From boom to bust, another giant is pulling out of China, and the artificial meat that’s been so highly touted is getting cold feet.

This is the 1755th issue of Deep Krypton New Consumerism Share Why did the once-popular artificial meat end up in such a situation? Author Zhu Mu Source ID xinshangye2016 Cover Image Internet

This is the 1755th issue of Deep Krypton New Consumption Share Why did the once popular artificial meat end up in such a situation?

Author Zhu Mu Source ID xinshangye2016 Cover Image Web

Standing on the wind, pigs can fly up to the sky, but when the wind stops, those who fall down and die are also pigs.

Recently, headquartered in California, the first shares of artificial meat Beyond Meat Beyond Meat announced its fiscal year 2024 report, annual revenue of $326.5 billion, down 4 9 Operating loss of $156 million, operating margins of 47 8, the stock price is all the way down, miserable, Wall Street Goldman Sachs Group said its business has been seriously shrinking.

As a result of years of losses, Beyond Meat announced that it would suspend operations in China at the end of the second quarter of 2025 and lay off 95 . The departure of the giant hints that the story of artificial meat seems to be running out of steam.

Rewind back to 2019, in May of that year, Beyond Meat went public on the Nasdaq, and its shares soared 163 , the best IPO since the 2008 financial crisis, on that day. MIT Technology Review listed artificial meat burgers as one of the world’s top ten breakthrough technologies, and Bill Gates, the big man behind the scenes, even let slip that artificial meat and plows are breakthrough technologies that will change the world.

Along with the listing of Beyond Meat, a heat wave was soon set off in China’s food industry, with the concept of artificial meat and plant-based raging and new products coming one after another. in April 2020, KFC tested plant-based golden chicken nuggets in designated restaurants in three cities in China Domestic artificial plant-based meat brand Zhou Zero cooperated with the pizza brand BangJohn to launch an artificial meatball pizza, and Starbucks also launched five plant-based meatball dishes in China in the same month. The same month, Starbucks also launched five plant-based meat dishes in China.

In May, Xi Cha teamed up with domestic plant-based meat brand Zhou Zero to launch a plant-based meat burger In October, Texaco launched two plant-based chicken products In December, FamilyMart also went live with four plant-based meat products in its stores in eastern China.

Giant action frequently, triggering a domino effect, the original wait-and-see also have confidence, a large number of start-ups flocked to the rapid rise. Week zero Jane meat not food up to the emerging plant meat brands have received financing, double tower food golden ham Shuanghui development and other veteran companies have also entered the game, the concept of artificial meat to a climax.

However, the heat comes and goes quickly, but in a few years, artificial meat has become an outdated Netflix. From 2021 onwards, the capital gradually flame out, has been successfully listed artificial meat enterprises, are in the state of loss and layoffs.

Consumers do not buy, directly leading to the subsequent market atrophy and contraction. Artificial meat-related products, whether in the supermarket retail end or in the restaurant stores, or major online e-commerce platforms, sales are not satisfactory.

So the question is, once the popularity of artificial meat, why fall into this situation today?

Artificial meat came out of nowhere, from abroad to the domestic fire.

As a matter of fact, artificial meat, or alternative meat, plant meat, is nothing new to the people of China, and vegetarian chicken and duck were recorded more than 1,000 years ago.

According to the use of raw materials and processing technology, artificial meat can be divided into two categories: plant meat and cellular meat. Compared with the traditional vegetarian meat that has existed in the domestic market for a long time, the biggest difference between artificial plant meat and it is the use of different raw materials and processing technology.

Specifically, traditional vegetarian meat is mainly produced from soybean and bean curd, and in most cases, no in-depth processing is carried out to extract plant proteins, and the physical process of thermal processing is only needed to form a meat-like texture later on, whereas artificial plant-based meat is made from plant proteins separated from soybeans and peas, and the subsequent production process is more complex, requiring advanced synthetic biotechnology and a series of processes such as fermentation, extrusion and other processes, such as the formulation, extrusion, molding and molding. The subsequent production process is more complex, requiring advanced synthetic biotechnology and a series of processes such as fermentation, extrusion, etc., which place high demands on the formulation, extrusion and molding technologies.

The production method of cellular meat is completely different from that of plant meat, which is grown from petri dishes and test tubes, through the cultivation of animal stem cells, so that it develops into a complete muscle tissue, and then through the gene replication technology, these muscle tissues are endowed with the flavor of meat and the required nutritional costs, technically speaking, in addition to cultivated meat is not from the body of the animal segmentation down, and the real meat is not the same. However, cultivated meat is still an experimental product and has not yet flowed in the market, therefore, plant meat is currently the most important commercialization direction of artificial meat.

The opportunity for the emergence of artificial meat is partly for future food security considerations, and partly in response to the climate change crisis and emissions reductions in the livestock sector. Optimistic expectations are that artificial meat cultivated in laboratories can be mass-produced at low cost, allowing all people to realize the freedom to eat meat, and that it will not cause environmental pollution like traditional animal husbandry, will not consume and take up a large amount of water, land and feed resources, and will not be involved in controversies that infringe on the well-being of animals.

