DeAndre Jordan, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul Invest In Plant-Based Food Company Beyond Meat

(AP) – New York Knicks center DeAndre Jordan is one of three current or former NBA All-Stars, including Boston Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving and Houston Rockets point guard Chris Paul, investing in Beyond Meat, a plant-based meat substitute Jordan couldn’t stop raving about in an exclusive interview.

“I believe in the product and it’s something that I really do care about,” Jordan said, “and hopefully it’ll be a company that other people care about in the future.”

Jordan, Irving and Paul join a growing group of investors for Beyond Meat, which has raised $122 million so far, according to CrunchBase, and could soon be looking to go public.

Over the last several years, Jordan’s dabbled in cutting red meat out of his diet during the summer. He went pescatarian one summer before going full vegetarian for two straight summers. At that point, Jordan thought “I should be able to do this for an entire season.”

Now Jordan is putting his money where his mouth is, though he and Beyond Meat declined to disclose the amount he’s investing or whether he’s receiving an equity stake in the company.

Jordan is far from the only NBA player who’s experimented with cutting red meat. A 2017 Bleacher Report article profiled Kyrie Irving’s vegan diet and also mentioned fellow players including Damian Lillard, Wilson Chandler and Enes Kanter who have all gone either vegetarian or vegan. In fact, after the B/R article came out, Beyond Meat reached out and sent Irving some of its product.