On October 6th, the National Day holiday is coming to an end. On this morning, a box Ma Xiansheng store in Xuhui District of Shanghai was crowded, while the freezer with Beyond Meat hamburger patties was seldom visited.

This hamburger meatloaf contains no meat ingredients and is mainly made of plant protein (pea protein, rice protein, mung bean protein), pressed rapeseed oil, refined coconut oil, potato starch and so on. A hamburger cake weighs 227 grams and sells for as much as 59.9 yuan. The imported beef cubes, which are placed in the same freezer, weigh 500 grams and cost only 39.9 yuan.

$Beyond Meat (BYND.US) $Headquartered in the United States, it landed on NASDAQ in May 2019. The company, which has the halo of "artificial meat first share", is very popular in the capital market, and its share price has repeatedly hit record highs.

Beyond Meat, ambitious, announced its entry into the Chinese market on July 1 this year. A few days later, Beyond Meat's hamburger patties were sold at 50 box Ma Xiansheng stores in Shanghai.

However, the market is not buying it, and the hot selling period of Beyond Meat has never come. "most of the customers who come to buy 'artificial meat' hamburger pancakes are fresh. Our store can only sell one or two a day. A staff member of the above-mentioned Ma Xiansheng store told time Weekly.

This has not stopped Beyond Meat from expanding in China. Beyond Meat announced the signing of an agreement with Zhejiang Jiaxing Economic and technological Development Zone (hereinafter referred to as "Jiaxing Economic Development Zone") to build two plants in Jiaxing through its wholly owned subsidiary Jiaxing (Jiaxing) Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "alternative Foods") to produce plant meat products. On October 12, Beyond Meat stepped up again, announcing that it would deepen its cooperation with KFC China, launching "artificial meat" food in 210 KFC stores for a limited time of three weeks.

China is the world's largest consumer of meat and is becoming an important battleground for "artificial meat" companies to compete. The "artificial meat" enterprises represented by Beyond Meat have accelerated the development of the Chinese market. The capital boom comes first. After the listing of Beyond Meat, the "artificial meat concept stock" spawned by A shares has been hot speculation for many times, and the stock price has risen again and again.

"artificial meat" faces many problems, such as price, technology and low consumer acceptance, and the prospect of the market in China is full of variables.

"if [consumers] just taste it and try it, the market will not be sustainable. In an interview with time Weekly, Liu Jishan, chairman of Shandong Wandefu Biotechnology Co., Ltd., a soybean protein manufacturer, was still worried that the "artificial meat" trend might be a flash in the pan and would not become the mainstream of the market.
On the other hand, whether "artificial meat" can really be called "meat" is still controversial.

"at present, the popular 'artificial meat' in the market is only 'vegetarian', they are only under the name of 'meat', not the real sense of 'vegetarian meat' that ordinary people need. On September 25, Wu Qi, a famous macromolecular physicist, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and director of the Food Science and processing Research Center of Shenzhen University, pointed out in an exclusive interview with time Weekly that the difference between vegetarian and vegetarian meat is mainly reflected in the taste. "seasoned, chewy, strictly speaking, are vegetarian. Housewives can buy it home and stir-fry shredded meat, fried sliced pork, braised meat and stewed meat.

Come to China to build a factory

The 11-year-old Beyond Meat sells products such as hamburgers, sausages, ground beef and minced meat made from "artificial meat". As the COVID-19 epidemic raided, the US meat supply chain was affected, and Beyond Meat stepped up its promotion efforts to seize the market.

On September 29th, Beyond Meat announced that it would expand its cooperation with Walmart Inc in the US market from 800 stores to 2400 stores. As of June 27, 2020, Beyond Meat offers a variety of plant meat products through about 112000 retail and catering outlets in 85 countries around the world.

In China, with the factory in Jiaxing, Beyond Meat will become the first multinational "artificial meat" company to locate its main production facilities in China.
According to industrial and commercial data, alternative Foods was established on April 28th, 2020, with a registered capital of US $1 million. Beyond Meat said it would bring its main production facilities to China and build one of the two plants, one of which would be one of the largest and technologically leading plant meat factories in the world.

