Oscar Meyer to roll out vegan hot dogs, sausage with startup backed by Jeff Bezos

Oscar Meyer is rolling out a plant-based hot dog and sausage this year with the help of a startup backed by Jeff Bezos.

The Kraft Heinz Company’s iconic brand is teaming up with TheNotCompany — a vegan-centered firm whose investors include Amazon’s billionaire founder — to introduce the “NotHotDog” and “NotSausage”, according to a statement from the company.

American consumers will have the option of plunking down $5.99 for a package of four plant-based hot dogs and $7.99 for four of the “NotSausages.”

In December 2022, Kraft Heinz and TheNotCompany jointly introduced a plant-based Philadelphia Cream Cheese to appeal to non-dairy-leaning consumers.

The Kraft-NotCo partnership has also yielded a plant-based “Kraft NotMac&Cheese” as well as alternative versions of mayonnaise (“NotMayo”) and cheese slices (“NotCheese Slices”).

Kraft Heinz, which is headquartered in Chicago and Pittsburgh, is banking on the popularity of the plant-based market to surge.

The conglomerate cited projections showing that sales of plant-based food products are estimates to rise from $8.3 billion in 2023 to $19 billion by 2030.

We know people are hungry for plant-based meat options from brands they know and trust,” Kraft Heinz Not Company CEO Lucho Lopez-May said in a statement.

Judging from recent trends in the plant-based industry, Kraft Heinz has its work cut out for it in convincing consumers to ditch meat for good.

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Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have seen their share prices fall considerably since 2020.

The stock price of Beyond Meat, which reached a record high of nearly $235 a share in 2019, has plunged a whopping 96% since then.

Beyond Meat stock was trading at just north of $8 a share on Wednesday.

In the first nine months of 2023, the companys US revenue dropped 34% on weak consumer demand.

Beyond Meat said in November it was cutting 19% of its workforce and considering cutting some products, like jerky, and reducing its operations in China.

The El Segundo, Calif.-based firm announced in late February that it was revamping its signature plant-based burger by reducing saturated fat by 60% thanks to a switch from canola and coconut oils to avocado oil.

The new products — Beyond Burger patties and Beyond Beef grounds — go on sale in the US this spring.

Inflation is one reason US buyers turned to cheaper sources of protein in recent years.

But US consumers doubts about the health of plant-based meat fed partly by advertising from the meat industry has also been a consistent problem.

With Post wires