Reporter Yang Tianyue
Recently, Beyond Meat, a listed company in the United States, released its 2022 financial report, showing that last year's net income was $4.189 million, with a loss of $3.661 million. While the industry giants are deeply in losses, restaurants such as KFC, Burger King, and Jindingxuan that have chased the trend of "early adopters" of plant-based meat ingredients have also successively removed related dishes, and the once hot plant-based meat track has gradually cooled down. Not delicious and expensive, is many people's impression of plant meat, this new species with low-carbon environmental protection, healthy vegetarian label, can it really win market recognition through technological iteration?
Restaurants have successively removed related dishes
Since the second half of 2020, the concept of "plant-based meat" that has swept the world has been popular from foreign markets to China, and for a time, head chain fast food brands such as KFC, Starbucks, Tex, and Heytea have successively tested the water of "plant-based meat", driving the rapid popularization of related concepts in first-tier cities. After two years, plant meat has not been seen in these restaurants.
Since October 2020, the fast-food chain KFC has listed plant-based meat burgers and chicken nuggets in more than 10 restaurants in 17 cities across the country, including 300 restaurants in Beijing, including Xuanwu stores and Chaoyang stores. The reporter noticed that plant-based meat-related meals were no longer available on the menus of the above-mentioned stores. "I remember it didn't take long to sell it and it was taken off the shelves." An old employee of the Chaoyang store said.
In January 2021, the north-south cuisine chain restaurant Jin Dingxuan cooperated with different meat customers, serving 1 new plant-based meat dishes in 18 restaurants. At that time, the restaurant said that it would cooperate to launch pork and chicken flavored plant-based meat products and continue to develop new dishes. However, after two years, most of these plant-based meat dishes have been removed from the shelves. The staff of Jindingxuan Ditan store told reporters that there is only a "crispy steak" that simulates the flavor of beef. "The plant steak was fried and cut open and eaten, and this one sold well, so it has been kept until now."
The first share of plant-based meat fell into a huge loss
The performance of plant-based meat meals in the consumer market is not satisfactory, and plant-based meat companies are becoming more and more "unwelcome" in the capital market. Since last year, the world's two major plant-based meat giants Beyond Meat and Impossible Food have successively exposed bad news such as being downgraded to "underweight" by investment institutions, lowering wholesale prices of catering distributors, and layoffs by companies. Recently, the 2022 financial report released by Different Meat Shop showed that last year's net income was 4.189 million US dollars, and the loss was as high as 3.661 million US dollars.
In fact, since 2016, Alternative Meat has been losing money. In May 2019, the company landed on the NASDAQ as the "first plant-based meat stock", and its share price jumped 5% on the day of listing, and then soared to nearly $163 per share in the following months. However, in the past year or so, the company's share price has plummeted, closing at just $180.3 per share on March 8.
The domestic capital market also seems to have gradually abandoned the plant-based meat track. According to the 2021 China Plant Meat Industry Insight White Paper, from December 2019 to December 12, there were as many as 2020 domestic investment events targeting plant-based companies, a year-on-year increase of 12%. However, since 21, except for the $500 million Series B financing received by the start-up "Week Zero" in January, there has been no more news of financing. The financing progress of domestic plant-based meat start-ups such as Hey Maet, Zhenrou, Zhurou, and Cereal, which were previously favored by capital, has also stagnated.
Based on the rapid development of that year, the white paper predicted that China's plant-based meat market would reach US$2025 billion by 130, which is expected to account for half of the global market. The Prospective Industry Research Institute even predicts that China's demand for plant-based meat will increase by 5% over the next 200 years. However, from the current point of view, the development of the plant-based meat industry has stagnated significantly, and both the consumer side and the capital side have been cold.
It may take a long time to promote popularization
Online shopping platforms are currently the main channel through which most consumers can access plant-based meat, and Tmall and Pinduoduo online stores are still selling plant-based meat products. The reporter noticed that its Tmall flagship store sells a lot more types than when it first opened, including raw materials such as beef patties, pork willow cakes, minced pork, staple foods such as dumplings and potstickers, and meat sauces with flavors such as black pepper, Taiwanese marinated meat, and Japanese curry, but the sales are not impressive. The best seller in the store is a "plant-based hamburger beef patty", which already sells for as much or even slightly less than real meat, but only sells about 400 servings a month.
The reporter browsed social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douban, and Weibo and found that the problems widely criticized by consumers, such as too many additives, too heavy seasoning flavor, and too dry taste, are still unsolved pain points in the industry. Food safety is also a concern. "Isn't it fragrant to eat real meat directly? Why buy fake" "Eating plant-based meat can't lose weight at all" similar discussions emerge endlessly, and the overall evaluation of plant-based meat is more negative. After following the trend, not many consumers use plant-based meat as a daily dining option.
Industry analysis, compared with animal meat, the advantages of plant meat have not yet been fully revealed, and new technological breakthroughs are urgently needed. "The awareness of plant-based meat on the entire consumer side is not high, let alone recognized. Capital pursues short, flat and fast, but the maturity of the plant-based meat market is far away, and capital will naturally extinguish. Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said.
Xue Yan, secretary-general of the China Plant Industry Alliance, believes that the plant-based food industry represented by plant-based meat is still in its infancy, and the plant-based meat industry is indeed facing challenges in terms of cost and taste. "Plant-based meat needs to be constantly improved, and solving these puzzles takes some patience and time. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the support of relevant policies to promote its industrialization and commercialization. ”