Nowadays, the plant-based concept is becoming more and more popular, and the plant meat market is developing in full swing. With the increase in the number of entrants, while the plant meat market continues to expand, there are still some issues that need to be paid attention to.

When consumers choose plant-based meat, they also pay attention to whether it is delicious or not. This will be the key to a company’s foothold in the plant-based meat market. In addition, in the entire market, the consumption scene of animal meat is very extensive, and the development of plant meat also needs to be close to the eating habits and consumption needs of consumers. Another point is that in the future, plant meat will continue to develop towards health, and products must also be continuously optimized.

The number of entrants continues to increase

Plant-based food is undoubtedly a hot word in the current food field. Among them, plant-based food represented by plant meat is developing rapidly, the market scale is expanding, and the number of entrants is constantly increasing.

Since the past few years, plant meat has frequently appeared in the eyes of consumers, and plant meat has not stopped in 2021.

According to Markets and Markets forecasts, the global plant meat market is expected to grow at a compound growth rate of approximately 15.0% per year, and will reach US$27.9 billion by 2025, with the Chinese market growing fastest.

From the research data with development potential, the influx of top players and capital, it has to be said that plant meat is an attractive and good track. However, it is worth mentioning that although plant meat is very popular on the supply side, it is still insufficient in terms of consumption. In the process of continuous development of plant meat, there are still some “thresholds” that need to be crossed to allow plant meat to get more attention.

1. “Delicious” is the key factor.

There are many labels for plant meat, including “health”, “environmental protection” and “innovation”, but for consumers, “deliciousness” is still a key factor in choosing plant meat.

In the “Food Investment and Financing Sub-forum” of the FBIF2021 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum, some company founders mentioned that 50% of consumers are interested in delicious food and 27% of consumers are the first to pay attention to the motivation for repurchasing plant meat. Healthy, 14% of consumers chose Trendy.

It is not difficult to see that “deliciousness” is the basis for the consumption of plant meat. The production principle of plant meat is to select raw materials such as soybeans, peas, wheat, etc., and change the protein structure through molecular biology technology to produce products that simulate the texture and taste of animal meat. This also determines that there is a barrier to enter the plant meat market, and the technical difficulty of plant meat lies in how to achieve better taste, more stable texture, and closer to real meat.

2. Products close to consumers

When plant meat enters or is introduced to the local market, the eating habits of local consumers must be taken into consideration, and the products should also be developed locally to adapt to more catering scenarios.

Plant meat began to gradually merge with local common foods. While expanding the application range of plant meat, it also increased the frequency of plant meat in front of consumers. With the gradual start of competition in the catering channel of plant meat, the retail scene is gradually opening up, which also requires plant meat to innovate and iterate products based on the eating habits and taste preferences of local consumers.

3. Continue to cater to the health trend

In the choice of plant meat, the health needs of consumers are also highlighted. Among them, 68.5% of consumers have body management requirements and value low-fat and low-calorie characteristics. 24.8% of consumers value the nutritional value, including high protein and dietary fiber.

In other words, it is necessary to dig deeper into the health needs of consumers in the development of plant meat. It is true that vegetable meat does not perform poorly in terms of dietary fiber, protein, etc., and does not contain cholesterol. However, in order to achieve the taste of animal meat, vegetable oil and spices may be used in vegetable meat. Therefore, unsaturated fatty acids, high oil, high salt, etc. The problem is also the focus of many consumers.

In the future, plant meat may need to be optimized in terms of energy, salt, and oil in the production process, moving towards the health, low-fat, and low-calorie directions that consumers need. Don’t put too much emphasis on its health in publicity, but use plant meat as a supplement to animal meat to achieve the goal of nutritional balance.