Meati Foods

Does the core business genuinely avoid or reduce emissions, or build climate resilience? Share of revenue that is actually 'green'. Fossil-dependent models score low.

The core product genuinely displaces high-emitting beef and chicken: a third-party LCA (PlanetFWD) found 89% fewer GHGs and 73% less water than beef, and the Mega Ranch facility was electrified primarily with renewable energy — but the LCA is commissioned (not peer-reviewed), scope 3 emissions from sugar feedstock and packaging are not separately disclosed, and commercial-scale fermentation is energy-intensive with efficiency uncertainties.

Credible, science-based targets (SBTi), a real net-zero plan with progress to date, and CDP disclosure — not just a dated press release.

No SBTi-validated targets, no CDP disclosure, and no formal net-zero roadmap were found in any public source; the company's only quantified climate commitment is the commissioned LCA claim, and the financial collapse and ownership change make any future target-setting highly unlikely in the near term.

Operational footprint, labour and social practices, and governance quality across the company's own operations and supply chain.

Meati's Mega Ranch won Food Engineering's 2024 Sustainable Plant of the Year award and uses primarily renewable electricity, but the company executed multiple rounds of mass layoffs since 2023 (including a WARN notice for all 150 employees in early 2025), governance was chaotic (three CEOs in three years), and no published sustainability report, GRI disclosure, or labor policy was found.

Quality of disclosure, independent third-party verification, and how much hard data backs the company's claims.

Environmental disclosure is limited to a single commissioned LCA (PlanetFWD) with marketing-level framing; there is no independently audited sustainability report, no CDP submission, no GHG inventory by scope, and no third-party verified progress data — and the company is now under new ownership with no indication of future disclosure.

Controversies, litigation, pollution, fossil-fuel lobbying, conflict-zone involvement and governance scandals. Higher means cleaner.

Meati faces multiple false-advertising class action lawsuits (California and New York) over labeling products 'Made from Mushroom Root' when the base ingredient is Neurospora crassa mold; it also settled a prior California case and ended a separate IP dispute with Better Meat Co., and its financial collapse — burning $450M before a $4M distress sale — raises serious governance and stewardship concerns.