Photo: IC

Since the coronavirus was largely brought under control in China and restaurants reopened, multiple foreign and domestic meat alternatives have been rolled out in the market, aiming to seize a large market share in a country where such food products are still novel. 

The US' Starbucks and KFC, and popular Chinese bubble tea chains Naixue's Tea and Heytea have all rushed into the market, debuting plant-based foods on their menus in China stores. Heytea has partnered with Shenzhen-based fake meat startup Starfield to launch its veggie burger, and the new Starbucks menu features Beyond Meat, one of the US' largest producers of meat substitutes, marking the company's official entry into the Chinese market.

"We intend to invest heavily in understanding and being of service to the Chinese market, including investing in talent in China to help us further product development that thrills Chinese consumers. It's a big market and we are going to invest to be able to compete with established and new players alike," Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, recently told the Global Times in an exclusive interview. 

According to the latest report by market research firm MarketsandMarkets, the scale of the global plant-based meat industry is predicted to grow from $3.6 billion in 2020 to $4.2 billion by 2021. The report noted that lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic will be beneficial for the plant-based meat industry as a whole.

Great expectations

Popular food documentary A Bite of China estimated that the number of vegetarians in China is as high as 50 million - about 3.57 percent of the nation's total population. That large base is enticing to foreign brands. 

Brown told the Global Times that early feedback from consumers has been positive among the majority of Starbucks cafes in China.

A Beijing resident told the Global Times at a Starbucks branch on Tuesday that she could not notice a difference in flavor between the fake meat in the "beef" lasagna and real beef. 

Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat's "beef" is manufactured in the US, then frozen and shipped via cargo vessel to China. 

Beyond Meat currently has manufacturing capabilities in the US, Canada and the EU, and plans to enlarge its production in Asia by the end of the year, said Brown, though he did not reveal where the company will locate its plant. 

The company also works with local firms in China across the supply chain to source products such as pea protein, Brown said. The company does not use soy or gluten in its products, distinguishing itself through its use of peas, mung beans and rice. 

It has raked in cash amid the US' coronavirus-induced food supply concerns. In the first quarter, it achieved net revenues of $97.1 million, an increase of 141 percent compared to the first quarter last year.  

However, Zhu Yi, an associate professor of food security and nutrition at the China Agricultural University in Beijing, warned that the high price of meat substitute products will hinder their market prospects in China, and that Chinese consumer interest in meat substitutes won't last long.

Tortilla wraps containing real meat are currently priced at 39 yuan ($5.49) in Starbucks branches nationwide, while the price of a similar product containing the new meat substitute stands at 59 yuan.

"We are highly focused on reducing costs and passing those savings on to the consumer in terms of lower pricing. The reason we're more expensive today reflects a supply chain and production system that is still fairly new," Brown said. "We have set an internal goal to have at least one product in one meaningful category that underprices animal protein by 2024."

Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat Photo: Courtesy of Beyond Meat

Intense competition

The entry of foreign players into the Chinese meat substitute market has intensified competition for domestic companies, which are also ramping up efforts.

Zhou Qiyu, marketing manager at Whole Perfect Food, a Shenzhen-based company with more than a decade of experience catering to the vegetarians, said his company is bracing for the competition from incoming foreign brands such as Beyond Meat, though it has one key advantage: pricing. 

"We have established a mature supply chain over the past decade, which means our supply and production are locally sourced," Zhou told the Global Times on Wednesday. "For example, a chicken breast sausage might be cheap, but our plant protein sausage can be even cheaper."

Whole Perfect Food's sophisticated understanding of the Chinese diet and domestic consumers is also an advantage. 

The target consumers of plant-based meat in China have shifted from the health-conscious and religious middle aged to a much younger group, according to Zhou.

"Our consumers used to be people above 35," Zhou said. "But currently, around 72 percent are aged between 18 and 35."

A large proportion of that rising group is not just health-conscious, but also weight-conscious, Zhou said, and many of the company's latest products are specifically designed to target young weight watchers. 

"There is a growing group of muscle builders and weight watchers in China who are increasingly conscious about what they take into their bodies, and are very particular about their daily intake of sodium, protein and fat. That's also why our low-fat products are especially attracting attention."

The coronavirus spread has also seemed to lift people's food awareness. Zhou said that Whole Perfect Food has been receiving an increasing number of phone enquiries since the outbreak. 

Chinese pea protein meat developer ZhenMeat sees the intense competition as a good thing. 

"It will better educate China's plant-based meat market and can help show the company's advantages, such as its localized plant sources and ability to meet consumer demand for flavor and low prices," ZhenMeat CEO Lü Zhongming told the Global Times. 

Driven by an inflow of capital and industrial development, more firms are expected to join the fake meat league to test the waters though the sector is still in its early stages, veteran food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng told the Global Times. "It will become the next lucrative battleground."

"Meat substitutes have their own advantages in realizing a steady supply and fending off risks from diseases that hurt the meat industry, like African swine fever," said Zhu.

However, there are still risks and doubts over whether meat alternatives are absolutely safe, as neither China nor any foreign country has rolled out industry standards, according to Zhu.

There have been no official industry regulatory standards for plant-based foods in China thus far. A relevant standard is being formulated by the China Plant Based Foods Alliance and may be published in two to three months, according to media reports.


Newspaper headline: Where’s the beef？