Jiaxing Economic Development District staff told time Weekly that the two factories are located in Majiabang health food town, the two sides have completed the project contract.

Beyond Meat has long had a plan for the Chinese market. On January 19th, Beyond Meat joined the China Plant Food Industry Alliance; three months later, Beyond Meat plant meat products were listed in most of Starbucks Corp's stores in China.

Coincidentally, Impossible Foods, the "artificial meat" giant invested by Li Ka-shing, has also entered the Hong Kong market in China. Patrick Brown, founder and chief executive of Impossible Foods, revealed in a written reply to time that the company currently has 200 outlets in Hong Kong, covering a number of offline channels such as Starbucks Corp, Fini's,Franks Italian American and URBAN.

"We are in the early stages of expanding the mainland market and have nothing to announce at the moment. Once we get regulatory approval, we will enter as soon as possible. Because for us, this is a very important market. "Brown confessed.

Green Monday Holdings (hereinafter referred to as "Green Monday"), a local plant scientific research food company in Hong Kong, China, has also confirmed that it will build a production line in Guangdong. Yang Dawei, founder and CEO of Green Monday, said in a written reply to time Weekly that Green Monday will set up its new production line in Guangdong and hopes to give full play to Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area's geographical advantages.

At present, the partner and factory location of Green Monday have been basically determined, and it is expected that it will be put into production in the first half of 2021. At that time, the factory will mainly meet the needs of China's domestic market, and the existing Thai factories will supply overseas regions such as Southeast Asia. After full production, the capacity of Chinese factories will exceed that of Thai factories.

Green Monday, founded in 2012, was one of the first artificial meat companies to enter the mainland market. At the end of November 2019, the "OmniPork New Meat" and other products have been put on sale in Tmall International. In August this year, "OmniPork New Meat" and "OmniPork New Meat healthy Fast Food Series" entered offline retail channels, with about 200 outlets.

Hot money is crazy.

Behind the continuing popularity of the topic of "artificial meat" is the enthusiastic pursuit of capital. After the listing of Beyond Meat, from the primary market to the secondary market are crazy for the concept of "artificial meat", related concept stocks continue to rise.

In the primary market, Impossible Foods received $500m in F round financing in March and a new $200m G round in August. Since its inception in 2011, the company has raised a total of $1.5 billion. On September 22nd, Green Monday announced that it had completed a financing of up to $70 million, the largest single financing for the plant food industry in Asia so far.

In mainland China, start-ups such as vegetable meat brands STARFIELD and rare Meat are also favored by capital.

At the beginning of this year, Zhenmei received seed wheel + financing from BIV (Big Idea Ventures), which focuses on alternative proteins in New York. In March, it announced the completion of tens of millions of dollars in round A financing, making it the "artificial meat" start-up with the highest amount of financing in China.

In addition, meat listed companies also pay close attention to the "artificial meat" tuyere and begin to accelerate the layout in this field.

On April 26th, Shuanghui Development and BABA launched a new strategic category of protein vegetarian meat, "Vegetarian World" in Tmall, and jointly named "Pac-Man", and launched a series of products such as hand-torn protein meat and protein ham sausage to test the waters in the field of plant meat.

On May 8, Shuanghui Development issued an announcement to acquire part of the shares of six companies held by Rotex at a price of 730 million yuan. Among them, DuPont protein and DuPont Foods focus on the field of plant protein. Shuanghui's acquisition is interpreted by the industry as a signal for its official entry into the "artificial meat" track.

Xue Rong Biology, an agricultural product enterprise, also announced on July 8 that it plans to invest 14 million yuan in "artificial meat" enterprise Beijing Weishida Technology Co., Ltd., and signed a "capital increase agreement" with Lanhai Asset Management (Hainan) Co., Ltd., Weishida and its former shareholders.

After the popularity of capital, investors began to bet cautiously.

