is working to differentiate itself from each other. Here is how I see Beyond's strategies:
Product Features
Beyond tries to differentiate itself, at the highest level, on the core ingredients to their products: proteins based on peas, mung beans, faba beans, and brown rice and fats, including cocoa butter, coconut oil, and expeller-pressed canola oil. From a product marketing standpoint, they also focused in the beginning on replicating meat-based products: e.g., the mouthfeel and physical appearance of the product, having grill marks on the burgers and having their burgers bleed through the use of beet juice.https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/about/our-ingredients/
Product Complexity
Beyond Meats focuses on stressing the simplicity of cooking their plant-based foods - it's no more difficult to cook their burgers or sausages than it is to cook one of their non-meat products.
Timing of Product Introduction
First-mover status is a major source that Beyond Meats tries to differentiate their products as well. This is also highlighted with their introduction of Beyond Pork to China (differentiating based on their target market, where China eats a ton of pork - although I wish it were over here!) and as they start stepping into the vegan seafood market, which they seem interested on entering with Beyond Shrimp, Beyond Tuna, and Beyond Crab, which is very open right now. I personally hope they focus on replicating Spam!https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/beyond-meat-turns-china-with-beyond-pork
Consumer Marketing & Distribution Channels
It appears that Beyond is going after a mass-market approach. They focus on bringing their meat alternatives to larger distributors like KFC and Taco Bell and trying to destigmatize eating less meat (not necessarily removing it completely from the equation). Unfortunately, it is my opinion from their distribution strategy that they're failing to keep up with Impossible Foods and Impossible's goal to be "everywhere" - in full transparency though, I did have an Impossible Breakfast Sandwich from Starbucks at the airport today!
Product Mix
Having a full array of plant-based foods, as evidenced under the trademark filings link, is key for differentiating themselves even from the traditional meat market - going to a barbecue and having it all be Beyond.https://www.livekindly.co/beyond-meat-trademark-filings-milk-eggs-seafood/