Once upon a time, lab-grown meat was seen as the shining jewel of the future of food technology, with the dual hope of solving food ethics and environmental problems. However, recently, a startup called SCiFi Foods in the Bay Area of the United States has poured cold water on it. Just six months after the construction of its first meat cultivation facility, the company closed its doors and its once ambitious "blend" burger plan came to an end.
SCiFi Foods' vision was a vision: to create a burger that was both delicious and eco-friendly by combining plant-based and lab-grown beef, satisfying consumers' ethical and healthy pursuits. This technology originally promised to address many ethical issues, such as eliminating the need to slaughter animals and reducing the environmental impact of traditional animal husbandry. However, the reality is far more brutal than imagined.
It's "cool" before it is served
In a LinkedIn post, SCiFi Foods co-founders Joshua March and Kasia Gora acknowledged that SCiFi Foods had failed to bring any of its meat products to market, writing: "Unfortunately, in the current funding environment, we have not been able to raise the funds needed to commercialize SCiFi Burgers, SCiFi Foods has run out of time." March and Gora also said the company's woes "reflect the challenges facing today's cultivated meat and whole meat substitute markets." ”
Although some people are averse to artificial meat, this technology promises to solve many ethical issues. No animals need to be slaughtered to grow meat, and if the bioreactors used to grow meat are efficient enough, it is expected to reduce the environmental damage caused by traditional animal husbandry.
However, the industry faces a number of practical obstacles, the biggest of which is the high cost of production. According to the SCiFi Foods co-founder, when the company was just starting out in 2019, a single SCiFi burger cost up to $20,000 to make. It took five years for the company's scientists to reduce the cost to $15,000, and while it had dropped, the price was still staggering.
To make matters worse, artificial meat is also caught in a political maelstrom in the United States. In addition to the downturn in the industry itself, the co-founder of SCiFi Foods blamed the company's failure on America's fierce "culture wars." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a blanket ban on the cultivated meat industry last month, and just two weeks later, Alabama followed suit.
Still, U.S. federal regulators seem to be more open-minded. Last year, the USDA approved two companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, to sell cell-cultured chicken products, which was a breakthrough for the industry. However, Upside Foods, which is considered a leading player in artificial meat, has also faced setbacks and scandals, such as suspending plans to expand its facility and being accused of misleading the public about how to make cultivated chicken.
Debut is the pinnacle
In May 2019, Beyond Meat, an "artificial meat" company, was listed on the NASDAQ. With the blessing of a group of star investors and institutions, its stock price soared by 163% on the same day, and it was in the limelight for a while.
Almost at the same time, the popularity of "artificial meat" was transmitted across the ocean. According to the statistics of the 2021 China Plant-based Meat Industry Insight White Paper, from December 2019 to December 2020, there were as many as 21 domestic investment events in "artificial meat" (plant-based) companies, a year-on-year increase of 500%. According to media statistics, there were more than 1,700 companies related to "artificial meat" in China at that time. Therefore, the industry regards that year as the first year of China's "artificial meat" food.
At the beginning of 2020, despite the impact of the environment, the extremely high exposure still made "artificial meat" firmly occupy the headlines of food news, and it has become another Internet celebrity in the food industry after snail noodles.
In April of that year, fast food giant KFC announced the launch of "Cultivated Golden Chicken Nuggets", and the pre-sale places were sold out instantly. Just one day later, Starbucks announced the launch of a new menu for plant-based "meat analogue" lunches in its Chinese stores. For a period of time, "artificial meat" can be said to have blossomed in the food terminal consumer market. Not only Western-style hamburgers and chicken nuggets, but also traditional Chinese meals such as meat buns, dumplings, and mooncakes also have "artificial meat". In March 2021, the hot pot brand Haidilao launched the plant-based protein product "Taste Companion" in the small table.
Although Internet celebrities always have a time to get angry, the speed at which "artificial meat" falls after reaching its peak is still called the speed of light. The reason for this is that the problem of "expensive and unpalatable" makes both consumers and sellers lack the motivation to continue.
