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Why China’s consumers found the hype around plant-based meat hard to swallow

The closure of Beyond Meat’s China business, despite heavy financing and marketing, underscores challenges that scuppered many vegan meat firms

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Chinese consumers complain that the texture of plant-based meat products does not match that of real meat. Photo: Shutterstock
Luna Sunin Beijing
Only a few years ago, the notion that Beyond Meat – the former poster child of the plant-based meat industry – would shut down its operations in China seemed unthinkable. At the height of the brand’s popularity, its label could be found adorning heavily promoted products at restaurants and grocery stores across major cities.

Many observers speculated that the alternative meat company and others like it had found the next great success story in the country’s rapidly evolving consumer market.

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But barely three years after launching its direct-to-consumer channels in 2022, Beyond Meat announced in February that it would suspend its China business. Its online stores were closed last month, and it has laid off most of its employees and halted production at its factory in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, according to media reports.

The American company, which received backing from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and a host of celebrity investors in its early years, entered China to great fanfare in 2020, sealing partnerships with Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut and retailers such as Sam’s Club and Costco.

Its plant-based meat – made from ingredients like soy, peas or wheat and mimicking the taste, texture and appearance of animal flesh – was, for a time, ubiquitous. But the craze ultimately proved to be short-lived.

Gu Shuyu, from the Tractus Asia management consultancy, said China’s vegan meat bust was ultimately not an issue of price, taste or technology; the product, he contended, never had a real, sustainable use case.

Many Chinese plant-based meat brands and products that were buoyed by early hype have faltered, including Hey Maet, a start-up based in Shanghai that shut down in 2023.

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Along the way, plant-based meat offerings from major food companies have quietly vanished from store shelves.

Concerns over nutrition and food safety ... make it difficult for plant-based products to sustain repeat purchases
Zhu Danpeng, Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association
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