Plant-based meat alternatives are all the rage in the United States.
Burger King partnered with Impossible Foods last year to release the Impossible Whopper. Meanwhile, Denny’s, Del Taco and Carl’s Junior partnered with Beyond Meat to offer Beyond burgers, Beyond burritos and even Beyond breakfast sausages.
The plant-based meat industry is going to heat up this year in the United States. And it may happen in China, too.
According to the Good Food Institute, the U.S. plant-based meat industry made $684 million in 2018. As surprising at that number is, China’s plant-based meat market made $910 million in the same year, and this number is likely to only increase with the invention of Impossible Foods’ pig-free pork, which, according to CNBC, is the most popular meat in China.
Seeing this massive market, and its lucrative potential, has U.S. companies Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat wanting to break into the Chinese market and Chinese company Zhenmeat wanting to break into the U.S. market, Reuters reports.
But the question remains: Can the plant-based market sustain three meat alternative giants in one country?
Zhenmeat founder Vince Lu told CNBC he thinks it can. He said he is “talking aggressively” with investors to raise the $2 million it needs in funding to successfully expand to the U.S.
Lu said he has few concerns about possibly over-saturating the market, CNBC reports. He said the arrival of more companies in China and the U.S. will only increase exposure to plant-based foods.
Lu also said Zhenmeat — which is focusing on dumplings while the other meat alternatives have been focusing on burgers and burritos — is coming into the market with a unique advantage over the competition.
“We tailored our product … to Chinese cuisine,” he told CNBC.