If there is no way to achieve a breakthrough in taste, artificial meat food is still difficult to occupy the market on a large scale.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Lazy Bear Sports” (ID: lanxiongsports) , Author: Monbridge.
For fitness enthusiasts struggling with the taste of healthy meals and the “unhealthy” traditional meat, can the artificial meat products launched by KFC and Starbucks provide a new perfect solution?
At least for the moment, this is a bit difficult.
At the end of April this year, KFC opened the public beta of “artificial meat” chicken nugget products in three restaurants in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, and Starbucks subsequently launched the “Star Good Food” artificialism with Li Yuchun as the ambassador. Meat menu.
The advantages of artificial meat are many: for example, it does not contain parasites, Campylobacter, Salmonella and other bacteria, and will not cause diseases such as hand, foot and mouth disease, mad cow disease, and histoplasmosis. In addition, there is no damage to the environment caused by traditional farming in the production of artificial meat. During the epidemic, when the traditional breeding industry was devastated, artificial meat production was not affected.
But no matter how many advantages of artificial meat, consumers are most concerned about one thing: Is artificial meat delicious?
With these questions, Rilakkuma Sports conducted a simple survey of the artificial meat products currently on the market in KFC and Starbucks in Shanghai.
The artificial meat products launched by KFC and Starbucks all come from Beyond Meat. KFC only launched the “Growing Golden Chicken Nuggets” product, which is priced at 1.99 yuan per 5 yuan. At present, this price is more than 5 times lower than the price of ordinary golden chicken nuggets (12 yuan per 5 yuan). As a “public test”, three national pilots of KFC restricted the supply of only 2,400 “plant-cultivated golden chicken nuggets” per day, including 400 per day in Shanghai area and 1,000 per day in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Only after a few days can you go to the store to redeem the product. According to a report from the “Food and Beverage Boss Internal Reference”, on the first day of the pre-sale coupon sale on April 20, pre-sale coupons in Shanghai were sold out within an hour.
According to the report of “Daily Economic News” on April 27th, most of the interviewees said they were very satisfied with the taste of “Growed Golden Chicken Nuggets”, but expressed the meat quality of “Golden Golden Chicken Nuggets” There is still a gap between the taste and ordinary chicken nuggets. In addition, some interviewees also said that KFC’s artificial broiler chicken nuggets are cheap and qualified, so they are willing to continue buying in the future. However, some Shanghainese people also report that Shanghai ’s well-established Su Zhai restaurants, such as Kung Tak Lam and Jade Buddha Temple Su Zhai, are not interested in artificial meat made from plant protein.
Compared with KFC’s small-scale testing of single products, Starbucks has more artificial meat products. On April 21st, Starbucks launched a “Star Good Food” menu in most of China’s stores. The menu includes three kinds of vegetable beef products such as pasta with green sauce beef, classic lasagne, and American chutney rolls. Two kinds of pork plant products such as Chinese style salad, Xinshan meat mushroom grain bowl and so on. Rilakkuma Sports visited a number of Starbucks stores offering “Star Good Foodism” on April 26 at noon, afternoon and evening.
Compared with KFC’s “one ticket is hard to find”, Starbucks’ artificial meat counter is much deserted. In the process of visiting the store, Rilakkuma Sports found that although there were still a lot of people in the Starbucks midday peak, the number of customers who bought “Star Good Food” products was still small, and more customers were just passing the counter of artificial meat products. Fan, do not stay.
At 8:30 in the evening, Rilakkuma Sports once again visited a Starbucks on Changshou Road. At this time, half an hour before Starbucks was closed, a store manager and two shop assistants had started cleaning and preparing to leave work. Rilakkuma Sports found that even at this time near work, there are still a lot of products left at the “Star Good Food” counter. The store manager revealed that “Star Good Foodism” is actually “selling” and there will be a part left every day. The best products in the store are the classic lasagne and the American chutney rolls. Usually two or three are left every day. The store manager also said that he will report the sales of various products to his superiors this week, and it is estimated that the superiors will adjust the purchase quantity of each product according to the specific sales situation.
