Does artificial meat still have a future in China?

In recent years, a new industry has entered people's vision: artificial meat.

From the perspective of human nature, the essence of artificial meat can be summarized in this way: because people are afraid of being fat, they are afraid of unhealthy, they do not want to eat meat, but they want to taste the deliciousness of meat and get enough nutrients The artificial meat can perfectly solve this pain point.

However, looking at the development of artificial meat in recent years, it is not difficult to find that it is the norm in encountering coldness, death, and obstruction. The "artificial meat" company represented by Beyond Meat has set off a wave of artificial meat, but now it has plummeted ...

Why produce artificial meat?

The earliest direction of the development of artificial meat was John Harvey Kelloig, a US nutritionist. He also took the lead in developing two first -type plant -based meat products in the United States. Since then, the United States has begun to introduce commercial meat alternatives. Essence From the beginning of the United States, the concept of artificial meat has gradually moved to Europe, Australia and China.

The emergence of artificial meat carries many aspects of people in many aspects such as protecting animals, protecting the environment, and response to the grain crisis.

First of all, plant -based products are lower -carbon and environmentally friendly than animal bases.

The research report released by the World Nature Foundation in 2019 shows that traditional animal husbandry is the largest source of most greenhouse gases -methane and nitrogen dioxide, and exceeds the sum of all cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, and transmission. The statistics of PwC & Blue Horizon also show that if plant meat occupies a 10%of the meat market, it will save 176 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, which is equivalent to the total carbon absorption of 2.7 billion trees.

From the perspective of the effective utilization rate of resources and an agricultural occupation, the animal husbandry industry not only occupies a relatively large planting industry, but also has a lower utilization rate.

Secondly, artificial meat can supplement the meat gap that may occur in the future.

Data from population growth show that the global population will increase to 10 billion in 2050, and the demand for food will increase by more than 56%. At that time, the entire food system and protein supply will not meet so much protein needs. If the entire agricultural system and food system do not take measures, the earth may suffer a food crisis.

On the other hand, the traditional animal husbandry has strong cycles and large supply and demand is large. Artificial meat can also supplement the meat gap caused by this uncertainty.

Finally, compared with traditional meat, artificial meat is healthier and more conducive to personalized customization.

According to the official website of Beyond Meat, long -term consumption of ordinary meat will increase the risk of illness of 16%and 21%of heart disease; and artificial meat is greener and safer than traditional meat, which fundamentally prevents many people and livestock common affected by people and animals. The spread of diseases and animal diseases, such as mad cow disease, foot -and -mouth disease, African swine fever, etc.

When technology develops to a certain level, artificial meat can also customize the proportion of nutrients through the adjustment of the formula and the requirements of the formula. Consumers do not need to worry about the impact of the intake of animals hormones and antibiotics on the body, and provide a wealth of nutritional choices for vegetarians, Jewish and halal diets.

Whether it is for the entire earth's ecological environment, or for human food safety and physical health, the emergence of artificial meat can be called "gospel".

Artificial meat -a carnival of a capital

From the perspective of capital, artificial meat is indeed a good story of "impeccable".

In 2019, Beyond Meat, the "artificial meat first share" bet on Bill Gates, was listed on the bell in Nasdaq. It was the best stock since the financial crisis in 2008.

At the other end of the ocean, China's capital market was also very excited about this, ushered in a wave of artificial flesh boom. Double Tower Food and Viviest Co., Ltd. were pulled out of multiple daily limit in A shares at the time. According to the "2021 Chinese Plant Meat Industry Insight White Paper" statistics, from December 2019 to December 2020, there are as many as 21 investment events against plant base companies in China. 10%of the track.

Behind such an enthusiastic investment and financing, an important background that must be mentioned is that at that time, China was affected by African swine fever. Pork shortage and prices soared. In the context of pork supply of large gaps, the emergence of artificial meat has provided new ideas for making money for the domestic capital market. In addition, the proposal of the "double carbon" goal and the change of the public health consumption concept have become the fertile soil for artificial meat to grow in the eyes of capital.

Looking at the world, the risk capital inflow of the global artificial meat industry in 2020 is about 2 billion US dollars, about 10 billion yuan. At the same time, the amount of financing of various types of artificial meat companies has almost doubled compared with the previous year.

However, capital began to be cold since 2021.

