In recent years, concept stocks related to “artificial meat” have been very hot in the capital market. Not only Bill Gates bought shares in the current two major artificial meat companies, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, but also Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures invested in Impossible Foods. Bill Gates claims that he is a firm supporter for man-made meat, saying he will eat artificial meat because it is healthier and more eco-friendly. This wave of the artificial meat also made another two industry magnates unable to stand still -- Nestlé launched its own artificial meat burger, Incredible Burger, in April this year and planed to launch the Awesome Burger (a kind of vegan burger) later. The other magnate Tyson Foods also claimed to develop its own vegetable protein products, and announced that they would introduce pea-based chicken nuggets substitutes in June.
At present, artificial meat is mainly a meat substitute made from plants, which is also called vegetarian meat. This piece of meat, which has been well-fried by the capital market, looks very attractive. But, is there any market opportunity for it in China as well? What is the attitude of Chinese consumers towards vegetarian meat? And what are the reasons for their consumption of this “meat”?Next, we will discuss these issues.
THE UPGRADE OF TRADITIONAL VEGETARIAN MEAT
First of all, we need to understand how this artificial meat is different from traditional vegetarian meat.
Traditional vegetarian meat is made from plant materials, such as bean powder, soybean meal, soy protein and wheat protein or vegetable protein, and is produced by squeezing, puffing and cooking, such as Chinese traditional vegetarian cuisine which is named “fangshan”. This kind of vegetarian meat has a difference in taste from meat products and it’s called the “Vegetarian Meat 1.0" version.
Plant protein meat and plant-based meat made by new technology, such as the products produced by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, are the “Vegetarian Meat 2.0" version. This kind of “meat" has almost the same taste, same smell and same appearance as animal meat, nearly indistinguishable from the real one.
In addition, there is another kind of meat substitute --animal-cell cultured meat. It is also in the category of artificial meat, but it has not been commercialized at present due to its high requirements for technique and cost as well as its limited consumer perception. Therefore, the mainstream of meat substitute is still vegetarian meat made from plants.
VEGETARIANISM CAN BE A WIN-WIN OPTION
In China, with the rise of global vegetarianism, the traditional temple dishes are known to more consumers and the vegetarian restaurants are springing up all over the country. Two years ago, “the White Paper of China Catering Report” released by Meituan Dianping and WATCN showed that the number of vegetarian food stores in the country was growing rapidly. By the end of 2016, there were 1,376 vegetarian food stores, with a year-on-year growth of 153.8%. Most of them concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities.
This phenomenon may reflect that vegetarianism is no longer just for religious beliefs, but has become a popular way of eating. The report of “Global Food and Beverage Trend” released by Mintel earlier mentioned that the notion of“Power to the plants” has become a new trend. Consumers claim that they are reducing meat consumption and turning to more plant-based diets, which
means that the popularity of vegetarian food may bring valuable opportunities to vegetarian meat.
According to statistics, millennials are keen on buying meat substitutes. This group of consumers takes the lead in absolute proportion among those who buy meat substitutes. In the United States, for example, nearly 80% of millennials eat meat substitutes, which is about 30% higher than non-millennial generations. Among US consumers who plan to buy more vegetarian or plantbased foods, the proportion of millennials has risen to nearly 40%.
In addition to the impact of vegetarianism, the choice of vegetarian meat is also due to health problems and environmental considerations. According to the “2018 China National Health and Nutrition Big Data Report", the health status of Chinese people is not optimistic. The problem of overweight and obesity is serious - one out of every three adults is overweight and one out of every ten adults is obese! China's obese population will reach 325 million and will double in the next 20 years. The report also mentioned that the pork intake of Chinese residents is increasing significantly. This may be one of the causes of obesity, because excessive consumption of red meat, which is rich in protein nd fat, is likely to cause overweight and obesity. Therefore, replacing animal meat with low-fat meat substitutes can be an effective measure to solve this problem.