As an early investor in Impossible Foods, Zhang Jiayu, investment director of Kangdi Grain (Asia), felt the sudden heating up of the industry. After the listing of Beyond Meat last year, the industry began to get a lot of attention and a lot of capital came in, which quickly pulled the valuation of the whole industry to a very high state. Zhang Jiayu is worried that there may be overheating in the short term. "We will be more patient. "

Zhang Jiayu believes that the advantage of being so hot now is that with a lot of attention, more talents and funds will come in, bringing more perspectives and resources, which will help to promote the progress of the entire industry.

"it's a good track in the long run. Although do not want to throw cold water, but the industry will have ups and downs, there will be more challenges. Zhang Jiayu pointed out to time Weekly that the "artificial meat" industry is unlikely to quickly form a pattern of two or three companies occupying the market in the short term, like the mobile Internet industry.

"this is a long-term track, from the stage of development, it is only 1.0 stage, there will be a process of coarsening and refinement. In this process, many start-ups will be eliminated, and many enterprises will be able to run out. Zhang Jiayu told time Weekly.

In the secondary market, Fengle seed industry, Twin Towers Food, Haixin Food, Hartech, Wei Wei shares and other stocks have been hot money crazy sniper, speculation has become popular.
"We hope to use this concept to promote it. At present, only a small number of snack or catering listed companies seriously do this in the secondary market, even much faster than some upstream raw material enterprises. Compared with four or five years ago, people are willing to accept this concept, whether it is hype or others, it is a kind of progress for this industry. On September 29, Xue Yan, secretary-general of the China Plant Food Industry Alliance, said bluntly in an interview with a reporter from time Weekly.

In Xue Yan's eyes, agricultural food needs actual production and consumption, and the whole industry as a whole has less virtual fire from an industrial point of view. However, compared with foreign enterprises spending a lot of money, time and talents on scientific research and innovation, there is still a big gap in the investment of domestic enterprises. "but slowly we see that this proportion is constantly increasing and has been moving forward on the track of benign development. "said Xue Yan.

Chen Su, chairman of Shenzhen Qishan Food Co., Ltd., pointed out in an interview with the time reporter that after the listing of Beyond Meat, the concept of "artificial meat" has been hyped in the secondary market. In the primary equity investment market, almost mainstream VC institutions are looking at this industry, "but not many of them really do it." Although the vegetable meat market has great potential, it is still in the early stages of growth. "people are still trying, and if they are willing to invest some money in the Angel Round or the A round to occupy the track. "Chen Su analyzed.

The "Chinese path" of artificial meat

Chinese artificial meat enterprises are still in their infancy.

Tianfeng Securities Research News said that the domestic traditional vegetarian meat has a long history, but most of them do not belong to the category of "artificial meat". Since the listing of Beyond Meat in 2019, traditional vegetarian companies have entered a period of transition, launching "artificial meat" products, such as Shenzhen Qishan Food, Jiangsu Hongchang Food and Ningbo Sulian Food. At the same time, startups, such as week Zero and Precious Meat, are seizing the track through catering and retail, respectively.

"the term 'artificial meat' was originally put forward from the perspective of finance and technology. We in food and agriculture do not quite agree with this concept, but it is easier for consumers to understand it quickly. Xue Yan said that conceptually, "artificial meat" can be divided into plant meat and cell culture meat.

Among them, plant meat has mature manufacturing technology in the current market, and its raw material is mainly silk-drawing protein, which pursues infinitely close to the taste, appearance and texture of animal meat. Cultured meat refers to extracting cells from animals and making them grow into meat naturally in a laboratory environment by simulating the environment in which the cells grow. At present, it is still in the stage of laboratory research, and large-scale production can not be achieved because of the high cost.

"We have been vegetarian for 27 years and started making plant meat a few years ago, when there was no definition of 'artificial meat' in the market. Chen Su said that making plant meat is not new to Qishan, but the target audience has changed. The first category is the C-end crowd of the e-commerce platform to try something new, and the second category is the emergence of a large number of B-end customers in the past two years. "this part is not large, and everyone is trying."

At present, the scale of domestic "artificial meat" enterprises can be seen from the upstream raw materials. Take Henan Baichuan Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Henan Baichuan"), which is mainly engaged in silk drawing protein, as an example, the company has a sales volume of 40,000 tons a year, and its products are mainly supplied to five major sectors.

