Beyond Meat Expanded into China
The major obstacle facing Beyond Meat would be “localizing their product offerings and understanding the Chinese consumer.”
In the past decade, Beyond Meat’s plant-based protein offerings have become ubiquitous in the marketplace. It’s gone far with its claim that its meat substitute is “the future of food.”
Beyond Meat is increasing its presence in China, becoming the first foreign company specializing in plant-based meat to build production facilities in the country.
Ethan Brown, chief executive and founder of Beyond Meat, said China was “one of the world’s largest markets for animal-based meat products, and potentially for plant-based meat”.
But selling plant-based meat to mainland China will not be easy.
Beyond Meat requires regulatory approval there because one of its core ingredients is genetically engineered.
In addition to political and trade barriers, there is a more realistic question: Will the Chinese public buy plant-based meat?
Obviously, Beyond Meat face challenges convincing Chinese consumers to eat their plant-based fake meats.
Cultural challenge
“The demand for healthier, non-meat proteins is not as high in China as in the US because Chinese already eat more vegetables as part of their daily diet than Americans and Europeans. It’s relatively rare for Chinese to say they are vegetarians,” said Shaun Rein at the China Market Research Group.
Vegan foods are already part of the Chinese diet — made from natural ingredients such as tofu, beans and mushrooms, whereas imitation meat is highly processed.
Despite the long history of vegetarian proteins in Chinese cuisine, many consumers in the country’s growing middle class consider meat an important status symbol, or have radically different expectations from Americans about how it should be prepared. In recent years, a number of Chinese companies have begun developing plant-based products, but those mostly target vegetarians, not the meat eaters Beyond Meat hopes to attract.
Challenges from competitors
Competition is heating up in China’s fake meat industry, as domestic plant-based meat brand Zhenmeat launches two new products aimed at satisfying the appetites of local consumers.
The first is a deep fried fake pork tenderloin and the second is a plant-based crayfish. China is the world’s largest consumer of pork and and one of the biggest of crayfish, and the latest releases from Zhenmeat play to local tastes.
“For the plant-based meat, U.S. companies like Beyond Meat is very successful with the burger. They have their unique tech to make burger taste juicy and like beef. But since the start-up of Zhenmeat, we are always focusing on Chinese cuisine,” Zhenmeat founder and CEO, Vince Lu, told CNBC on Wednesday.
Moreover, in China, meat is often prepared differently from American methods, since many people prefer to eat it off the bone. Zhenmeat is using 3-D printers to produce protein alternatives that contain bones, muscle and other structural elements that Chinese consumers expect in their meat.
“Our unique advantage is to find the most favorite dishes in China and use tech to replicate these meat dishes.”
Price challenge
Selling plant-based meat in China will be super expensive and difficult, so the brand must take cost of production as consideration.
Opportunities
- Improve the meat formula to make it more in line with the tastes of local consumers.
- Localize the brand’s product offerings and understand the Chinese consumers’ cultural background.
- Beyond Meat announced in July 2020 it had formed a partnership with a supermarket chain owned by Chinese technology group Alibaba and would launch its burgers in Shanghai stores before expanding its offerings to other cities. It has also partnered with Yum China, the fast-food chain operator that raised $2billion from a secondary share sale in Hong Kong.
- The pandemic has changed Chinese people’s views toward plant-based food. A lot of market research has shown Chinese consumer are growing to the idea that eating more protein will boost their immune system. And plant based protein will be the future choice. So the pandemic may present promotional opportunities for plant-based meat.
