The plan of the United States based alternative meat firm Beyond Meat to venture and expand into the Japanese market has been shelved by it, claimed media reports quoting a Japan based investor. Instead of expansion of Japan, Beyond plans to currently devote its complete focus on the United States market.
The company has recently has had a great round at the stock exchange and has generate funds for an expansion as well as to devote to business strategies to compete with other competitors in the alternative food industry that is nascent but growing very fast.
There were previous plans of striking up a partnership with Japanese trading house Mitsui for selling of Beyond’s plant-based meat alternatives in Japan. Mitsui had purchased a small stake in the US firm in 2016. However all such plans are now completely shelved, said reports.
There were no comments available from Beyond Meat. A spokeswoman for Mitsui did not give any reason for the change of the plans of Japan expansion but added that an expansion into Japan the near future was still possible.
Restaurants and supermarkets are primary customers for the pea-based burgers and sausages from the El Segundo, California-based Beyond Meat. The company had gone public in May this year and its shares have sky rocketed in the short period of time and currently trading at about 550 per cent higher than the IPO price. Analysts say that this was driven by a growing demand for meat alternatives from customers who seek to bring down the amount of animal meat they consume. Beyond offered a secondary offering which closed earlier this week.
The closest competitor of the company in the United States is the Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods. Additionally, there are a number of conventional meat companies such as Tyson Foods and Perdue Foods that are also entering into this lucrative and fast growing market. Beyond Meat has however faced challenges to meet the growing demands for its products and has not been able to expand its production capacity and there been interruptions in the supply of pea protein.
Generally less meat is eaten by Japanese compared to Americans on the average and the cuisine of Japanese has items such as tofu but vegan and vegetarian diets are uncommon.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
The company has recently has had a great round at the stock exchange and has generate funds for an expansion as well as to devote to business strategies to compete with other competitors in the alternative food industry that is nascent but growing very fast.
There were previous plans of striking up a partnership with Japanese trading house Mitsui for selling of Beyond’s plant-based meat alternatives in Japan. Mitsui had purchased a small stake in the US firm in 2016. However all such plans are now completely shelved, said reports.
There were no comments available from Beyond Meat. A spokeswoman for Mitsui did not give any reason for the change of the plans of Japan expansion but added that an expansion into Japan the near future was still possible.
Restaurants and supermarkets are primary customers for the pea-based burgers and sausages from the El Segundo, California-based Beyond Meat. The company had gone public in May this year and its shares have sky rocketed in the short period of time and currently trading at about 550 per cent higher than the IPO price. Analysts say that this was driven by a growing demand for meat alternatives from customers who seek to bring down the amount of animal meat they consume. Beyond offered a secondary offering which closed earlier this week.
The closest competitor of the company in the United States is the Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods. Additionally, there are a number of conventional meat companies such as Tyson Foods and Perdue Foods that are also entering into this lucrative and fast growing market. Beyond Meat has however faced challenges to meet the growing demands for its products and has not been able to expand its production capacity and there been interruptions in the supply of pea protein.
Generally less meat is eaten by Japanese compared to Americans on the average and the cuisine of Japanese has items such as tofu but vegan and vegetarian diets are uncommon.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
