Vegan China as a consequence of the coronavirus

With the CORONAVIRUS pandemic in CHINA widely believed to be the consumption of illicit wild animal MEAT, the country has seen a booming market for plant-based alternatives, and analysts believe China could even become a global player in the industry .

Over the past couple of years, unlike in the past, when eating pork daily was a luxury for the middle class, the green shoots of a vegan revolution have begun to sprout in China.

Plant-based meat substitutes are slowly making their way into a new generation of consumers increasingly concerned about food crises like the coronavirus and African swine fever.

“With a local abundance of non-GMO soybeans and huge plant-based processing capacity, including soybeans and peas, China can play an important role in accelerating the global trend towards plant-based meat production by increasing,” said the managing DIRECTOR of the Global Food Institute in Asia -Pacific Region (GFI-APAC) Elaine Siu, writes The Guardian.

Meat consumption in China has risen significantly since the 1960s, when the average person consumed five kilograms of meat a year, The Guardian notes. By 2015, that number had risen to 48 kilograms.

China still consumes 28 percent of the world's meat and half of globally produced pork, according to The Guardian. Its meat market is valued at $86 billion.

However, in 2016, the Chinese government announced a plan to cut the country's meat consumption by 50 percent and urged its citizens to limit meat-eating to 40-75 grams per day. This is remarkable because few countries have included the "meat issue" in their plans to deal with the climate crisis. The new rules, urging citizens to consume only 40-75 grams of meat per day, were supported by a series of public information advertisements featuring actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron.

And there are signs that the food culture in the country is changing. The vegan market in China is expected to grow by 17.2 percent from 2015 to 2020, the fastest growth rate in the world, according to Inside Retail Asia.

The number of vegan restaurants in Shanghai has grown from 49 in 2012 to over 100 in 2017, according to Business World.

Interestingly, even among those who do not consider themselves vegan or vegetarian, there is a growing interest in plant-based meat substitutes. While more than 90 percent of the Chinese surveyed did not describe themselves as vegetarians, 86.7 percent of them had tried plant-based meats. In 2018, the country's domestic plant-based meat industry was worth $910 million, with an annual growth rate of 14.2 percent.

KFC in China sells vegan chicken nuggets, Burger King offers the "impossible burgers" Impossible Whopper, and Starbucks offers BEYOND MEAT meat alternatives.

Hong Kong-based OmniFoods offers plant-based "pork" at McDonalds in Hong Kong and Aldi, White Castle and Starbucks in mainland China. OmniFoods is also launching in 13 additional countries this year.

According to GFI, China is already a major exporter of vegetable proteins and has great potential to develop the market further.

As of 2016, China could process up to 79 percent of the world's soy protein isolate, 50 percent of the world's textured soy protein, and 23 percent of the world's soy protein concentrate.

But it will not be easy for plant-based substitutes to win over real meat. “I used to try a veggie pulled pork dish, but it's not the same as real meat. Taste, texture and nutritional value are incomparable. I wouldn't try it again, even if it was cheaper than meat," Bao Gege, a 64-year-old pensioner, told The Guardian.