Alt Protein War Heats Up As Impossible Foods & Beyond Meat Race To Gain Foothold In China

10 August 2020

The alternate protein war is heating up in China and how! On Wednesday, plant-based meat company Impossible Foods launched plant-based pork sausage in Hong Kong just a day after rival Beyond Meat announced that it signed a deal to set up a manufacturing plant near Shanghai. Clearly, the two meatless meat companies are jostling to create a strong foothold in the Chinese market before the other.  After all, China is the largest consumer of meat in the world and Chinese are currently fast transitioning to consuming plant-based meat and veganism since the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. 

Impossible Foods' meatless pork sausage was launched across Starbucks coffee shops on Wednesday and the sausage will be rolled out to other restaurants such as Finis', Frank’s Italian American, Triple O’s and Urban later this month.

Like rival Beyond Meats, Impossible Foods is eager to set up a manufacturing plant in China. It also wants to build a domestic supply chain for ingredients. However, one of the ingredients of its faux meat - heme, is yet to receive China's regulatory approval for manufacturing in China. Heme is a core ingredient in its meatless burger patties and sausages. The heme in its products is made using a yeast genetically engineered with the gene for soy leghemoglobin; approval of this ingredient is pending from Chinese regulatory authorities. Soy leghemoglobin is short for legume hemoglobin - the hemoglobin found in soy plant. 

While it may not have gotten the approval to manufacture, Impossible Foods' meatless beef products have been selling like hot cakes in Hong Kong and Macau. They have not yet received approval to be sold in mainland China. The company claimed that it recorded a whooping 150% growth in restaurants using its products in Hong Kong and Macau since start of 2020, and sales increased by more than six times across its Asian markets of Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau in 2019.

Clearly, alternate protein is fast-catching up in the times of the ongoing global pandemic and its a gold rush for meatless meat companies eyeing the Chinese consumer market now. 

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