What artificial meat can bring us？

A sudden new outbreak of COVID-19 affects food security. In this context, "artificial meat" has once again become the focus of the market. What kind of meat is "artificial meat"? To what extent can food security problems be solved? What is the current status of the development of China's "artificial meat" industry and what challenges will it face? These questions need to be answered.

Food industry ushers in "new species"

At present, "artificial meat" is mainly divided into two types. One is "vegetable artificial meat", which is mainly made of soy protein; the other is "artificial meat" made from animal stem cells. Due to the characteristics of being rich in a large amount of protein, a small amount of fat, and easy to produce, "plant artificial meat" took the lead in entering the consumer field.

In May 2019, Beyond Meat led by Bill Gates was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, soaring 163% on the first day, creating the best performance of the first day of the IPO of American companies since the 21st century.

At the second China International Import Expo held in November 2019, Impossible Foods, an "artificial meat" company, brought "Impossible" lion heads and roasted wheat, and took this opportunity to showcase and Discuss business.

Not long ago, Great Britain ’s largest retail chain cake shop Gregs launched a vegan version of grilled steaks, and “artificial meat” increased the company ’s profit margins. Surveys indicate that more and more Britons are consuming meat or excluding it from their diets.

Filling the food gap to cope with insufficient resources

Behind the trend of artificial food, not only business opportunities for entrepreneurs, but also hope to solve the contradiction between the increase in global population and the lack of resources. According to data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the world ’s population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, and the global meat product market demand gap will reach 38 million tons. This gap cannot be supported by traditional farming and meat product processing alone. Provide solutions to this problem, make up for deficiencies and vacancies.

It takes time for domestic large-scale production

Although China's "artificial meat" companies have successively launched related products, large-scale promotion still faces three major problems, such as capacity, cost and taste.

"The current supply chain of vegetable meat in China is very immature." Industry experts said that the traditional scale of traditional meat products is relatively small, resulting in a handful of manufacturing plants. Many of the original production machines of manufacturers do not have mass production capabilities.

It can be said that China's "artificial meat" industry is still at the stage of "having products but not mass production". In order to further increase production capacity and promote the process of industrialization, Beijing Technology and Business University and Fujian Qingshan Paper Co., Ltd. recently reached a technical cooperation agreement, planning to design and build an "artificial meat" production line, introducing advanced production equipment, and working on the production side to improve domestic plant meat Capacity. The reporter learned that Qingshan Paper has the support of the "Fujian Military-Civilian Integration Logistics (Food) Support Project" and can produce plant meat products suitable for the military.

The epert pointed out that with the help of the military-civilian integration platform, he actively developed ready-to-eat, convenient and easy-to-carry plant meat products to solve the problem of the long production cycle of traditional meat, which can be better applied to wartime emergency and serve China's "artificial meat" industry. The further expansion of provides a more mature development path.

Cost reduction is also a barrier that "artificial meat" has to cross. Although compared with traditional breeding, in the production process of "artificial meat" in the laboratory, the use of water, land occupation and greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, which brings great benefits to the environment, but "artificial meat" products The cost per pound is still much higher than traditional meat products. Take Jinzi Ham's first domestic artificial patties as an example. Its pre-sale price is 118 yuan / 2 boxes, 220 grams per box, including two pieces of patties, which is 6 times the price of pork and 4 times the price of beef.

Regarding the taste of vegetable meat, expert said that he will jointly issue the production and marketing standards of vegetable meat food products with relevant units as soon as possible, draw on the internationally mature standard system, and gradually strengthen the market supervision and entry threshold for vegetable meat products, allowing more Vegetable meat products that are healthy, safe and suitable for consumers have entered ordinary families. According to Wang Shouwei, director of the China Meat Food Comprehensive Research Center, the national standard for "artificial plant meat" is being formulated. The formulation of the national standard will help further standardize and cultivate the market.