Crossposted from Lewis Bollard's Farm Animal Welfare Newsletter.

Plant-based meat’s resilience has been a rare silver lining during COVID-19. Worldwide, the conventional meat industry continues to lobby for government bailouts, fail to protect its workers, and carry out grisly on-farm “depopulations.” But plant-based meat is thriving:

In China, Beyond Meat signed five major new partnerships, with Starbucks, retailers Alibaba and Metro, distributor Sinodis, and Yum China (owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell). Cargill started producing meat alternatives for the Chinese market, including plant-based scallops. Nestle announced plans to sell plant-based meat there by year’s end, and Chinese plant-based startups Zhenmeat and Starfield disclosed new investments and product launches.
In the rest of Asia, Thailand’s largest meat company, CP Foods, launched a plant-based line, as did Malaysian, Singaporean, and Indian startups. Two Japanese meat giants began selling plant-based meat, as a Japanese government fund invested in the space. A South Korean investor led Impossible Foods’ latest $500M funding round, which included new investments from the Singaporean and Hong Kong funds who co-led its last funding round.
In Latin America, Brazilian agribusiness giant Marfrig publicized its plans to roll out plant-based burgers by year’s end. (Brazil’s two other biggest meat giants, Seara and JBS, rolled out their plant-based burgers last year.) Chile’s NotCo became likely the highest valued non-US plant-based startup, as it closed a new $85M funding round.
In Europe, the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco, launched more than 30 new own-brand plant-based products, as its CEO wrote that the UK should eat “less meat and dairy.” Dairy giant Danone declared its ambition to more than double its plant-based sales worldwide to around €5B by 2025, while Unilever shared that a third of its products are now plant-based. Nestle reported that plant-based sales were up 40% in the first half of the year, and its CEO called plant-based “a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
In the US, Starbucks started selling Impossible breakfast sandwiches, as did Burger King, while KFC began a new trial of Beyond Fried Chicken. Impossible got into Walmart, and Beyond Meat into Sam’s Club, with the brands now available in 9K and 25K respectively of the US’ roughly 40K grocery stores. US retail plant-based meat

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