the global alternative protein market of 290 billion US dollars will not stop at plant meat.
According to Euromonitor International, by 2023, the scale of China’s vegetable meat market will be close to 84 billion yuan.
However, magic mirror learned that a plant meat brand financing tens of millions of yuan was quietly liquidated. Then magic mirror searched the tmall Taobao store of the brand and found that it had been cancelled. The official account of WeChat, the brand, was recently released in August 2021. The brand’s microblog official account and the latest tweet also stayed in August 2021.
As the phenomenal tuyere of plant-based products in recent two years, foreign giants have rushed to China, and local brands have sprung up. However, compared with the release of new products every three or five times last year, the voice of plant meat is much lower under the pressure of “applauding but not selling”.
What will be the future of plant meat in China? Based on the data of e-commerce, this paper interprets the direction of plant meat products for you.
who is vegetable meat replacing?
If we discuss the phenomenon of plant meat, its more accurate name should be artificial meat. At present, the plant meat track has evolved from artificial meat version 1.0 to artificial meat version 4.0.
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
The culture process of cell meat is roughly to extract living tissue from animals – isolate target cells – preliminarily cultivate target cells – put the cell population into a large culture container with culture medium for culture – culture for 10-12 days – separate and purify the cell culture meat – and finally cook and process to form the end product.
As the process of cell meat culture involves a series of technical and market issues such as tissue collection, genetic engineering, antibiotics, growth media, scaffolds, harvest points, expansion of production, production costs, safety considerations, product ingredients, environmental & animal welfare and health effects, marketing schedule, labels, consumer acceptance and so on, At present, the new products listed at home and abroad are plant-based meat.
The reasons for the rise of plant meat include using plant meat to solve the environmental and agricultural pressure brought by population growth; The safety of plant meat 0 cholesterol, 0 hormone, 0 trans fatty acid and 0 antibiotic; And meet the needs of vegetarians, environmentalists, animal protectors, people with religious beliefs and other special groups.
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
From the price of tmall Taobao platform, vegetable meat is slightly more expensive than ordinary meat, but it is not an affordable price. Judging consumer acceptance from the price is not accurate.
At the beginning of 2020, Pat Brown, CEO of impossible foods, said an incomprehensible and seriously biased saying, “every time the Chinese eat a piece of meat, a puff of smoke comes out of the Amazon rainforest”.
It can be seen that once the interests are involved, the boss will have no brain spray.
In fact, China’s per capita meat consumption and per capita carbon emissions are lower than those of the world’s major developed countries.
Magic mirror believes that the demand for extreme health is more suitable for subculture groups and is less likely to become a mass market. East Asian culture as a whole is self restrained, but under self-restraint, there needs to be an outlet for vent. For example, in Japan, on the one hand, Japanese traditional culture attaches importance to rules, on the other hand, it is to enjoy physical pleasure, such as drinking, bathing and geisha. For the Chinese people, food is the most important thing for the people. This phenomenon is discussed in the deep structure of Chinese culture written by Mr. Sun Longji. Therefore, in eating, eating well includes both the health dimension and the delicious dimension.
The promotion of plant meat is not to advocate that we should not eat meat. The CEO of a domestic vegetable meat brand said in an interview that “vegetable meat only provides consumers with a new choice when eating meat”.
early taste mentality is an important reason for users to buy Plant meat
Dozens of domestic artificial meat enterprises have obtained financing, but the sales volume of brands on tmall Taobao platform is low, mainly relying on catering service channels.
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
Magic mirror sampled and collected the e-commerce comments of plant meat commodities under the fresh category. The time span was 2021.01-2022.01, with a total of 959 comments. The positive sound volume accounts for 95.5% of the total sound volume, and the negative sound volume accounts for 4.5% of the total sound volume.
Image source: magic mirror e-commerce listening
We found that consumers had the highest feedback on the taste (20%), logistics (9%) and taste (7%). In the negative volume, consumers reflect that the taste is general, unlike meat, the logistics is slow, too spicy and not delicious.
Image source: magic mirror e-commerce listening
It is found from the comments that many users buy early. As a new thing, the impact of plant meat on the market mostly stays in the investment and scientific research circle. At present, both the technical maturity and the mass production and taste of products are challenges.
Image source: magic mirror e-commerce listening
From the perspective of environmental protection and economy, the future value of plant meat is full of imagination. However, from the perspective of human nature, the medium and short-term market prospect of plant meat is worrying. It is expected that with the continuous development of plant meat technology, it may gradually become a small supplement to the mainstream diet.
vegetable milk & a new opportunity for pet food or alternative protein Market
At present, in addition to artificial meat, there are also vegetable milk and insect protein. In China, the otaly fire has brought the heat of the vegetable milk track. From tmall Taobao platform, the sales of vegetable milk has increased all the way.
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
Insect protein can be used as a new component of pet food. In 2011, there were start-ups in Europe that developed farms to produce high-quality natural protein feed with insect raw materials for aquaculture feed and pet nutritional food. In March this year, ADM, the world’s largest agricultural production, processing and manufacturing company, announced that it had established a strategic partnership with innovafeed, a French insect breeding start-up. Innovafeed will provide black water gadfly protein to adm pet food department to create pet food with high-quality nutrition. At present, many start-ups in China are developing products that use insects to realize resource transformation.
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence
Industry Outlook: the future of alternative proteins
Although the situation of artificial meat in China remains to be seen, plant-based products and insect proteins are quietly growing.
ADM has released the prospect of alternative protein field in 2022. Readers who need it can refer to the following:
1. New protein sources, from cell culture to fungi and air protein: in addition to cell culture protein, foreign research institutions and start-ups have already begun to develop fungal protein and air protein.
2. The arrival of fermentation as a service (FAAS) business model: fermentation companies expand fermentation capacity, innovate in the new model of serving food, beverage and health brands, and provide support to companies and brands in these fields, especially for processing, laboratory services and consultation on food grade fermentation process.
3. Next generation plant-based whole muscle solution: reproduce animal whole muscle, not only in the research and development of mixed plant meat and cell culture meat, but also in the innovative research and development of texture materials and scaffold technology, so as to bring the texture of whole muscle to plant meat products.
4. Innovation and transparency from seed to table: increase information transparency to make consumers more aware of where food comes from, how to protect animal welfare and what contribution they have made to climate solutions.
5. Cost reduction of cell culture meat products: the continuous reduction of costs makes the laboratory technology a feasible business plan and scalable technology.
6. The rise of child friendly products: develop new products according to children’s different ages.
7. Traditional plant-based dishes: yogurt, pizza, macaroni and cheese. The food industry has developed a series of plant-based products in line with consumers’ eating habits, and more products expected by consumers will be developed in the future.
Author: Erin Zhang; Source: magic mirror Market Intelligence (ID: mktindex), reprint has been authorized. Reprint authorization and media business cooperation: Amy (wechat: 13701559246); Foodaily Expo 2022] in line with the original intention of providing the whole value chain and one-stop industrial innovation services for the industry, foodaily Expo 2022 (2022.05.31-06.02, Shanghai) is further upgraded. In addition to the upstream and downstream of the food industry, it also covers and gathers multiple resources such as e-commerce, social media, traffic, channels and capital, aiming to bring you an annual innovation feast. Here, products, content, technology, marketing and other aspects related to food & brand innovation will be presented in the form of “professional exhibition + innovative content + interactive experience”, breaking through and differentiating in the consistent form of industry exhibition.
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