Hosted by China Plant Based Foods Alliance (CPBFA) at the Beijing international convention center, this year’s Future Food Forum preceded a significant moment for an organization that has contributed in a great way to the development of meat alternative in China, arguably, the first organization to address ‘protein alternative’ in China.

 

FFF 2019 brought together 250+ impressive attendance of leaders from a range of sectors, from regulators to industry stakeholders across the globe. The meeting addressed the characteristics of the current and ever-evolving meat alternative sector, and the principles to ensure relevant regulation and better market development.

 

Ryan Xue, secretary-general of the CPBFA made clear that alternative proteins, including plant-based and cell-based meat, are not direct competitors with conventional meat products but can exist alongside and complement conventional meat industries. Xue highlighted that China is becoming a centre for the development of plant-based meat and proteins, which feed into broader sustainable food trends, also emphasized the further development of production efficiency and improvement in these products is dependent on technological advancement, as opposed to animal farming, sheer input of raw materials, making them profoundly less dependent on scare natural resources.

 

Key issues were addressed such as technological development, identification of consumer trends, supply chain dynamics, access and affordability. Many of the issues are cross-frontier and global, alternative protein innovations represent both a new challenge and an unmissable opportunity. Regulators and industry must ensure they have the necessary infrastructures in place to take advantage of these opportunities while ensuring no adverse consequences.