Nestlé and HeyTea Eye Artificial Meat Market in China

China’s artificial meat race is heating up — Nestlé foods and major bubble tea chain HeyTea have joined the fight against giants like KFC and Starbucks.

Last week, Chinese tea giant HeyTea (喜茶) announced that it would begin serving cheeseburgers made by Chinese artificial meat startup STARFIELD. Immediately after, global food conglomerate Nestlé announced that it was investing 100 million USD to build its first artificial meat factory in China.

“In recent years, the food sector has undergone a quiet revolution as people are choosing more and more healthy, nutritious, and environmentally friendly foods,” Nestlé said in a press release.

China is the world’s largest meat consumer, swallowing up approximately 28% of global supply. It seems only natural then that the country could become a primary market for artificial meat producers.

Leading overseas brands in the sector such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are already making moves in China, as are other big-name brands. Earlier this year, Beyond Meat began producing artificial meat lunches for Starbucks, while KFC has successfully beta tested it own non-chicken nuggets. 

Consumers seemingly welcomed HeyTea’s new offerings, with some stores selling out in just hours. But experts say that plant-based meat is not yet positioned to attract large numbers of domestic consumers given its relatively high price.

Nonetheless, it seems China will become an interesting testing ground for these products. And if the world’s largest consumer of meat can be weaned off of this particular habit, the environmental impact could be enormous.

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