I am the target demographic for Tattooed Chef. The stock is majorly down right now so I'm not just trying to pile on, but feel like this perspective might be useful.
I've been investing in plant based companies since 2015. I made a great return on WWAV before it was bought out by Danone and lost an equal amount on SZYM/TVIA before they went bankrupt. I've watched BYND with interest but thought they were extremely overhyped. I consider myself to be an activist investor and will gladly support anything that makes vegan food more accessible. Tattooed Chef (TTCF) is a company that really interested me and I started a small position last year (since exited at a loss).
To me this company could have been the holy grail of the “plant based investing trend” – vertical integration, food that actually tastes great, using real and diverse kinds of foods rather than just relying on a fake meat, etc. I even buy the growth thesis and would have been willing to baghold for a decade if that's what it took. But there's just one problem:
As someone who has been vegan for 15 years, fuck this company.
The term “plant based” is stupid as hell and came out of rich people turning veganism into an elitist health fad, but OK – I'm willing to just humor it in the name of there being more products available and fewer animals in our food chain.
But you don't get to call yourself a “plant based” company, use it in all your marketing, base the entire identity of your brand around it, and then go on ahead with actively developing and distributing shit that has cheese in it.
I'm sure you're reading this thinking “screw this whiny vegan, plant based doesn't have to mean vegan, bla bla bla” and that's great that you have that opinion but here's my whole point:
No one with any integrity is going to support this company. If you are NOT vegan and just cynically investing in plant based companies to try and catch the trend, then you at least owe it to yourself to accept some DD from the people who are supposedly going to bankroll this dietary shift, become fans of the company on social media, introduce it to their friends and family, etc.
TTCF has actively flushed any goodwill they may have had with the vegan community. First there was the packaging debacle where vegetarian items were incorrectly labeled as vegan (a cardinal sin and just so stupid) and now the continued investment in animal products while blowing the “plant based” horn.
There is a fundamental disconnect between what this company thinks it is and what it actually is. And consumers – especially vegan consumers like myself who have actively trained themselves to care about what they're buying – are not fooled. Tattooed Chef is an absolute laughing stock.
There are other reasons to think this company is suspect (reliance on single use plastics, the goofy-ass branding, the lameness of the namesake, uhh the financials) but if you are taking the Peter Lynch approach to investing and looking for companies that customers can fall in love with, take it from me this is not it.
TL;DR – The title.
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