Mainland China

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China’s Rising Tide on Plant-based Innovation

When a trend gains momentum in China, it is not a wave but a tsunami. The change in behavior is astonishingly rapid and widespread. This past week, I moderated a panel on China’s Future of Protein at the 2050 China Food Tech Summit. In front of this audience of influencers and innovators, my adrenaline was fueled, yes, by the rapt attention of the room, but much more so by the sense that this conversation was just a small ripple in a much larger, thrilling shift in the current. Thierry Garnier, Chairman & CEO Carrefour China, put it quite simply at the summit: “This is how I explain China to my French colleagues. When marathon suddenly became a trend in China, I could walk into any room and find that 70 percent of the people have done three marathons in the past six months. Six months ago, zero percent of them were runners.”