Alternative meat companies go gourmet amid fledgling global demand for plant-based foods
If a food type were to remain in the market, it must taste good and be sold at a price that consumers are willing to pay, said an academic.

Restaurants are coming up with more premium types of plant-based foods like wagyu beef and tobiko.
SINGAPORE: Alternative meat companies here are turning their attention towards a growing market segment – fine dining restaurants.
With global demand for plant-based fast foods taking a hit, firms are pivoting to creating premium products. Examples include plant-based wagyu beef and cultivated meats like lab-grown fish maw.
The plant-based market has been facing inflationary pressures and attracting fewer investors in recent months.
Large companies like Beyond Meat posted a 30 per cent drop in sales in the second quarter of this year, and it is expecting an even bumpier road ahead.
Firms specialising in cultivated meat, however, believe there is still potential for gourmet products that can also fetch higher prices. Banking on that, Avant Foods is building a pilot production site in the north of Singapore which is expected to open early next year.
CEO of the firm Carrie Chan predicted that in the next five to 10 years, people will continue to get their protein from different sources and that plant-based proteins will remain popular.
In particular, the seafood sector is plagued with problems which her industry can help, she said.
“We understand that there are a lot of challenges with our seafood, such as heavy metal, micro plastic, and most recently we are thinking about some of the nuclear waste that may go into our ocean system,” she said. “There will be a need from the consumer to consider alternatives (in) which they will have a higher level of confidence in the production process.”
DEMAND FOR HIGH-END MEAT ALTERNATIVES
Meanwhile, plant-based alternative meat company Wamame, which sells high-end products like alternative wagyu beef, caviar and tobiko has seen 30 per cent more fine dining restaurants wanting to buy its products compared to 2021.
The firm is therefore focusing sales and research and development efforts on higher-end markets.
Such products fit a segment of the market which was “very much untouched” during the early phase of the plant-based movement, said the firm’s managing director Roy Wakim.
"The early adoption of plant-based (food) tended to be more in the fast food, low-scale restaurants. Now you see the adoption of plant-based is moving up the value chain, so there's still a lot of runway for us,” he said.
“High volume based (plant-based) products, like mince and nuggets might be plateauing out, but in the fine-dining space, they're looking for that texture, mouth feel, that focus on appearance as well,” he added. The firm is expanding to neighbouring Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand where it has noticed similar trends.
THE FUTURE OF PLANT-BASED, LAB-GROWN FOODS
Though the future of mass market plant-based products remains uncertain, Professor William Chen, director of the Nanyang Technological University’s Food Science and Technology Programme, believes re-branding might be the adrenaline boost the industry needs.
"The industry is putting a lot of effort into making these plant-based meat’ taste like real meat,” he noted, adding that additives are used to increase their similarity in taste to real meat. However, this also raises cost – a factor that consumers consider before buying products.
“The taste will never be the same because it's a plant-based material. Moving forward, it will be more practical for companies to create a separate category called plant-based foods instead of calling it plant-based meat,” he said. Still, he expects that plant-based foods and the hybrid product between plant-based material and cultivated meat will have their own separate market shares.

“Cultivated meat on its own will have a certain market share because ultimately, no matter how consumers are aware of these environmental sustainability challenges, they still want to taste meat, the real meat and the cultivated meat will meet these requirements,” he said.
Dr Leong Lai Peng, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Food and Science and Technology, told CNA’s Singapore Tonight last week that plant-based meat, as the “lower hanging fruit”, has more potential than lab-grown meat currently.
“(Lab-grown meat) definitely has potential, but there are some problems that need to be fixed. They have to look at lower cost of production …. And if they can improve on the technologies, definitely there is potential for both of them,” she said.
If a food type were to remain in the market, it must taste good and be sold at a price that consumers are willing to pay, added Dr Leong. There should be investment in all types of food so that there is diversification in both alternative protein and traditional farm production.
“These things will help to improve the food security of the country. We cannot just rely on one thing or two things,” she said.