The Meaning of Meat: Marketing Plant-Based Burgers

Are plant-based burgers just veggie patties with better marketing?

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods rocketed into the public consciousness in the late 2010s. Their products were suddenly everywhere, from grocery stores to fast-food restaurants. Unlike other companies selling meat alternatives like tofu burgers or veggie patties, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods were selling plant-based meat.

The Meaning of Meat is a critical interrogation of the advertising strategies of plant-based meat companies. It breaks down the talking points and framing techniques that were used to explain plant-based meat to the public, and to make sure that it wasn’t perceived as vegetarian food. Dissecting corporate websites, trade magazines, legislation, and social media campaigns, it shows the ways that people understand meat not only as a category of food, but as an expression of culture, class and identity.

The Meaning of Meat demonstrates how Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods created marketing campaigns that took advantage of the ways North Americans understand meat to create a new category of food in one of the greatest conceptual boundary shifts in contemporary culture.

Ryan J. Phillip is a sessional instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he is a member of the Centre for Studies in Food Security. His research revolves around critical approaches to advertising and promotional cultures, with a specific interest in food marketing. In his spare time, he is an avid gardener and five-pin bowler.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Meat has Never Been Modern
Chapter 2: A Brief Cultural History of Burger Technologies
Chapter 3: Good Burgers
Chapter 4: Nature, Science, and Meat
Chapter 5: Imagining Meat-Eating Vegans
Chapter 6: New Meats for the Old Republic
Conclusion
References