Beyond Meat's performance losses exceeded market expectations, and the stock price also fell nearly 90 % compared with the historical highest point. The financial report shows that in the Q1 quarter of 2022, Beyond Meat's revenue was US $ 109 million, an increase of 1.19%over the same period last year.

China's capital market is no exception. There are only 4 investment events in a year, and most of them are round A financing. Regardless of how perfect the capital of capital is made, consumers are still willing to pay for it, and the taste and price are always two mountains in front of consumers. Some consumers who have tried artificial meat have said that the "taste is almost almost bad than real meat" and "heat halves" recommended by artificial meat and advertising and Internet celebrity bloggers. The big difference is not as good as the real meat and the price is high.

Taking Hangzhou Hema Xiansheng as an example, a box of 230g of new vegetarian plant "beef" is priced at about 30 yuan, and the same price can buy 500g of fresh beef. On the Tmall platform, a box of 226g Beyond Meat Botanical meat burger beef cake is about 26 yuan, and at a beef product Tmall flagship store, you can buy 1000g of beef cake at 99 yuan. According to market statistics, the average price of artificial meat is 40%higher than the real meat.

People can't help but ask, is artificial meat "delicious" or "delicious" of consumers?

Artificial meat is dissatisfied in China's soil and water

In the past one or two years, consumers may find that artificial meat is slowly penetrating into the popular dining table when visiting restaurants such as Starbucks and KFC. Moon cakes, rice dumplings, dumplings, and spring rolls made of artificial meat appear in the market. But at present, compared with the European and American markets, if artificial meat is really intended to enter the Chinese market, it still has to face the dilemma of dissatisfaction with soil and water, and there is still a long way to go.

On the one hand, compared with European and American countries, there are significantly less intake of meat in China and even the entire East Asian region. According to Spectator Index data, the average American consumes 120kg per person per year, Australia is 111kg, Italy is 90kg; China is 58kg, and Japan is 45kg.

From another perspective, Chinese households can eat meat for decades ago. In recent years, people's living standards have gradually improved. Compared with vegetables, meat is still an important part of people's dietary structure that cannot be abandoned in the diet structure. Essence Those who want to persuade people who have notathered real meat to eat artificial meat are quite difficult.

On the other hand, about 60%of the meat consumption in Europe and the United States is a minced meat -such as meat cake in burgers. The main forms of plant meat in Europe and the United States are also concentrated in food categories such as burgers, sandwiches, hot dogs and pasta.

The concept of artificial meat may be able to complete commercialization in European and American countries that love meat and advocate vegetarian food.

The artificial meat that appears in the main form of meat pie as the main form of western food is barely enough, but in the face of rich Chinese food, it looks particularly stretched. The eight major cuisines in China have their own downturn, and the cooking process is very different. Stewed and fried fried fried and fried. The choice of different dishes on the location and state of the meat is also very delicate. Artificial meat is obviously unable to compete with ordinary cooking methods such as meat, meat, meat, and meat slices.

Perhaps the Chinese brand who knows the stomach best is the Chinese brand. The local brand "Grainmeat" founded in 2019 is the development of the development of block -shaped plant meat. The artificial meat of local catering demand for beef slices and yellow chicken rice rice "is the artificial chicken piece". However, between the successful development and the successful research and development, there are still difficulty in technical gaps.

In addition to competing with real meat, artificial meat also has a strong rival in the Chinese market -bean food.

There are two main types of artificial meat: one is "soybean protein meat" made of soy protein (Plant-based Meat); the other is to use animal stem cells (this cell is not taken from circle or slaughter in laboratory Animal animals, from food production plants). Lab-Grown Meat. However, there have been no laboratory cultivation in the market, and soybean protein meat is the mainstream.

From this perspective, almost every Chinese have eaten human -made meat, and we are used to calling tofu. The reason why Chinese Buddhists can always maintain a vegetarian tradition depends on tofu. On the basis of tofu, we also have countless ways to eat bean skin, dried bean, oil tofu, and grilled gluten. It is still more advantageous than artificial meat.

Beyond Meat has launched a plant -based pork, hoping to open up the Chinese market. The Washington Post has relentlessly in an article: "You won't try to sell coal to Newcastle (coal capital). Then, how much do you think is the possibility of selling meat alternative foods to the country invented by tofu? "

If artificial meat wants to fly into ordinary people's homes in China, there is still a long way to go.

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