The Growing Appetite for Meat Alternatives in China

Built by a former BCG management consultant and founder of a Shanghai-based online producers marketplace, the program focuses on fostering transformative businesses to tackle China’s food safeness and other systematic food challenges. Here the Bits x Bites team breaks down key trends and milestone announcements that have been happening in China—the world’s biggest trade for meat. “Less Meat.

More Life.” This was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s message in a 2016 WildAid PSA campaign inviting the world to eat more consciously to mitigate climate change. The campaign came on the heels of China’s new guidelines to reduce domestic meat consumption by 50% by 2030.

China now leads the world in obese children, and the World Health Organization has set out that one in three diabetes diagnoses is in China. Could innovations in plant-based alternatives, cultured meat, and edible insects play a part in China’s food future?

With 1.4 billion people, China is now the world’s largest meat consumer and importer. JD.com , one of China’s largest e-commerce firms, signed an agreement to buyout more than $2 billion of US beef and pork from the Montana Stock Growers Association (MSGA) and from Smithfield Foods.

The silver lining is that the advance rate of animal protein has begun to taper off as China’s economy slows, per to Rabobank. Appetite growth in beef has slid from 10% in 2000 to under 2% in 2017.

Renewed interest in plant-based components The recent meat craving might have steered interest away from vegetables; China has long traditions of a plant-based diet. Many legumes and other plant ingredients in today’s meat alternative products are found in traditional Chinese cuisines, such as tofu and seaweeds.

In recent years, the prevailing weight loss culture and health concerns are drawing Chinese urbanites back to vegetables and fruits as part of their modern diet. The startup opportunity in China’s plant-based revolution is still wide open.

The majority of meat replacement products on the trade have evolved from Buddhist diet traditions with little innovation. Startups are starting to process insect components into trendy new food products for China.

A Market Opportunity Impossible to Ignore While the animal alternative category in the west has been buzzing with innovation. Growth with brands such as Hampton Creek and Beyond Meat, China’s food startup landscape is at an inflection point. Shoppers are willing to pay more for innovative and healthier food products.

The types of the authorities backing and support that helped accelerate green tech industries could be adapted to boost the innovation ecosystem for meat substitutes. Taking insect protein as an example, despite China’s culinary history with bugs, silkworm is the only insect legally permitted in packaged foods sold in China today.

There is an immense opportunity for new food firms that can capitalize on this transformation, creating innovative products that please the palate and bring climate-smart eating to the mainstream.