Companies that offer plant-based meat alternatives are becoming increasingly popular nowadays as the concept shows great potential in fixing many problems associated with our food system. For instance, Beyond Meat – the company that has managed to produce vegan burgers that look, taste, and even “bleed” like the real thing – has decided to take its shares public. It’s initial public offering (IPO) is the latest sign that alt-meat is going mainstream – and that’s a big deal. Beyond Meat represents one of the pioneers of this new generation of plant-based meat, which aims to replace bean-based veggie burgers marketed mostly to vegans. Beyond Meat is set to be the first plant-based meat company to have an IPO, it could soon be followed as other players within the plant-based meat industry such as Impossible Foods continue to thrive, creating a sense that the meatless-meat movement will continue to grow. And the great thing about this movement is that vegan meats don’t have to displace all animal meats in order to make a big difference. Every burger replaced with a Beyond Burger has an impact on CO2 emissions, demand for factory farming, and demand for antibiotics. The more the plant-based meat industry grows, the more those impacts will be visible — and that might, in turn, itself fuel more interest in plant-based meats.