Fake meat market to hit US$240bn

THE alternative meat market is poised to rise to $240 billion over the next two decades as new technologies gain ground and consumers change their diets, according to Jefferies.
The great “protein shake-up” could see faux meat reach nine percent share of the estimated $2.7 trillion global meat market by 2040, analyst Simon Powell forecasts, from less than one percent now. The size of the plant-based meat market has been one of the biggest debates in the food industry recently, with estimates ranging from between $10 billion and $40 billion to as high as $140 billion.
Plant-based meats, like the one produced by Beyond Meat Inc., are currently leading the category but lab-created “cellular” meat could overtake its plant-based counterpart, Powell said. “The cellular-based alternative industry has the potential to grow fast off a small base and could quickly start mass producing real meat if it can reduce costs and industrialize the current lab-based approach,” he wrote.

Rising estimates for the faux-meat market are one way to justify the eye-popping valuations for its producers. Beyond Meat, for example, commands a valuation of $9.7 billion, or 110 times its 2018 sales. Its closely-held peer, Impossible Foods Inc., is valued at $1.52 billion, with revenues estimated at $110 million in 2018, according to data compiled by PrivCo.
Investments in lab-created meat companies have trailed their plant-based peers as commercial products have yet to emerge. Private cell-based meat firms received $50 million in new investments last year, according to data compiled by Good Food Institute, compared to more than $500 million for plant-based food producers.
While taste, costs and ingredients will ultimately differentiate the products, both categories stand to disrupt the large global meat market, Jefferies’ Powell said. Other catalysts for alternative meat’s rise includes a potential meat tax, now being discussed in some countries, and the pork crisis in China, he noted. – Bloomberg