In terms of environmental protection, reducing meat consumption has been advocated to reduce the burden on environment in recent years. Because the amount of food needed to raise livestock is large, but the production capacity is low -- for every pound of red meat, it takes up to 12 pounds of grain. The more meat produced, the more arable land required, which will inevitably cause damage to the environment. Therefore, if we can reduce the demand for meat from the source, it will obviously reduce the number of livestock raised, thus reduce deforestation and the emission of environmental pollutants, so as to achieve sustainable development. Therefore, for consumers, choosing vegetarian meat instead of animal meat not only supports environmental protection, but also meets their needs for meat and health. It is a win-win option for both sides.
HOW CAN VEGETARIAN MEAT CONQUER THE “PICKY” CONSUMERS?
Of course, consumers will not accept vegetarian meat unconditionally. Taste, flavor and aroma are the primary considerations. If these aspects can’t reach consumers’ expectation, no matter how good the promotion is, they will not purchase or at least not purchase repeatedly. By now, the taste of vegetarian meat has been able to simulate the taste of meat through more mature techniques and the flavor can also be solved by seasoning. But the special aroma of meat is a to-be-solved problem for vegetarian meat.
For the aroma of meat, Impossible Foods has developed a solution. After five years of research, Impossible Foods scientists found that a molecule that naturally exists in the blood and muscle of animals is the main reason why animal meat tastes such delicious. This molecule is heme. It not only exists in animal body tissues, but also in some plants such as soybeans only with small amounts. The heme in animal body is over 1,000 times higher than that in plants.
Thus, Impossible Foods believes that the solution to the mass-production of heme can solve the difficulty of creating vegetarian meat’s aroma. Therefore, the research team extracted DNA from the soybean nodule which can produce soybean hemoglobin, and inserted its effective fragment into yeast by gene editing, so that the genetically edited yeast could produce a large amount of heme. With the addition of these heme, the vegetarian meat smells very similar to the real meat.
CAN VEGETARIAN MEAT WIN THE HEARTS OF CHINESE FOODIES?
Then, can the vegetarian meat with perfect smell and taste conquer the hearts of Chinese consumers?
Nielsen’s article on its own subscription entitled “The Eight Trends of Chinese Consumers’ New Pursuing” shows that the enthusiasm for novelty is a major feature of today’s Chinese consumers. 46% of Chinese consumers like to try new stuff as well as search for new brands and new products actively, while 26% of Chinese consumers prefer environmentally conscious and socially responsible brands. Their expectations for social responsibility of brand owners are rising.
This may be good news for vegetarian meat producers. After all, the meat with plant protein is still new to Chinese consumers and is in line with today's eco-friendly consumption trends. Patrick Brown, the founder of Impossible Foods and retired professor of biochemistry at Stanford University, said in an interview that he was optimistic about developing the Chinese mainland market. He believes that Chinese consumers are interested in new stuff, so their products may be attractive to them.
Right now, Impossible Foods has settled in Hong Kong and continues expanding Asian market. Beyond Meat, another producer of vegetable-protein meat substitutes, has also settled in many vegetarian and fast-food restaurants in Hong Kong, achieving four times sales growth in less than two years. Based on these facts, Chinese mainland consumers, especially urban residents whose eating habits are similar to Hong Kong residents, will more likely to accept this new kind of meat substitute as well as Hong Kong consumers.
However, there is currently little domestic market research on Chinese consumers in vegetarian meats. The widely quoted statistic, which came from a questionnaire survey led by the Nutrition Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, showed that among 4,004 Shanghai residents, vegetarians accounted for 0.77% of Shanghai residents. Based on this number, it is estimated that there are about 10 million vegetarians in mainland China. Some vegetarian brands said that these two figures are basically consistent with the industry data they have. They speculated that more than 30 million people will choose vegetarian meat in the future and the market size may reach more than10 billion.
Another survey published on the academic journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems shows that Chinese urban residents with higher education and higher incomes are more likely to accept vegetarian meat as a healthier, more nutritious and stylish option. In this report, the Chinese respondents who chose“very likely to buy” was almost twice the number of the US respondents in the same option.
In addition, the report also found that female are more inclined to buy vegetarian meat than male in China. In conclusion, the report believed that for the higher-level Chinese consumers, meat substitutes can better satisfy their demands for improving health when compared with the animal meat. They think meat substitutes are able to help adjusting the proportion of nutrients by diet programs such as reducing saturated fats and increasing meat replacement for Omega fatty acids.
Resource: FoodtoChina Magazine (Autumn 2019)