The person in charge of a well-known fast food company said that the production cost of plant-based meat products itself is high, the price is not low, and the repurchase situation of consumers after trying it is very general, and there is no need for enterprises to stick to it after the heat.
The impact of the three-year environment and the fact that it has not been able to make a breakthrough on the sales side, the performance of "artificial meat" related enterprises has also declined significantly.
In the second half of 2022, the news that Beyond Meat, an "artificial meat" company, began to lay off employees, bringing the popularity of "artificial meat" back into the public eye. Despite the expectation of achieving a positive flow of funds by reducing expenses, the company's net income in 2022 was only $418.9 million, and the loss reached $366 million in the face of flat market demand.
Today, Beyond Meat's share price has been cut off by the ankle, and its total market value has fallen by 90%.
Another plant-based meat star company, Impossible Foods, also announced a 20% layoff in 2022 due to poor management, and the company's CEO announced his resignation, and the listing time was postponed indefinitely. From attracting the likes of Li Ka-shing, Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Bizze Stone, to layoffs and being disfavored by rating agencies, the once-glorious artificial meat track is experiencing a rollercoaster of ups and downs.
Why don't you love "artificial meat" anymore?
"It's not delicious, it's more expensive than real meat!"
"It's all man-made technology and hard work, and I feel that eating it is not healthy at all!"
"Now it's about resistance, you can't toss yourself to eat this to lose weight!"
There is a lot of spit on social media about artificial meat. For many consumers, poor taste has become the number one reason for consumers to abandon artificial meat. A comparative study conducted by food consultancy Chew found that there is no plant-based meat product on the market that can match the taste of traditional meat.
According to Nielsen, a market research firm, the generally high price of artificial meat is also responsible for its poor sales. For example, in 2021, Alternative Meat and McDonald's in the United States jointly launched the vegetable meat burger "McPlant", which is more expensive than some burgers, and was later withdrawn due to the difficulty of selling classic burgers.
According to the "Classification and Nomenclature Analysis and Specification Suggestions for Artificial Meat", "artificial meat" contains two categories: one is "artificial meat" (plant-based artificial meat) prepared from plant protein; The other type is "artificial meat" (cell-based artificial meat) prepared from cells. At present, the common "artificial meat" products in the market are mainly based on the former, and the vegetarian diet of soy products is familiar to consumers, and the plant-based "artificial meat" is made of plant protein extracted from soybeans, peas, wheat and other crops as raw materials, and after extrusion and other processes, the protein content is improved, and then plant-based flavor substances are added to make it closer to real meat in taste and flavor.
But because of this, the final form of plant-based "artificial meat" is mostly minced meat. While restricting the type of products, including "no juice", "soy products have a strong taste", "no chewiness", "many additives", etc., are the focus of netizens' complaints. Some industry experts believe that there is a long tradition of eating soy products in China, and consumers are easy to compare the two. At present, plant-based "artificial meat" products are more in pursuit of imitating the taste of meat, which also amplifies the disadvantages of taste to a certain extent. In the future, plant-based "artificial meat" should reflect more nutritional value, rather than pursuing the form of meat.
At present, investment in artificial meat is also not optimistic.
According to the 2021 China Plant-based Meat Industry Insights White Paper, from December 2019 to December 2020, there were as many as 21 domestic investment events for plant-based companies, a year-on-year increase of 500%. However, since 2022, except for the $100 million Series B financing received by "Week Zero" in January, there has been little news of financing. The financing progress of artificial meat brands such as Hey Maet, Zrou Plant Meat, and Gu Meat, which were previously favored by capital, has also stagnated significantly.
However, there are also investors who have not given up the 100-billion-level track of the artificial meat market.
According to the white paper, China's plant-based meat market will reach US$13 billion by 2025, 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 200% in the next five years.
Some investors said that after 2020, most people choose meat to supplement nutrition, so the number of artificial meat consumers will decrease immediately. However, with the return of normal life, people who pay attention to healthy diets will still try new things such as artificial meat, so the artificial meat market as a fast-growing 100 billion track, investors have not completely given up, and there is still capital actively looking for more competitive artificial meat companies.
As for the future development, we will wait and see!