The day it went public in May 2019, Beyond Meat’s stock soared by 163 percent—the best one-day performance for a major American company in nearly two decades. The Los Angeles–based company, along with its California neighbor Impossible Foods, had positioned itself at the vanguard of a new protein industry, bringing a Silicon Valley sheen to the hippyish world of meat alternatives. There was clearly something in it. Sales of fake meat grew by 74 percent between 2018 and 2021, driven by slick marketing and genuine concern about meat production’s impact on the environment. As the hype cycle rolled on, analysts predicted
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