Since 2010, many European and American startups have entered this field, and Beyond Meat, mentioned at the beginning, is one of the most famous companies. Beyond Meat has attracted a lot of attention since its inception, with well-known venture capitalists behind it. In May 2019, Beyond Meat successfully landed on the NASDAQ, becoming the first listed company in the United States for plant-based meat.

When Beyond Meat was listed on the U.S. stock market, China was ravaged by African swine fever, with pork shortages and soaring prices. Against the backdrop of a pork supply gap, the emergence of artificial meat has also provided new ideas for the domestic capital market It may be able to become an alternative to meat products.

Against this backdrop, the ambitious Beyond Meat started its layout in China. in April 2020, Beyond Meat collaborated with Starbucks to launch Spaghetti with Green Sauce, Classic Lasagna, and American Chutney Rolls. in October, Beyond Meat’s products landed in KFC with the launch of the Beef Burger with Planted Beef Cheeseburger, which KFC claimed could be as good as the real meat. Beyond Meat also worked with Rosen’s convenience store to create four types of plant-based meat dumplings specifically for the Chinese market.

With Beyond Meat’s demonstration in front of them, the domestic market soon began to boil.

Capital is coming in and betting like crazy, and new and old companies are laying their groundwork.

Beginning in 2020, China’s artificial meat industry ushered in a wave of investment and financing climax.

According to the 2021 China plant-based meat industry insight white paper statistics, from December 2019 to December 2020, as many as 21 domestic investment events targeting plant-based companies, up 500 year-on-year , accounting for about 10 percent of the entire food and health care products track.

In November 2020, Shandong Heda announced its intention to set up a participation company, declaring that it would accelerate the application of food-grade cellulose ether in the field of plant-based protein artificial meat In April 2021, Dongbao Bio publicly stated that the company’s artificial meat leisure food products have completed research and development, and it will build a whole series of nutritious artificial meat products, among other things.

In April 2021, Beyond Meat officially unveiled its plant-based meat production plant in Jiaxing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Zhejiang Province, which is its first end-to-end production plant outside of the U.S. Beyond Meat is also the first multinational company to locate its production facilities in China for the production of artificial meat products In October, Beyond Meat again stepped up its game by announcing the following In October, Beyond Meat deepened its partnership with KFC China by launching marinated meat products in 210 KFC stores for a limited three-week period.

At the same time, the head of the catering industry such as Hi-Tea Nesher’s Tea, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and other companies have also launched new artificial meat products, Nestle and Unilever have a new brand of plant-based Jia Zhi Cuisine, Chateau Metro launched Beyond Meat Burger, Bacchus launched a series of artificial meat snacks, boxed horse shelves are also on the new artificial meat, and even Shuanghui Causeway, and other traditional food leaders have followed closely, artificial meat has become a hot wind mouth.

About the various benefits of artificial meat, but also by the media repeatedly mentioned The production of artificial meat is safe and controllable, but also according to the need to retain the favorable elements needed by the human body, eliminating some harmful and ineffective food elements, not only the protein content is better than the meat, high nutritional value, and there are fewer saturated fatty acids and zero cholesterol, more conducive to human health.

In an effort to get Chinese consumers to embrace artificial meat as soon as possible, brands are getting more aggressive in their campaigns, especially foreign giants. The first shot was fired on January 7, 2020, when the New York Times published an article in both English and Chinese, “Will the Chinese Buy Artificial Meat? The article, which was published in both English and Chinese versions of the New York Times, was a blatant PUA, because the Chinese are eating a lot of meat, leading to a huge increase in the global supply of meat, and in order to raise more pigs, cows and goats, they have to take up more arable land and rainforests, which aggravates the damage to the environment, and therefore, for every piece of meat that the Chinese eat, there is a cloud of smoke that rises from the Amazon rainforest.

In the midst of this moralizing about the guilt of Chinese people for eating meat, Beyond Meat has also launched a celebrity “Less Meat, More Meat” campaign, placing these ads on the streets of China’s major cities, on buses, and in subway stations.

However, as the marketing of artificial meat becomes more intense, consumers are more likely to be offended.2022 In late 2012, Beyond Meat was involved in a hygiene scandal, revealing that the production plant was littered with debris, mold grew on the walls, and the equipment was operated in a manner that did not meet safety and hygiene standards.2023 Beyond Meat was also the subject of an investigation by the Chinese government.

After this incident, consumers’ favorability towards artificial meat dropped directly to the freezing point.

From the fire to a comprehensive fire artificial meat has a future?

Foreign giants halted, the domestic artificial meat enterprise’s days are not easy.

