Beyond Meat to produce in China

Not a headline that is going to make a certain would be King happy. But I suppose, being a bit unkind, if you re going to manufacture fake anything, China is as good a place as any. They now join the likes of Green Monday [link in Chinese] a local company, very popular in China for its artificial pork products.

We have covered this in, detail, before but if you missed it- shame on you- the links are here and here. With many of the fast food restaurants jumping on the faux beef burger wagon in China it is shaping up to be a decent battle between foreign and local brands. Given the anti US feeling here in China coupled with the sky high national pride, I know where I would be putting my money.
But as they say, a day is a long time in business in China!

Beyond Meat, the star – pun intentional – of today’s posts are partnered with Starbucks in China. We are not big coffee drinkers, but when we do pass by those stores, they seem largely frequented by well dressed business woman with a cup of coffee and 2 slices of cake.

Now, one of the hottest trends of 2018 / 19 in China was health, healthy living and fitness.
Fitness centres saw a boom- which was sadly hit very hard during the 5 months of Covid in China. It’s a fair bet that the next stop for the afore mentioned young women would be the gym!
Perhaps Starbucks can sense the change in the weather and are preparing for the day when tiramisu and cheese cake will lose ground to a more healthy snack in China?

The other major fake meat player in China, KFC have always been inventive in China, tweaking their menus to suit, not just Chinese tastes, but local in terms of regions. For example, a spicy burger in Beijing is relatively mild compared to those in Sichuan, the home of red hot chilli pepper.
They eat ’em like apples there!
However, we have noticed KFC’s local store traffic seems below pre Covid levels. So perhaps the major battle for Queen of the fake food in China will play out on line, between the two titans of China E-com: Alibaba’s Tmall and JD Mall.

All right, enough of the background, lets take a look at Beyond Meats plans for production in China. This story and head image is brought courtesy of CAIXIN Global a free article but membership required- needs an email address.

Introducing Everlyne YU

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In 2003 Everlyne Yu co-founded WPBeijing Marketing Studio with Englishman Peter Bic, now known as Bic Brands.

She began Uengager, as a SaaS MarTech company focused on customer engagement in 2017.

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Everlyne is also a key note speaker, lecturer and KOL on MarTech in China. She is CEO of Uengager, business development officer for Bicyu.

Everlyne hs been privileged to work with a variety of international organisations, from VW, Cushman Wakefield, Sodexo, Bristol Myers Squibb to local Chinese firms such as Midea, and OK Order.

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