Beyond Meat, a leading plant-based meat producer, has launched its first DTC e-commerce site in the Chinese market - an online store on JD.com’s e-commerce platform. The company is initially targeting to sell its products across four major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, and eventually expand across 300 cities in China. 

The company plans to make its Beyond Beef and Beyond Pork products available on the platform. Despite a pound of Beyond Beef costing more than 60%—CNY 105 (USD 16.2) compared to CNY 64 (USD 9.9)—above animal beef on JD’s fresh food platform, the company is confident of Chinese consumers paying the premium for healthy diet choices. The products are to be delivered within 48 hours of orders being placed thanks to JD.com's 18 cold chain warehouses.

​​ Analyst Quicktake :  China, the world’s largest pork consumer, is an attractive destination for most plant-based meat producers, especially in the backdrop of recent zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19 and highly contagious African swine fever which disrupted the country's pork supply. Beyond Meat entered China in April 2020, and launched its plant-based pork products soon thereafter in November 2020. The company’s products are already available in the country, through outlets such as Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, METRO China, and Freshippo. Being available on JD.com, with a 200 million-user-stong customer base, will definitely be a boost to the company’s market position. In recent years, several foreign companies such as Harvest Gourmet (Nestle), Cargill, The Vegetarian Butcher (Unilever), LIVEKINDLY, Green Monday, and domestic companies such as Starfiled have entered the market. Beyond Meat, which also has a production facility in the country, currently holds an advantage, however, this might only be short-lived with Nestle and Green Monday planning to open their own production facilities in China—with Cargill already currently operating an existing real meat production facility.