In 2014, Pinnacle Foods, which owns the Armour canned meats brand, bought the maker of the Gardein line of plant-based meat substitutes. Armour, however, is a modest part of Pinnacle’s business, which includes the Duncan Hines and Birds Eye brands.

“The question in my mind with these acquisitions is always why they’re being done,” Ms. Simon said. “The most positive view is that this means the meat industry is shifting away from animal meat to plant-based meat, but I don’t think we know that’s the case yet — it could also be a way of distracting attention from their industrial meat business.”

Ethan Brown, the founder and chief executive of Beyond Meat, said he knew the investment would raise eyebrows, particularly among the most ardent vegans and vegetarians.

“I’m hoping, though, that they and others will see this as part of a deliberate course of action to get out of the penalty box that’s the ‘alternative’ section in the supermarket and get into a mainstream discussion with the consumer,” Mr. Brown said.

Research conducted jointly last year by the NPD Group, Midan Marketing and Meatingplace, an industry publication, found that 70 percent of meat eaters said they used a meat substitute in place of meat protein at least once a week. And 22 percent said they were using such substitutes more frequently than a year earlier.

Beyond Meat raised $17 million last year from investors. That was the third round of financing that CB Insights, a data collection and research firm, could pinpoint, and the only one for which a dollar amount was disclosed.