Special interviews
Written by: Kwong Yueting
2021-06-21 09:00
Last update date: 2021-06-21 09:00
In recent years, citizens have become more and more concerned about health and environmental protection issues. Many people have switched to eating plant meat, which has increased the demand for plant meat.
Impossible Foods, a US company invested by Li Ka-shing’s Victoria Harbour, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Temasek and other US companies, has since attacked Hong Kong in April 2018. Three years have passed. So far, the company’s flagship product vegetable beef has been sold in more than 120 supermarkets. Available in market branches, gradually "coming into the house".
The company's Hong Kong helmsman Lan Kaihui told reporters about the development of plant meat in Hong Kong.
Seeing that plant meat has become a new blue ocean, some food industry giants also intend to take a share. For example, Nestlé launched a new plant meat brand "Harvest Gourmet" at the end of last year; Launched plant-based meat products in the Asia-Pacific market.
Facing more and more competitors in the market, Lan Kaihui, general manager of Impossible Foods Hong Kong, said in an exclusive interview with "Hong Kong 01" that the company only regarded animal meat as its main competitor from beginning to end, because the company's goal is to Before 2035, it will completely replace animal food. Therefore, the company has been committed to attracting consumers to eat plant meat, hoping to make the taste and taste of the product match that of animal meat.
Impossible Foods’ products include plant-based beef and plant-based pork loin burgers, and partnered with the online platform foodful.hk to launch instant buns.
(Photo by Ou Jiale)
Lan Kaihui said that the vegetable meat on the market is generally aimed at vegetarians, but hopes to achieve better vegetarian vegetable meat, but the company wants to replace animal meat, so the company has spent a lot of work in the past to study why people like meat and why The meat has a meaty smell and taste. Later, it was discovered that the heme in the meat was the key, and soybeans also contained soy hemoglobin. The company used genetic engineering technology to produce heme, and finally developed a meaty plant meat.
"I believe that tasting is believing (after tasting), many Hong Kong consumers do not want to eat plant meat before they have tried plant meat, but after they eat it, they will eat more!"
According to the company's latest market survey, 30% of Hong Kong consumers have eaten more plant meat in the past year, and 40% of consumers who have tried impossible plant meat will eat less animal meat.
Therefore, the company believes that the market for plant meat in Hong Kong has great potential and will continue to invest resources to expand the Hong Kong market in the future.
At the same time, the epidemic has also made the public aware that animal meat has a chance to cause public health problems, and many people have "turned over" to eating plant meat.
Lan Kaihui revealed that the company's sales figures in the past year have been satisfactory. In the first half of this year, the business has increased satisfactorily, and Hong Kong's retail outlets have increased to more than 120.
Earlier, the company held events on World Earth Month in April and World Environment Day on June 5, and partnered with chain restaurants to launch vegetable beef dishes, such as Pepper Lunch’s vegetable meat sizzling meal, horns and horns Buffet The branch's stone pot kimchi plant pilaf and kimchi plant meat don, etc., hope to promote more Hong Kong people to establish green eating habits.
Reuters: Impossible Foods and SPAC are negotiating to go public in the US for valuation or more than 78 billion yuan
Impossible Foods cuts Hong Kong suggested retail price by more than 20%
Is developing other types of products
At present, Impossible Foods’ vegetable beef is mainly in the form of ground beef. Lan Kaihui smiled and said that although the company’s ground beef is ground beef, chefs in western restaurants use vegetable beef to make hamburgers, hamburger steaks, and beef balls. Chinese restaurant chefs are even more familiar with it. It is used to make ants on the tree, mapo tofu, spring rolls and dumplings.
"Hong Kong is a diversified society, and some chefs will make our products into a variety of dishes." She added that at the beginning of the year, the company cooperated with the online platform foodful.hk to launch 5 Impossible plant-meat ready-to-eat packages. Including: tangerine peel plant meat pie, lotus root plant meat pie and vegetable meat chili sauce, which are also sold in supermarkets, hoping to make plant meat products more "home".
When asked if there will be more new products, she said that the company had launched a vegetable pork loin burger in September last year. Now the R&D team is developing other different types of products, and the specific details are not available for the time being.
Some people in society feel that plant meat has added a lot of additives to make the taste more like real meat, which may not be good for the body.
Lan Kaihui frankly said that most of the food that modern people eat is processed, and the common ones are bread and cheese. "When many people talk about processing, they will think that they are not too healthy. They may also be concerned with intestines and luncheon meat. For candy, however, we use a selection of carefully selected raw materials, stir them evenly, and then make them into products. Our products do a lot of processing."
The demand for meat in the Chinese market accounts for one-third of the world. Lan Kaihui pointed out that the company is working on different tasks with its partners, and has discussed with the mainland regulators, hoping to enter China as soon as possible.
(Photo by Ou Jiale)
Lower product prices three times in a year
Due to the continuous increase in production and the decrease in average production costs, the company has repeatedly lowered product prices. For example, in January this year, the company reduced prices to the catering industry by 15%; in February, the company lowered the recommended retail prices of US and overseas supermarket products 20%; in March, the company lowered the price of Impossible vegetable beef per pack at PARKnSHOP by more than 20%.
Lan Kaihui pointed out that as long as the company's sales are getting better and better, the company will have more room to cut prices, so that plant meat can be changed and popularized, but the company has not set a final target price.
"If plant meat can achieve the same taste, price and cooking method as animal meat, I believe consumers will be willing to switch to eating plant meat. This is the direction we must strive for!"
In October 2020, Patrick O. Brown, the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, revealed that it is estimated that it will be able to enter the Chinese market in the next few months, but there is no further news about the plan afterwards.
Lan Kaihui said that the company has been discussing with mainland regulators and hopes to enter the Chinese market as soon as possible. However, each country has its own laws and approval takes a certain period of time. The company is making continuous efforts to this end.
Regarding rumors that Impossible Foods intends to merge with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to go public in the United States, she said that there is nothing to announce for the time being.
Lan Kaihui used to hold important positions in Nestlé Hong Kong and Campbell Soup Asia, but she put aside the high-paying jobs of large companies and joined Impossible Foods.
She pointed out that the biggest challenge of moving from a multinational company to a start-up company is to do things one step at a time, because multinational companies have a large number of employees and the division of labor is very careful, while the company's Hong Kong team has only 4 employees temporarily, and they have to complement each other , But this makes the relationship between employees more integrated and united, and can witness the gradual growth of the company, there will be greater satisfaction.
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