Sigh or Celebrate

Over the past few weeks, several of our readers have sent me articles about the fake meat industry’s expansion into China.  I’m here to tell you this is definitely real — it needs to be on our radar — but I don’t find it as concerning as it is made out to be in the headlines and I’ll explain why in a minute.

First, let’s look at the facts: there’s a timeline of events that are critical to this issue.

Starting back in June, speculations that the novel Coronavirus was introduced by salmon sold at a wholesale market had consumers suddenly questioning the meat they consumed.  While this rumor has yet to be backed by solid evidence, several articles suggest Chinese consumers are still wary of protein from what was once a live animal.

In the same month, China banned poultry imports from U.S. based Tyson Foods due to a Coronavirus outbreak in one of their processing facilities.  Again, a little reading makes it clear that the virus was not harbored in the chicken Tyson was shipping, but you can see how the cards were stacking against meat in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moving on to July, China witnessed pork prices reported to be more than 80 percent higher than the same time last year.  African Swine Fever (ASF) decimated the country’s hog supply last fall and producers there have yet to recover to the point where prices begin to normalize.  ASF didn’t just raise meat price concerns either. Again, a viral disease was linked to animal agriculture, so consumers questioned the safety of their meat perhaps more than ever.

Just over a month later, Beyond Meat stepped into the Chinese picture.  In early September, it was announced that one of the leading U.S. fake meat companies got the green light and began building a production facility near Shanghai.  Its U.S. competitor, Impossible Foods, is still anxiously awaiting regulatory approval to do the same — there is a glitch in attempting to get a genetically modified ingredient approved, already raising red flags for the product amongst consumers.

It still seems, however, as if high meat prices and food safety concerns linked to animal agriculture roll out the red carpet for fake meat companies to steal the show in China.  But, back to my intro, there are several reasons I don’t find this as concerning as an initial headline read would portray.  If you have read many of these columns before, you know I much prefer to seek the cloud’s silver lining than dwell on the rain it’s dumping out.

A Reuters’ article last week reported that in a pilot program in which Beijing-based Zhenmeat offered their plant-based “meatballs” in a restaurant, they had the texture down, but it tasted “like tofu.”  While Zhenmeat’s sales were “up considerably” since this timeline took off in June, the company’s CEO acknowledged that real meat – “the whole livestock sector, the animal protein industry” – is the real competition, not Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.  And obviously, our product “has the texture down” and it will win in taste every time.

We all know China is home to the one-fifth of the world’s population and a middle class larger than America’s entire population.  There is a huge consumer base there, and all protein producers would like their fair share of it.  I predict, much like we are currently witnessing in the U.S., the fake meat sector will remain a niche in China.  Their middle class has a growing taste for high-quality protein, and given the opportunity to provide it, I see American beef taking a large portion of the market share there.

Speaking of American beef, I want to commend our country’s agricultural producers in a big way this week. Regardless of what the Chinese consumer thinks or believes right now, I wholeheartedly stand by the “America first” movement.  Our biggest concern should always be American producers and American consumers.  And here’s the best news: the American consumer is confident in the American producer, more so than ever before.

In the most recent Gallup consumer survey, our farming and agriculture industry was the top-rated industry in the nation.  The survey, “Americans’ View of U.S. Business and Industry Sectors,” found that 69 percent of our citizens view our industry as “very positive.”  We led the way with the grocery and restaurant industries following closely behind at 63 and 61 percent very positive, respectively.

Working through one of the largest pandemics in my lifetime and seeing it test our food supply chain to the fullest, our American consumer remained confident in us.  They ranked the entire food supply chain, from the producer, to the grocer, to the server, as the top three industries in the nation.  That’s huge, folks.

So, instead of dwelling on fake meat’s debut in China, let’s show our American consumer that we too are proud of them.  Let’s foster this positive relationship we have with our consumer and work to continue growing the demand for our product right here at home.  It’s clear the consumer wants it – let’s show them our appreciation by providing it for them.