Beyond Meat Social Audit Paper Example

Introduction

Beyond Meat is a food processing and manufacturing company that aimed at making meat products out of plant proteins (Rifkin, 1992). The company's co-founder and CEO Ethan Brown grew up on a farm which created his love for animals, though he put that on the back burner and went to business school. Beyond Meat is new startup whose goal is to substitute meat products with food that tastes like meat product but made of plant products. Their goal is for people to be about to enjoy the taste of meat without suffering the consequence that comes along with the meat. All the products they serve are all 100% vegan (Beyond Meat, 2018). They have four main goals: improve human health, positively impacting climate change, addressing resource constraints, and promoting animal welfare. Before he ventured into meat business, Ethan Brown worked in open grid electricity restructuring and grid management. While working there, he felt a disconnect because he would go to conferences to make the world greener but then would go out to restaurants and eat a piece of steak, where the cow was mass produced and created environmental issues. This situation led to his thoughts about starting a company that manufactures plant proteins making them delicious and acceptable in the market to compete with animal meat. He started this company in 2009 and was fortunate to have investor and partners such as Bill Gates, the University of Maryland, Kleiner Perkins and the University of Missouri (Beyond Meat, 2018). Since then, Beyond Meat has found a way to make plant-based meals that taste like real meat products; therefore, fulfilling the need of helping animal welfares and creating better food for people

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Social auditing is a systematic assessment of one corporation to develop and implement socially responsible and responsive program (Donaldson, 2016). The process includes measuring, understanding, reporting and improving corporate ethical performance. An audit is usually done by examining the corporations' employment welfare, consumer protection, ecological balance, and community services. Though this performance evaluation is optional, it is widely processed within the world of large corporations, which exert lots of public interests into their ethical practices.

Society

Beyond meat believes in finding better ways to feed the world. The company's mission is to create a future where plant proteins are more consumed than animal proteins by making delicious crumbles, burgers, strips, and sausages prepared directly from plants. By so doing, the company will provide similar taste and texture to beef products and customers can enjoy their favorite meals but with healthier benefits. The mission is also ascribed to solve issues with livestock production and consumption, depletion of natural resources in the growing flesh industry, climate change, human health, and animal welfare. "At Beyond Meat, we want to make the world a better place, and we're starting one delicious meal at a time" (Beyond Meat, 2018).

The target market is people who do not eat meat product or want to cut down their consumption of meat. Another target market could be people who do not want to put additives and GMOs into their bodies (Beyond Meat, 2018). Ethan Brown realized that meat products are made up of certain things like lipids and proteins. He realized he could mimic the way animals create muscles with plants. Ethan Brown started working with scientists to develop a good product. He gained creditability when he began selling whole foods.

Ethics

Ethics in business refers to the moral responsibility and relationship between a consumer and a business at different social and economic levels. Ethics is demonstrated at Beyond Meat through the relationship between the employees and the company. Beyond Meat employees adhere to the codes of conduct of the business while serving the customers (Beyond Meat, 2018). Demand for morally upright behavior has risen and is a significant determinant of growth and popularity of any business venture, and it has helped Beyond Meat to gain a stake in the food market. This includes domestic, government, and private entities, local and international business. Business ethics is a requirement that should be incorporated into one's behavior.

Many times, individuals are faced with decision-making problems where they must choose between what is right and wrong (Donaldson, 2016). They may even end up breaking their codes of conduct. While at the workplace, issues such as cutting the budget for the purchase of ingredients for food preparation without knowledge of the management can arise and will require decision making. This decision is based on making the right choice and following proper procedures. However, taking the right action may threaten your job security. At this point, it does not matter what is wrong or right. What matters most is keeping the employee's job safe. Such acts promote continuous deterioration of work ethics and own legacy. Ethics affect individuals at a personal level. Loyalty and honesty are the basic requirements for one to attain good moral standards.

Staffing

By 2017, Beyond Meat had more than 125 employees at the headquarters, and it has maintained a good history of management and employee relationship hence fostering its growth (Beyond Meat, 2018). Unethical behaviors in business may lead to reduced productivity, destruction of the environment, poor conditions at the workplace. These conditions point to a lack of trust. With increased competition in businesses today, every company wants to implement formal ethics, so the value of their products and service remain equally competitive. At Beyond Meat, every individual is expected to work towards achieving high and sustainable productivity. For this reason, each the employee will have attained a certain level of trust, confidence, and respect from the employer. On the other hand, provision of a good working environment from the employer will ensure that the employee's productivity is at maximum.