With the concept of artificial meat hot contrast, is the consumer side of the sense of exclusion. Boosted by capital, artificial meat did blow up a whirlwind in the country, also did a certain market popularization, but far from the degree of quantitative change caused by qualitative change.

For many consumers, artificial meat is still a relatively unfamiliar concept, most of them equate it with fake meat. From the cognitive transformation point of view, even in the more developed first-tier cities, 88 consumers have heard of artificial meat, but only 32 of them have actually eaten it, and it can be predicted that in other cities, this percentage is certainly even lower. This means that artificial meat is still very niche in China, and the ceiling is within reach.

In addition, although China has a more mature process in the production of vegetarian products, but has never broken through the technical difficulties of dry extrusion, resulting in artificial meat products viscous and soft, difficult to simulate the fibrous structure of animal meat, and there is a certain degree of soybean fishy taste, taste is not good. What’s more, Chinese cuisine favors frying, deep-frying, stewing and stir-frying cooking methods also increase the difficulty of the artificial meat process, and most of the artificial meat will return to its original form in the heavy cooking process.

Because of this, in order to simulate the flavor of real meat, artificial meat will be added to a variety of additives Flavoring agents to give flavor, although vegetable protein is healthy food, but all kinds of additives added to the degree of health to be greatly reduced, so, artificial meat is not healthier.

According to Tmall’s plant meat consumer insight report, 74 consumers said they were not willing to repurchase artificial meat products, only stopping at the fresh taste of the microblogging on the topic of artificial meat, most of which are focused on the topic of plant meat is really healthier is artificial meat reliable, the overall evaluation of the more negative.

The high price of artificial meat on the market has also dissuaded many consumers. In Hangzhou Box Ma Fresh Life, for example, a box of 230g of new vegan plant-based beef with sauce is priced at about 30 RMB, while the same price can buy 500g of fresh beef On the Tmall platform, a box of 226g of Beyond Meat Beyond Meat plant-based meat burger patties weighs 226g and is priced at 59.9 RMB, while beef patties of the same weight are priced as low as 20 RMB Convenience Bee sells plant-based meat on rice balls at a price that is almost the same as that of similar real meat on rice balls. The price of vegetable meat rice ball sold by Convenience Bee is almost the same as similar real meat rice ball, but the fake meat is sold at a much higher price than the real meat, which is unbelievable in the eyes of consumers.

The root of the problem is that the entire artificial meat industry’s imperfect technology has led to high processing costs, and Beyond Meat has revealed in its earnings report that the company’s new plant-based beef jerky products, which use a complex and high-cost manufacturing process, have led to further expansion of its losses and the formation of a vicious cycle.

Originally, the original intention of artificial meat was to solve the problem of excessive pollution and cope with the food crisis, but later on, it has gradually changed its taste, and in the process of commercialization, it has become more and more detached from the essence, which has given rise to new problems.

Artificial meat is indeed gimmicky, but its development is still at an early stage, and the technology still needs a lot of improvement. Relevant enterprises have not yet explored a sustainable blood-forming model, the future of artificial meat, we still need to leave it to time and market verification.

That said, what do you think about artificial meat?

This article picture is from the network, the picture is for reference only, no pointing and commercial use!

References 1 red meal network fake meat as good as real meat incense, artificial meat reduced to over the gas net red 2 south wind window artificial meat, already eaten 3 zinc financial market value fell 90, artificial meat cooled down

Finally, I’d like to introduce you to a treasure of a book blogger.

During the day, she is a company executive, and at night, she is a street hooker.

This was the identity of the victim in the Tokyo OL murder case that rocked Japanese society in 1997. Because of her dual identity, this case attracted a lot of attention from the public.

The victim, who was 39 years old at the time of her death, had excelled as a child, and after graduating from Keio University, a prestigious Japanese university, in 1980, she joined the Tokyo Electric Power Company, where she was one of the first women to be accepted as a candidate for a managerial position. Her father, a graduate of the University of Tokyo, had held senior positions in the company. Her mother graduated from Nihon Women’s University and was from an affluent, highly educated middle-class family. Although her father died when she was a sophomore, she had no financial difficulties, not to mention that her annual salary at the time was as high as 10 million yen. The victim’s job as a street prostitute was the lowest, cheapest and most dangerous of all sex jobs. It’s rumored that she sold her last body for 2,000 yen, less than 200 yuan.

It’s the equivalent of a high school graduate from Fudan University entering the State Grid Company, earning a million dollars a year, and then having to sell sex at night. So, everyone wonders why a highly educated woman who graduated from a first-class university and works for a first-class company, with no signs of financial hardship, would voluntarily choose a job at the bottom of the ladder like street prostitution?

Xia BuLu, an unknown writer, has published more than ten books, sold many movie and TV rights, and measured the dust of life with her writing.

Go to the video number B station small red book search Xia BuLu reading, pay attention to me, let us use reading to chisel away the ice sea in the heart, in the reading of this shelter, together to be loyal to their ordinary readers.

End

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