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Article 丨 boiling point Point, author 丨 Li Xiaonan, editor 丨 Yang Zhenxin
In the new wave of consumption in the past two years, plant meat may be the most unique category: unlike snacks and makeup, which do micro-innovation in mature supply chains and existing product forms, and rely on burning money to advertise to establish a common model of new brands, plant meat has a higher technical content, greater imagination space, and is still a niche category with low acceptance in the domestic market and even widely misunderstood.
The capital market once had high hopes for plant meat, jingwei, pleasure, tiantu and other well-known institutions have carried out related layouts, and recently it is expected that domestic startups can also run out of a Chinese beyond the first stock of plant meat in the United States, and try to change the diet structure of all mankind.
But the market and consumers don't seem to be able to pay for such sentiments. As the boom in new consumption fades after the second half of this year, it is also time to rethink the plight and future of plant-based meat, and what new trends the players in this track have brought to the industry.
01、 Why plant meat?
First, we need to have a simple understanding of plant meat.
Since the introduction of human beings into industrial society, standardization and mass production have been at the heart of manufacturing, and the bagged snacks we buy in supermarkets and burgers in restaurants are essentially the end products of the food industry. However, as an indispensable part of the table, meat has various internal or external defects, so human beings have been looking for healthier, greener and more controllable ways of meat production, and the concept of alternative protein has also emerged.
There are currently two main alternative protein solutions. One is cell meat, the principle is to extract stem cells from animals, culture, proliferation and differentiation, and then use synthetic biotechnology to turn them into tissues, and then form meat. But at present, such technologies are not mature enough, the cost is too high, and it has not been able to produce on a large scale. Therefore, at present, the industry mainly adopts the latter kind of plant meat solution, that is, extracting plant protein from soybeans, peas and other plants, and then making plant protein into plant meat that can simulate the taste and even flavor of real meat through related technologies. By the way, plant meat and China's traditional vegetarian meat is very different, although they are all plant-based raw materials, but the level of process of plant meat is higher, and the taste and flavor of the finished product are also very different.
Plant meat has been warmly welcomed by capital in China, and the logic supporting its valuation is also its three advantages over animal meat:
One is healthier and safer. Plant meat is directly derived from plants, which does not cause people to worry about hormones and diseases, and plant meat has zero cholesterol and lower fat content than animal meat, so it is theoretically more helpful for weight loss.
The second is more efficient and environmental protection. Many people do not realize that the way humans grow grain to raise poultry and livestock, and then obtain protein from the latter is actually very inefficient, there are layers of energy loss in the middle, and the breeding industry occupies more land resources, and will also produce a lot of carbon emissions and soil pollution. Skipping animals and getting protein directly from plants is more efficient, consumes less resources and produces less pollution, which is in line with the long-term national policy of environmental protection and carbon neutrality.
Third, it is more stable and controllable. Affected by common animal diseases such as avian influenza and swine fever, the output of animal husbandry is not stable, often accompanied by a wide range of risks, while the production of plant meat is more safe and controllable, which is conducive to ensuring market stability and national food security.
Despite the variety of plant-based meats, the feedback from the market and consumers is not as good as capital expects. Whether it is a local start-up company or an international food giant entering the game, the road to pioneering can be described as frequently blocked.
For example, Unilever's plant meat brand Zhizhuo Butchers launched the "True Fragrant Plant-based Royal Castle" with Burger King at the end of last year, forming a package with Coke Zero, but sales were far lower than expected, with only 3 AUD (per store per day) in April, accounting for less than 2% of all Burgers sold, and then forced to go offline in less than a quarter.
02, landed in China, into the C-end
The reasons for the obstruction of the development of plant meat in the domestic market are diverse and complex, first of all, the market is in the early stages, many consumers have not heard of plant meat, or have a misunderstanding of plant meat, thinking that it is "not natural and unhealthy", "is not the vegetarian meat another name", even if you have heard and agree with plant meat, it is also limited by channel factors that are difficult to buy.
However, the difficulty of promotion is not enough, after all, as long as the product can finally be recognized by consumers, the problem of market development in the long run can also be solved. At present, the biggest pain point of the plant meat industry in China is the incompatibility with the local market, that is, the level of localization is not high enough.
Investors have always liked to judge the possible achievements in one market through the performance of one track in one market when doing industry research, typical of Son's "time machine" theory. The rationality of this analytical logic lies in the fact that it captures the commonality of the human market, that is, since group A has a certain need, group B also has a high probability of existence, but when encountering some industries with cultural differences, this theory may fail.
In the meat market in Europe and the United States, alternative meat products have a not low share, but also ran out of the nearly 10 billion market (estimated) level of industry unicorns such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Food, but if you think that the domestic market can also reach a similar level, it is as reasonable as "selling milk tea to the United States, selling coffee to China" As reasonable as there is a rough logic of a large gap.
In European and American countries, meat has a certain "industrial product" attribute, consumers in the supermarket freezer to buy cut and packaged frozen meat is a very natural behavior, cooking methods are relatively simple, generally based on roasting and frying. However, the domestic situation is very different, Chinese consumers have a high pursuit of "fresh", often more inclined to buy fresh meat rather than frozen meat, in some areas of the meat of the fresh obsession is even to the extreme, such as Chaoshan beef hot pot on the live beef killed and cooked to eat, beef is even steaming when served on the table. However, if plant-based meat products are sold as ingredients, they can often only appear in the form of frozen meat cakes and minced meat, which is difficult to meet the demand for fresh meat in Chinese food.