According to the situation this year, the first is the addition of meat products to sausages, dumplings and balls, which is the market cultivated in Baichuan, Henan Province, accounting for about 40% of sales; the second is the raw materials of snack food, accounting for 35% of sales; the third is for catering, making plant protein into the shape of shredded meat, which belongs to bean products and can be fried directly; the fourth is vegetarian, which accounts for more than 20% of sales. The fifth is plant meat, accounting for less than 5%.

"I know how much vegetable meat enterprises can buy me, and I know their general development. At present, they are basically start-up small enterprises, in a small batch, not large-scale stage, has not yet formed a large number of circulation. Jiang Xuhai, general manager of Baichuan, Henan, told time Weekly.

In Wu Qi's view, the so-called "artificial meat" on the market does not need to use the modifier "artificial". Using plant protein instead of animal protein, if you can't make the taste of animal meat, it is "vegetarian". Even if it is "vegetarian 5.0", it is still vegetarian.

The Food Science and processing Research Center of Shenzhen University, founded by Wu Qi, was established in 2017. the main direction of the center is the separation, purification and processing of plant protein, starch and cellulose, and the long-term goal is to create plant protein instead of animal protein. to solve nutritional problems such as protein intake of vulnerable and poor people in China and the world.

At present, based on the principle of macromolecular physical processing, Wu Qi and his team are studying and developing how to use plant protein instead of animal protein, solve the taste problem of plant protein instead of animal protein, and develop real vegetarian meat. Their goal is to make a complete vegetarian diet, that is, "it can be put on the shelf in blocks, and customers can buy it home and process it in the way they like," instead of products such as vegetable hamburgers or vegetable meat dumplings currently on the market.

Chinese researchers have also made breakthroughs in the field of meat culture. On November 18, 2019, Professor Zhou Guanghong of the National Meat quality and Safety Control Engineering Technology Research Center of Nanjing Agricultural University led a team to use the sixth generation of porcine muscle stem cells to culture for 20 days to produce 5 grams of cultured meat. This is the first cell culture meat product in China. In June this year, the center held a tasting ceremony of cell culture meat.

"it is expected that after technological breakthroughs, cultured meat can move from laboratory production to pilot production, and then carry out industrial production. On September 26, at the seminar on "Biological fermentation Technology and Cell Culture Meat", Ding Shijie, a member of Zhou Guanghong's team, revealed that after the team continued to tackle key problems, the efficiency of cell culture had been greatly improved. At present, 50 grams of cultured meat can be obtained after 20 days of culture.

In an interview with a reporter from time Weekly, a number of interviewees repeatedly stressed "China's unique food and cultural habits" and "specific consumption scenes."

In Xue Yan's view, plant-based food is a new field, and for the fastest-growing area of agriculture and food back-end, "everyone is laying out one after another, but it is still a long way from competition." Foreign enterprises are good at doing Western-style food and beverage, while Chinese food pays attention to frying, boiling, steaming, stir-frying, cooking and stewing. Domestic enterprises have local advantages. We all have their own areas and advantages, and this market is full of opportunities.

Lu Zhongming, founder and CEO of Zhenmei, pays more attention to how to bring plant meat food into public view. "there are hamburgers in the United States, what is China?" China could be hot pot, it could be dumplings, it could be something different. "

Chinese companies are still "crossing the river by feeling the stones". Liu Jishan pointed out: "Chinese food pays attention to ingredients, taste, taste, scene, different enterprises should position different groups." Now everyone is grabbing the concept of 'artificial meat' and this market, but they are not thinking clearly about what they can do and what they should do. "

Landing problem

According to the research data of international market research institute Markets and Markets, it is estimated that by 2023, the global meat substitute market will reach 6.43 billion US dollars, of which the Asia-Pacific region has the fastest growth rate. The global botanical artificial meat market is about $12.1 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of about 15.0% and may reach $27.9 billion by 2025.

Environmental protection, health and meat substitutes are the main selling points of "artificial meat" at present. "replacing animal protein with plant protein is not a question of whether to do it or not, but a matter of necessity. Wu Qi gave a set of data that in 2018, the per capita consumption of meat in China was 60 kilograms, and the consumption of Chinese people was about 90 million tons, which is the total consumption of the United States and 28 countries of the European Union.

