bigideaventures
  • Accelerator
  • Funds
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Team
  • Media
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Apply
Select Page

Home-grown start-ups join global giants in race to tap China’s plant-based alternative meats market as middle-class appetite for healthier food grows stronger

by admin | Oct 6, 2020 | Press

China’s plant-based meat market is getting more crowded as domestic start-ups join international giants in a race to tap the growing middle class’ appetite for healthier food options.

One newcomer, Green Planet Foods aims to invest “billions of US dollars” – mostly to be funded by potential partners – in the next five years in the nascent sector in China, according to co-founder and CEO Klaus Petersen, a Beijing-based Danish premium food importer.

“China’s rising middle class is getting wealthier and has an immense appetite to try new things … there is a big shift toward [products that offer] health and wellness,” Petersen told the Post. “Our vision is to bring down the prices of plant-based food though innovation, scale and formulations.”

Green Planet’s other co-founders are Hong Kong-based private equity firm China Renaissance Capital Investment, headed by Mark Qiu Zilei, a former chief financial officer of state-backed offshore oil company CNOOC, and Singapore-based Ashok Vasudevan and his wife Meera, an American-Indian couple who built a multinational natural and organic food business.

The Singapore-headquartered company will initially be targeting young families in their 20s and 30s in big cities.

“We will be offering affordable food that can provide wellness instantly,” Vasudevan said. “And we will be going into different segments of the entire supply chain at the same time – from controlled environment agriculture, intermediate products and ready-to-eat products.

“Each project or product will get incubated or accelerated first at our design laboratory in Singapore [and] they can become independent once they are ready to be scaled up in China.”

China’s median disposable income per household climbed at a compound average annual rate of 6.9 per cent to 88,455 yuan (US$13,000) last year from 2015, according to Euromonitor International.

The nation’s meat substitutes retail market has grown at an average 7.7 per cent to US$10 billion last year over the same period, with the market research provider projecting a slower average growth of 3.7 per cent to US$11.9 billion in 2024 from last year.

Green Planet, which aims to launch Asian-developed alternatives to Western plant-based food products such as burgers, sausages and kebabs next year, is by no means the only firm taking localisation seriously.

Beijing-based Zhenmeat, founded by entrepreneur Vince Lu Zhongming, a University of Illinois materials science graduate, has been testing the market’s response to its “pork” tenderloin and “crayfish” at a hotpot restaurant chain in the city.

“We have been testing them for a month and surpassed our goal of matching customers’ orders of traditional meatballs. Our products achieved twice as many orders.”

His company recently raised several hundred thousand US dollars from New York-based Big Idea Ventures, giving a boost to its start-up capital of 5 million yuan.

China’s market potential has attracted other venture capital funds.

Hong Kong-based alternative protein venture capital fund Lever VC has invested in five alternative protein food start-ups – including one that is developing plant-based seafood – through its China Alternative Protein Fund launched early this year.

“We prioritise companies that bring innovative and delicious products and novel food technologies to China,” said Nina Ju, investment director of the Lever China Fund, which has received US$23 million of capital commitments in August, much of it from Asian family offices.

Lever VC was co-founded by industry veteran Nick Cooney, an early investor in plant-based and cultivated meat firms including California-based Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Memphis Meats.

“The China market is huge and can accommodate many players,” said Astrid Prajogo, founder of Shanghai-based HaoFood, an investee of Lever that is developing plant-based ground chicken.

Recent Posts

  • Alternative protein investor Big Idea Ventures reveals latest accelerator cohort
  • Big Idea Ventures Accelerator Reveals Fifth Cohort, Including Leaf Protein & Kabocha Milk Startups
  • Indian Start-Up EVO To Showcase Their Vegan Boiled Egg Internationally For The First Time
  • China start-up Haofood attracts Rich Products investment for peanut-protein chicken
  • Pearlita nets investment from Cult Food Science to develop “world’s first” cell-based oysters

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • July 2016
  • July 2015

Categories

  • Blog
  • Events
  • Podcast
  • Portfolio
  • Press
  • Research Paper
  • Uncategorized
Apply New York Apply Singapore Apply Paris
  • Contact
  • Funds
  • Investing
  • Partners
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Research
  • Terms
  • Anti Spam
  • Copyright
  • DMCA
  • FTC
  • Privacy
  • Social Media
New York

88 Pine St., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10005

Singapore

No. 9 Chin Bee Drive,
SG, 619860

Paris

Station F, 5 Parv. Alan Turing 75013 Paris, France 

Newsletter
Stay on top of our latest news.
Loading
Don’t worry, we won’t spam you.
© 2020 Big Idea Ventures. All Rights Reserved
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 

Login to your account

  • Forgot Password?

Reset Password

  • Already have an account? Login

Enter the username or e-mail you used in your profile. A password reset link will be sent to you by email.

Close
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must active your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.