Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND) announced Thursday that it is hiring Akerho “AK” Oghoghomeh, Red Bull’s former senior vice president of marketing, as its new head of global marketing. In addition, the company outlined a new series of strategic plans, including a more focused US retail strategy, to boost sales through 2023.
Leading the brand
As VP of marketing for Red Bull North America, Oghoghomeh leads advertising and other initiatives for Red Bull’s U.S. business, a Beyond spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
Oghoghomeh will join Beyond as the company looks to reverse declining sales amid a very challenging economic environment — data from market research firm IRI shows that sales of refrigerated meat alternatives in the U.S. will fall 15% in 2022.
Targeted strategy
Seeking to reverse the trend, Beyond is streamlining operations and unveiling a bold retail strategy targeting five retailers: Kroger, walmart, Whole Foods Market, Publix supermarkets and Costco. Specific details of the strategy have not yet been released.
According to iIn internal presentations and documents, CEO Ethan Brown told employees that the company wants to focus on “near-end wins” – or products that could hit the market in 2023 that help drive growth.
In addition to increasing competition with rival plant-based companies for restaurant placements, Beyond’s other 2023 priorities include releasing new versions of its plant-based burgers and sausages and reducing costs or improving margins for its jerky product, Beyond Jerky.
Former and current employees report that Beyond is working to liquidate additional food-processing and laboratory equipment, both by selling the equipment directly to other companies, as well as through companies that auction industrial equipment.
New Chicken Nuggets
Reports also show the company is developing a new plant-based chicken nugget for McDonald’s and has built a yellow-tiled, dedicated test kitchen specifically for the global burger chain.
To date, Beyond and McDonald’s collaboration efforts have yielded mixed results – while McDonald’s USA ended trials for the Beyond’s McPlant burger in 2022, the item has proven successful in countries like the Netherlands, where the burger is now part of the permanent menu.