▲ At 8:30 pm, the Starbucks “Star Good Food” counter remainsHowever, some products are not sold
Under the guidance of the store manager, Rilakkuma Sports purchased several artificial meat lasagna and chutney rolls from Starbucks, and invited two volunteers, Ms. Liu and Ms. Lin, to conduct physical evaluations. Both volunteers have fitness habits, go to the gym at least four times a week on average, and deliberately choose healthy meals in terms of diet. Among them, Ms. Liu has stricter diet control and insists on walking at least 6 to 8 kilometers a day. Both attach great importance to figure management.
Among them, Ms. Liu ’s trial product is an American chutney roll, which contains a large piece of artificial meat, supplemented with shredded carrots, lettuce, chutney and other accessories. In her feedback to Rilakkuma Sports, Ms. Liu said that the artificial meat in the American chutney tastes like a product between the “tomato roasted mashed potatoes” in the English breakfast and the American mashed potatoes, and there is no meat on the palate. Class of fiber sense. In the end, Ms. Liu’s evaluation of the American chutney roll is: Don’t eat it as meat, it actually tastes pretty good. But in the future, traditional healthy meals will be selected, and the possibility of choosing artificial meat is not high.
Miss Lin ’s tasting product is a classic lasagna. Starbucks’ artificial meat lasagna products are packaged in two layers, the upper layer is the staple food artificial lasagna, and the lower layer is some potatoes, lettuce, lemon, celery and other vegetables that are common in healthy meals. After testing this product, Miss Lin said that apart from the stronger taste of Cheese, it is not very different from the traditional lasagna. The part of the artificial meat is made into meat sauce, which is too finely crushed and does not need to be chewed, so it is impossible to appreciate the difference between artificial meat and ordinary meat in this product.
After trying these two foods, the author concludes that the taste of American hot and sour rolls is better than lasagna, and the taste of both foods is not bad. But ultimately the taste buds are pleased that the sauce in the hot and sour rolls and the cheese in the lasagna have nothing to do with artificial meat.
From the evaluation of Starbucks food, several points can be seen:
First, over-pricing has caused new product sales to be less popular than businesses expect. For the price of 59 yuan for these two artificial meat healthy meals, both reviewers said that the price difference between them is at least 15 yuan. After all, Starbucks uses traditional pork, Beef’s Kesongbao, beef fresh vegetable rolls and other products are only 39 yuan.
Second, artificial meat has a certain distance from traditional meat in taste and taste. Some opponents believe that artificial meat synthesized by plants is essentially the same as traditional vegetarian food. At this stage, there is no sufficient reason to go beyond traditional vegetarian restaurants and choose immature and expensive artificial meat products. At this stage, consumers’ attitudes towards artificial meat may be more of a “hot spot” following a hot spot. The future after this wave of freshness is still unknown.
Third, so far, although the market has given some recognition to artificial products. However, as a new concept product, the supply chain problems and cost problems of artificial meat need to be further tested. A small-scale water test operation like KFC may be a more stable method.
In fact, since the World Health Organization (WTO) listed red meat and processed meat as “highly carcinogenic to humans” in 2015, the concept of replacing artificial meat with artificial meat has begun to be Put it on the countertop.
With the change in consumer perceptions and the popularity of healthy meals in recent years, a large amount of foreign capital has begun to invest in the market for artificial meat and related products. In 2016, American plant meat company Impossible Food received a total of $ 257 million from 17 institutions including Bill Gates and Facebook founder Dustin Moskovitz; in 2018, American cell meat company Memphis Meat only started a business. In 2007, Tyson Ventures, a subsidiary of Tyson, received a US $ 17 million investment; on May 2, 2019, food brand Beyond Meat went public on the Nasdaq and became the “first stock of artificial meat.” Beyond Meat’s stock price soared 163% on the day of listing, and rose as much as 250% within one month of listing.
On April 23, just after KFC and Starbucks launched their own artificial meat products in China, the artificial meat segment of China’s A-share market surged 3.84% that day. Seven artificial meat concept stocks, including Aipu, Fengle Seeds, and Golden Ham, have reached daily limit.
But at the real consumer market level, artificial meat wants to be truly recognized by the stomach of Chinese consumers like traditional meat. At present, there is still a long way to go in terms of taste, price and supply chain.