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  • This machine is testing how chewy this fake meat burger is.

  • It's one of the many tests Beyond Meat puts its burgers through, but why?

  • Alternative meat sales have increased across the globe.

  • The market is set to reach 6.3 billion in revenue by 2023.

  • UK-based company Quorn has been making meat substitutes since 1985, and it's on course to become a billion dollar company.

  • Legacy meat brand are trying to get a slice of the pie, too.

  • Tyson Foods, the largest meat producer in the US, was part of a 55 million round of investment in Beyond Meat.

  • The reason for all this growth?

  • Flexitarians.

  • Or, those who seek protein alternatives.

  • In the United States, at least 6% of people consider themselves vegan.

  • But in 2014, it was only 1%, and business is booming globally.

  • The demand for vegan meat exploded by 451% in Europe.

  • Another reason for the surge in meat alternatives is the environmental impact from greenhouse gases.

  • About a third of which, come from emissions from livestock.

  • Alternative meat companies are creating products to help dial back on meat consumption.

  • And by doing so, we're changing how we see meat.

  • Do you need an animal to produce a piece of meat and we've found that you really don't.

  • What you need is essentially four things; it's amino acids, it's lipids, it's trace minerals and it's predominantly water.

  • What we can do is take those same core components from plants and assemble them through using heating, cooling and pressure into a piece of meat.

  • Brands like Beyond Meat say they don't want to be known as meat alternatives.

  • They're sold in the meat section at Whole Foods, and to them, what they're making is meat.

  • They create plant-based proteins using some of the same components that make up a slab of beef.

  • Even restaurants are breaking in to the alternative meat market.

  • Homegrown Smoker in Portland has an entirely vegan barbecue menu.

  • With all these new types of alternatives popping up, what will be the future of the actual meat industry?

  • Well, it's not going anywhere.

  • Although the fake meat business is growing, the size of the US meat industry is still immense.

  • It costs the United States up to $289 billion a year.

  • By 2050, that number could be as high as $1.6 trillion.

  • But, as the flexitarian demographic continues to grow.

  • It means, more cows might stay in the pasture.

This machine is testing how chewy this fake meat burger is.

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