Hong Kong's South China Morning Post ran a story on its website on October 6 titled "Local Chinese start-ups Join global giants in Battle for plant-based meat substitutes as middle-class Demand for healthier food Grows." The report was written by journalist Eric Wu. The article introduces the development prospect of plant-based meat substitutes market in China. The full text is compiled as follows:

China's market for plant-based meat substitutes is becoming increasingly crowded as local start-ups join the race with international giants to capitalise on rising demand for healthier foods from the country's growing middle class.

Klaus Peterson, co-founder and chief executive of the new entrant, Future Garden, a Beijing-based importer of Danish premium food, said the company planned to invest "billions of dollars" in the emerging industry over the next five years.

He said: "China's rising middle class is getting richer and they have a huge interest in trying new things... Our vision is to bring down the price of plant-based foods through innovation, scale and formulation."

The company initially targeted people in their 20s and 30s in big cities.

Ashok Vasudevan, the company's other founder, said: "We will provide affordable food that will bring health immediately. We will simultaneously move across different segments of the supply chain -- from controlled environmental agriculture to intermediate products to ready-to-eat products. "Each project or product will first be incubated or accelerated at our design lab in Singapore, and they can be launched independently once they are ready to scale up in China."

Median household disposable income grew by a compound annual average of 6.9 per cent last year compared with 2015 to reach rmb88,455, according to Euromonitor International.

Over the same period, China's retail market for meat substitutes grew at an average rate of 7.7 percent, reaching $10 billion.

Future Garden plans to launch products next year aimed at replacing western plant-based foods such as burgers, sausages and kebabs.

The company is by no means the only enterprise that takes localization seriously.

Jane Meat is a start-up. The company has been testing market reactions to its plant-based "pork" fillets and "crayfish" at a Beijing hotpot restaurant chain.

"We tested them for a month and the results exceeded our stated goal of ordering the same amount of meat as traditional meatballs," said Lu Zhongming, founder of the company. We order twice as many meatballs as traditional meatballs."

China's market potential has attracted other venture capital funds.

Moment Capital, a Protein-replacement venture capital firm based in Hong Kong, has invested in five protein-replacement food start-ups, including one that is developing plant-based seafood.

"We give priority to companies that bring innovative, tasty products and novel food technologies to China," said Nina Zhu, investment director of Moment Capital's China Alternative Protein Fund.

"The Chinese market is huge and can accommodate many market participants," said Astrid Prayogo, founder of Shanghai-based HaoFood Food company, which is developing plant-based chicken products.