At the same time, the extremely exquisite and complex cooking methods of Chinese food also mean high requirements for ingredients: steaming, boiling, frying, frying, stuffing, frying, stewing, roasting, each cooking method corresponds to different ingredient forms, some dishes are more particular about the subtle cooking moments, stimulate the maximum deliciousness of ingredients, fresh meat can present different flavors and different tastes under different cooking times and ways, and its own flavorlessness can only be made up by adding spices in the later stage, and the taste is not good and chewable Plant meat is far from the requirements of Chinese food. It will be difficult to compete with real meat at the mid-table for the foreseeable future.
Because of this, the development of domestic plant meat enterprises often starts with the B-end, and the current market is still dominated by the B-end. For example, the domestic track's most financing startup Zhou Zero has cooperated with more than 100 brands such as Xicha, Luckin, Tim Hortons, Dicos, etc. to launch plant meat-related products, they have explained their previous B-end-based reasons: the characteristics of plant-based meat determine its restrictions on cooking methods, if consumers buy plant-based meat products to go home to cook and find that it is far from expected, the future may not buy plant-based meat at all, in contrast, the B-end launch of standardized products can ensure quality control. In the early stage when the market has not been opened, startups cut into the B-end, and can indeed rely on the mature channels of partners to contact a large number of consumers, which can quickly verify the market recognition of products and get relatively stable orders.
However, since the beginning of this year, players on the track have begun to lay out the C-end, improve the product matrix, establish their own channels, and direct contact with consumers, and the products reflect the obvious Characteristics of Chinese food. For example, Nestlé's Jia Zhi Cuisine has launched a vegetarian version of four traditional Chinese famous dishes of braised lion's head, braised pork, spicy incense pot, and Kung Pao chicken; Zhi Ai Life has launched plant meat room temperature stewed rice, plant meat spring rolls, dumplings, and buns; Zhou Zero's layout on the C-end is slower, but it has also launched plant meat buns "Flower And Flower Zero Sense Buns", room temperature snacks "A Bite of Plant Meat Shreds", Happy Shake Cup and Plant Protein Sticks for Fitness People this year.
Players have made efforts on the C-end, perhaps in the early stages of the market, through C-end products and marketing strategies to quickly establish brands, occupy the minds of consumers, and accumulate greater potential for subsequent competition. After all, in the case that the popularity of plant meat is not high, who can establish the consumer perception of "I am equal to high-quality plant meat", who can seize the opportunity in the follow-up competition.
It is worth mentioning that the two forms of C-end plant meat products also mean two dilemmas. One is the need for secondary cooking of frozen products, such as "flower zero sense package" and "plant meat dumplings", frozen products have higher requirements for logistics and preservation, additional cold chain logistics costs make the price of plant meat products that are already more expensive than real meat high, bringing a greater negative impact on sales volume; the other is room temperature that is food, such as "a bite of plant meat shreds" and protein bars at zero. However, the common preservation solution for room temperature, that is, food, is high temperature killing, which can easily destroy the flavor substances that plant meat does not have much, affecting the deliciousness of the product.
03, technology is established or marketing is king?
Should consumer goods be deeply rooted in technology and good products, or should they spend money on marketing and market orientation? I believe that any investor and entrepreneur will tell you at the industry conference that it is the former with a full face of piety and faith, saying that "the traffic marketing network red products are virtual, the water is very deep, you can't grasp it, the long-term barriers of the enterprise still have to rely on down-to-earth technology to make products, the product is done well, consumers will pay."
However, this is undoubtedly a "nonsense that may not be correct but must be very useless" for the current domestic plant meat industry. This track is too early, the market is still far from being opened, most consumers have not heard or understood, a few have heard of it mostly have a skeptical attitude, and the technical level of domestic players is not much different, it is difficult to open the gap at the level of barriers, which is its dilemma in the domestic market. Unlike other categories such as sugar-free soda, instant noodles, makeup and skin care products that have been well known and trusted by the market, companies only need to find ways to do a good job in product and marketing, and beat competitors; players of plant meat are shouldering the two difficult tasks of opening up the market and surpassing their opponents.
"Plant meat too much needs a blockbuster", this is the common understanding of entrepreneurs and investors. Only when there is a blockbuster that makes consumers realize that "there was still something like plant meat" and "the original plant meat can be so delicious", can the cake of this track be really bigger.
Explosives are so easy to do. In order to make explosive products, players spend resources and money to show their magic, and even pay a certain price. Some such as plant love life to find stars to engage in live promotion, the result of overturning caused a public relations crisis; some such as Zhou Zero will be "delicious" as the core product strategy, in order to "delicious", at the same time as ordinary meat snacks to add heavy oil heavy materials, the result of the delicious degree of improvement, but also lost the uniqueness of plant meat "low fat, health". But even so, the monthly sales of online flagship stores of major players are less than 100.
In the long run, the investment logic and comparative advantages of plant meat still stand firm, and plant meat may really be the future. But how long will it take in the future, what hardships and problems will the industry experience before coming, and how many companies will fall into the long night or even before the dawn? Only time will give these answers. There is nothing wrong with "product is king", but in this special track, survival must be the top priority, or in the three support points of products, marketing, and technology, according to the development stage of enterprises and industries, it may be a more pragmatic way to concentrate resources on single-point breakthroughs to take the lead in opening up the situation.