Living in the same global village, everyone needs to think, is the world's resources unlimited? If not, how to save resources effectively?

Artificial meat may be an option.

After the American company Beyond Meat officially became the "first share of artificial meat" in May 2019, the capital market began to use time to vote to express its attitude towards the future of artificial meat.

At that time, the initial price of Beyond Meat was just $46, rising by an astonishing 400% to a peak of $239 less than three months after its launch. It then fell back, closing at $135.18 as of April 14, local time, and the share price was still up 200% over the past two years.

Now Impossible Foods, another giant, is ready to make a move, too. Us artificial meat giant Impossible Foods plans to go public in the next 12 months through IPO or a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), according to people familiar with the matter. After receiving a valuation offer of at least $10 billion, Impossible Foods has now hired financial advisers to help it negotiate a listing.

Since its inception in 2011, Impossible Foods has received a total of more than $1.5 billion in financing. Eye-catching investors include Temasek, the world's top investment agency, Bill Gates and Li Ka-shing, the world's richest man and China's richest man. The latest round of financing was completed in August last year, with a $200m investment led by Coatue and the participation of Temasek, Mirae Asset Global Investments and XN.

01 what does artificial meat subvert?

as everyone knows,The development of new technology is the best way to revolutionize traditional industries.. For example, the development of new energy vehicles has transformed the efficiency and structure of energy use, made a far-reaching impact on the sustainable development of global resources, and also gave many electric vehicle enterprises a historical opportunity to overtake on corners.

Now, animal protein, an industry closely related to human health, environmental impact and animal environmental protectionSubversive changes are also taking place quietly.

Protein is one of the essential nutrients in human cell life. Complete protein containing all nine amino acids necessary for human health usually exists in animal food, commonly known as animal protein. However, animal husbandry, the source of animal protein, has been affected by high energy consumption, high pollution, animal antibiotics and high cholesterol for a long time. For example, animal husbandry produces more than half of greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide), of which cattle fart accounts for the majority.

On the other hand, the gap between supply and demand of meat brought about by the growing global population, the overloaded transport of animal husbandry to the environment, and the risk of related chronic diseases caused by meat products.The main contradiction between the acquisition of animal protein and the development of animal husbandry has become increasingly prominent.Based on this, people gradually realize the benefits of alternative proteins such as plant proteins: reducing global environmental pollution and waste of resources, having health advantages such as zero cholesterol and low fat, reducing the risk of disease caused by meat products, and so on.

From animal protein to alternative protein, that is, the emergence of artificial meat, is a change in the way human beings obtain protein.

But the "revolution" has never been a treat to dinner, the emphasis must be on the big business behind it.

Artificial meat is mainly divided into two categories: "plant meat" synthesized with plant-specific proteins and "cellular meat" cultured with animal stem cells. At present, cell meat is limited to the high cost and difficult to develop. Plant meat is more mature in the market, and its industry prospect is not to be underestimated, and its development is the most considerable.

In 2019, the global market for vegetable protein meat is about US $12.1 billion, which is expected to grow at a compound growth rate of 15.0% a year and reach US $27.9 billion by 2025. If the scale of the artificial meat market refers to the current ratio of plant milk to milk milk (2.3 per cent), then the global artificial meat market will reach US $21.7 billion in the future, and the penetration rate of plant milk in the more mature US plant milk market has reached 13%. The global vegetable meat market is vaguely estimated to be $122.9 billion.

Back in 2009, Patrick Brown, a biochemistry professor at Stanford University, identified intensive animal husbandry as the world's biggest environmental problem and decided to reduce animal agriculture by providing free-market competitive products.

Then, in 2011, Impossible Foods, which makes meat products from plants, was set up to sell meatless hamburgers and sauces in supermarkets and later established partnerships with big-name companies such as Burger King and Disney. In 2020, the number of, Impossible Foods hamburger outlets increased from 150 to more than 20, 000.

Impossible Foods's artificial meat core technology is outstanding. Study animal products at the molecular level, and then select specific proteins and nutrients from plants to reproduce the experience and nutrition of specific meat products. Soybean hemoglobin is produced by genetically engineered yeast, which makes the taste and shape of the product more similar to that of real meat, reproduces the key features of animal muscle-fat and connective tissue, and makes the product as real as possible in appearance and taste.

Straightforward understanding is that, Impossible Foods through hemoglobin not only makes artificial meat look good, but also tastes good and has "meat flavor".

However, the discovery of hemoglobin is only the first step in solving the problem, and the top priority is how to mass produce commercially.

At this point, it's time for synthetic biology. Impossible Foods selected and optimized Pichia pastoris as the strain for mass production of soybean hemoglobin. After that, the controllable soybean hemoglobin biosynthesis pathway is constructed by assembly. Finally, the synthetic pathway is transduced into yeast cells, and soybean hemoglobin can be produced continuously through yeast.

In 2019, Impossible Foods conducted a life cycle assessment with sustainability consultancy Quantis, which showed that, Impossible Burger's supply chain could reduce water use, land use and greenhouse gas emissions by 87 per cent, 96 per cent and 89 per cent compared to the most environmentally friendly beef products of the same specification.