"the market potential of 'artificial meat' is very great, and many large companies and financial institutions at home and abroad are optimistic, and we are also optimistic about it. In Liu Jishan's view, the market faces many challenges at the same time, including how to solve technical problems, how to achieve communication between producers and consumers, and how to meet the real needs of consumers.

"the market outlook cannot be achieved in a day or two, and there is still a long way to go. "Liu Jishan said," many consumers will try out of curiosity, but to form the habit of repeated consumption and sustained consumption requires more communication between producers and consumers. "

For Impossible Foods, "replacing all meat with plant substitutes: meat, dairy products, fish, etc." is their ultimate goal. In contrast, the domestic industry generally believes that if plant meat is developed into a choice among people's table dishes in the future, it will be a success.

"We do not advocate or value the formulation and direction of replacing animal meat with plant meat. Zhou Qiyu, senior manager of the marketing department of Shenzhen Qishan Food Co., Ltd., told time Weekly. On the other hand, Xue Yan has always stressed that "animal protein and plant protein are complementary."

Problems such as price and taste increase the uncertainty of the landing of "artificial meat".

The existing "artificial meat" is mainly produced in the form of minced meat, although it can simulate the appearance of real meat by seasoning and coloring, but it can not imitate the taste of special parts such as masticatory bones and fascia. A number of interviewed enterprise leaders and industry experts told time Weekly that the current "artificial meat" does not have the chewy taste of real meat, is dry and light, and lacks viscoelasticity.

In terms of raw material costs, Baichuan in Henan Province divides its products into low, medium and high grades, with prices of about 10, 000 yuan, 15000 yuan and 20, 000 yuan per ton, respectively.

"if meat is used instead of meat, there is basically a yield of 2.7 after a soak of water. If you use the best brushed protein to produce plant meat, the raw material cost may not exceed NT $6 or 7 per jin, which has a great advantage in cost compared with meat. According to Jiang Xuhai's analysis, the current high price of "artificial meat" is mainly due to the large investment in technological research and development and commercial cooperation.

"the supermarket is expensive. I think the channel may have charged more fees. Zhang Jiayu believes that the terminal price of "artificial meat" is related to different business scenarios.

In the United States, a Burger King vegetable meat burger is only 30% more expensive than a regular hamburger. Consumers can accept it and land on the ground. The high price of vegetarian meat in domestic supermarkets can only be a concept and is difficult to sustain. Zhang Jiayu further explained: "assume that the cost of food and beverage ingredients accounts for about 30%, of which meat may account for 15%." Even if the cost of vegetable meat is twice as high as that of real meat, the price of a hamburger needs to be raised by only 15% to cover the cost of vegetable meat and make a profit by a little more. So the business landing scene should be clear. "

Although many companies have a halo of "artificial meat", some of the relevant listed companies are trying to cut into the field of "artificial meat" while developing their main business, and have not yet formed large-scale production and sales.

In response to investors' questions about "how is the current development of plant artificial meat business", Twin Towers Food, whose main business is pea protein, said that the company has set up two independent teams to make full use of the existing resources of Shang Chao, catering, e-commerce and other channels to operate plant meat business. The company will increase cooperation with some industry leaders in snack food and fast consumer food to develop new products, open up and occupy the market. In the future, plant meat products will be sold around to B and to C.

Chen Su believes that the vegetable meat market has just developed, and the current growth rate is fast, the quantity is small, and it is relatively minority, which is a necessary stage. "We pay attention to scale efficiency, without a huge market, it is very difficult to reduce business costs. Costs will not fall until demand rises. "and as a choice on the table, the relatively high price is understandable.

"cost will not be a big problem in the future, and it won't be much different from traditional food. Liu Jishan pointed out to time Weekly that the key is to consider what consumption level, what kind of consumption scene and what kind of consumption function of the product. "the key is how to position it, which is developed as an ordinary food that people can afford to eat. If you want to meet higher-end needs, you need higher investment in technology development, and the cost may be relatively high. "