Just like any other successful business, Beyond Meat has a particular code of conduct for its employees (Beyond Meat, 2018). These codes are developed from the work environment and conditions, in consultation with the government and international organizations on human rights. Other groups that are consulted are the employees, the surrounding communities and other stakeholders directly involved in the business of the institution. These are standards of expectations of an average employee in a specific institution. The codes concur with the institutional environment and nature of work. While constituting the laws, the company should ensure employee security and protection of their rights (Rahim, 2016). The Company is aimed at making a profit and maintaining their competitiveness over a long period. This fact is achieved through maintaining good employee standards by providing right working conditions, enticing employees by giving commission when the company makes profits, increasing their salaries and wages from time to time and maintaining good employer to employee relationship (Donaldson, 2016).

Environment

Besides, environmental friendliness is another common issue at the company. It involves the use of efficient use of energy, i.e., the company is actively seeking energy saving, by improving their office usage capacity, and having energy saving office devices, setting up solar energy suppliers and devices. Besides, the company is engaged in the product line that contributes least to environmental degradation (Beyond Meat, 2018).

The environment in which business thrives is essential and should be taken care of. A company may decide to manufacture low-quality products to maximize their profit. They will sell fast and get their profits in the short run, but they will suffer a bad reputation in the long term (Donaldson, 2016). Businesses that highly contribute to environmental pollution can be denounced as the worst polluters and lose their customer grip. In this regard, Beyond Meat is focused on caring for the environment by reducing the high demand for livestock keeping that is eating into forests and exhausting of natural resources. The company also provides food from the cheaply available and resources hence promoting health.

Human Rights

Various factors determine an ethical business. Beyond Meat is a profit-oriented entity and like most businesses, the company tends to ensure that they keep good morals among their employees. It is possible for a business to maintain good morals while still achieving their business objectives. Some of the determinants of ethical business include leadership, integrity, values, respect, loyalty, and concern (Donaldson, 2016). Good leadership is demonstrated at the top management offices. It is also shown in decision making that involves a choice of what is ethical and that which is profitable.

Employees' equality is a major public concern at Beyond Meat, and it is one of the most popular aspects examined and publicized in social auditing reports (Beyond Meat, 2018). The company assesses their policies and practices which aim to at creating fairness in their offices. Many companies are proud of having racially diverse employee at all different levels of operations, promoting gender equality, and providing opportunities to veteran and disabled applicants. Apart from that, the distribution of salaries or employees benefits also draw much attention from the public, and are considered as other missions of having social responsibilities. They put more efforts to reduce the power gaps in the workplace, e.g., by having a decentralized organizational structure in which decision-making opportunities are delegated to different manager levels (Donaldson, 2016).

Community

Beyond Meat business also affect the communities surrounding their premises or the area in which a company is operating. In this case, they need to professionally engage the public or the communities around their place of operation of their intentions before action (Beyond Meat, 2018). For instance, if the populations are relocated for expansion of the company, there is a procedure to start the process legally (Rahim, 2016). Once the site has been identified, the members of the communities are involved, and they are informed of the company or institution's intention to use their land. In case they agree, a certain standard and agreeable procedure will be used in relocating the people from that area to their new residence. They disagree with the idea of relocation; other means can be used including seeking government intervention and applying international best practice policies. The affected company may choose to use incentives and give the community a better deal that they can quickly agree. In the case of Beyond Meat, the company has employed negotiations for the acquisition of their premises as the company is expanding to other parts of the world (Rahim, 2016).

Society

Working in the same environment for some considerable amount of time can create some relationships between the workers and the employer. These relationships can be good or bad. Good relationships lead to loyalty (Donaldson, 2016). Loyal relationships benefit both the employee and the employer. Commitment is an essential quality of a business in many ways. A loyal employer will remain committed to maintaining a good relationship with the employees and customers. The market will stay faithful to its partners even during the bad economic times. The employees will, in turn, remain loyal to the business and work harder towards the business goal (Donaldson, 2016).

Economically

Beyond meat also widens its stake in the market by entering into collaborations and partnership with other companies. An example is Tyson which acquired a 5% stake in Beyond Meat, a startup that man...