In this way, the way of obtaining protein from traditional animal husbandry has been subverted by artificial meat for a long time, and the limited resources of the global village have been saved. From this point of view, although artificial meat and new energy vehicles seem to be very different, in fact, the essence of the development path is the same.

But just as consumers shrugged off "short and poor" new energy vehicles a decade ago, will today's consumers pay for "new energy" in the food industry?

Can artificial meat replace real meat?

The ideal is very plump, but the reality is often very bony.Even if the artificial meat technology is more mature and the development has a bright future like new energy, for the industry, the first loss is a gap that has been difficult to cross.

Take the first share of artificial meat Beyond Meat as an example, from 2016 to 2020, although its operating income jumped from US $16.18 million to US $400m in 2020 due to the rapid growth of the market, its losses also went hand in hand.

It is obvious that, Beyond Meat's revenue has not been able to cover its higher costs and expenses, resulting in persistent losses, which is reflected in the price of the product, we have to face a reality:Artificial meat is more expensive than real meat.

According to Nielsen, the price of vegetable meat products is still on the high side. For example, the retail price of Beyond Meat beef products is still 125% higher than real meat, or even 40% higher than organic meat, which accounts for only 2% of the whole meat market. Impossible Food's plant-based ground beef premiums are also as high as 185 per cent and 75 per cent.

Although, Impossible Foods has announced two price cuts since the start of the year, and the company has asked restaurant distributors to reduce retail prices to restaurants and consumers accordingly, Impossible Foods distributors have received a minimum price of $6.80 a pound for artificial meatloaf, which is still higher than the price of low-fat and non-organic ground beef.

Why is artificial meat more expensive than real meat? There are probably two reasons for the cost, or take the listed Beyond Meat as an example.

A marketing expense is a big one. According to Beyond Meat2020's annual report, its marketing, sales and administrative expenses reached $134 million, accounting for more than 30 per cent of last year's revenue of $400m. Both Beyond meat and Impossible Food, are aimed at the mass market. This goal determines the sales strategy of artificial meat companies, which is not only the to C route to become a consumer brand, but also the to B route of the supply chain company behind the large catering brand.

Both routes should be grasped, and both hands should be hard.Then only increasing but not reducing the cost of channel promotion is bound to push up the cost burden.

The other small head is Beyond Meat's R & D spending, which according to the 2020 annual report is $31.53 million, accounting for about 10 per cent of revenue. From the path of increasing economies of scale, reducing costs and achieving profitability, the promotion of the market and the continuous improvement of the level of technology are bound to be done.

Can artificial meat replace real meat? At least from the perspective of the price reality of artificial meat compared with real meat under the deficit pattern of the industry.Obviously not yet.。

In fact, there are some bottlenecks in the realization of the technology path. Although the artificial meat industry has great potential for future development, there are still many problems and challenges to be solved, according to Li Dongqiao of the Literature and Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. For example, compared with traditional meat, plant protein meat still needs to be improved in terms of sensory properties and nutritional value. Cell-cultured meat also has many bottlenecks in the source extraction of high-purity stem cells, medium improvement, large-scale production technology and rapid cell culture.

When it comes to food and the safety that the public is most concerned about. Impossible Food's product is closest to real meat in shape because it uses genetically modified yeast to make hemoglobin, imitating the blood elements of meat, making the meat red and bloody. However, in the production process, a segment of haemoglobin DNA is implanted into Pichia pastoris, so there are genetically modified ingredients, so it has not yet entered the Chinese market and needs to be approved.

In addition, compared with the high penetration and acceptance of the mature market of artificial meat in the United States, the domestic market is basically in the embryonic stage of development, and the public's understanding of it is still in the stage of Buddhist vegetarianism. However, regardless of the fact that Chinese people like meat such as hooves, claws and ribs but have low acceptance of artificial meat such as steaks, sausages and hamburgers, vegetarianism is not prevalent in China, and on the whole, the domestic artificial meat market is still in the period of consumer education. there needs to be a process of psychological acceptance in the market.

03 summary

Western philosopher Hegel said a famous saying: existence is reasonable, but what he said reasonable is not a literal understanding of the meaning, but the existence of things have a certain reality and reasons. Combined with the current artificial meat company or the listing of the "second share" Impossible Food, artificial meat must meet certain practical needs and create some value, whether it saves resources or subverts the traditional way of obtaining protein.

It's just that for the market and consumers, the performance-to-price ratio of any product needs to depend on quantity in the first place. If artificial meat tastes ordinary or slightly worse than real meat, and the price is also expensive, it is still difficult to completely conquer the market. However, artificial meat has evolved the animal protein obtained by traditional animal husbandry into a transformation of industrial production, and the advantage of industrial production is that it can continuously reduce costs through economies of scale and technological improvement. this is the road that the artificial meat industry must take in the future.

As for the domestic artificial meat market under the leadership of Impossible Food and other leading enterprises, there are consumers and market concepts that need to be opened and cultivated, this road is doomed to be more difficult and longer.