JUST IN: Major report unveils China’s protein playbook—a roadmap for other nations
Moments ago, Systemiq, the systems change company, published an important new report titled China’s Food Future. Key findings were shared during a live webinar featuring renowned Columbia University historian Adam Tooze and agricultural policy expert Prof. Shenggen Fan of China Agricultural University.
The report does a stellar job of recapping China’s strategic investments into future-food biomanufacturing, which GFI APAC experts have also written extensively about, including in both the Los Angeles Times and Straits Times last month.
But Systemiq’s analysis is different because it also takes things one step further by modelling exactly how China’s innovation-to-mass-adoption playbook could fundamentally reimagine global meat production over the coming decades.
Year Zero: Start the Clock
Following months of deep research, Systemiq’s analysts determined that China has already entered what it calls “Year 0” in the country’s protein transformation journey, meaning that the sector is now a central strategic priority for national policymakers. This timestamp matters because it effectively starts the clock until the moment when the rest of the world can expect to see system-wide shifts, based on similar technological precedents.
The authors took a particularly close look at China’s embrace of solar energy and EV batteries, and charted how those sectors were transformed in the decades after their respective “Year 0” moments. In each case, China utilised a playbook of “mutually reinforcing success factors,” including a coordinated national vision, financial support, induced demand, and enabling policy and regulatory support.
Many of those same mechanisms are now evident within the ‘new protein’ sector, Systemiq says, as shown by the emergence of domestic innovation clusters focused on fermentation-derived ingredients and other alternative proteins. “State-aligned capital is flowing into infrastructure, and policy and regulations are signalling coordinated action, notably the approval of commercialised genetically engineered maize and soya varieties,” the authors write.
However, one must also weigh those efforts against China’s current agricultural position to assess future macroimpacts. Starting in the early aughts, China began increasing imports of agricultural products in response to surging domestic demand. That means even getting back to baseline self-sufficiency will be a monumental lift.
Still, despite these early hurdles, the ripple impacts of China’s strategic investments may be evident sooner than you think. In both EVs and solar, the country went from zero to 70 percent of global production within 15 years.
“Since 2015, global solar capacity has expanded more than 30-fold, with solar now supplying 7% of global electricity, and electric vehicle sales having increased 50-fold, reaching 20% of new vehicle sales globally in 2024,” Systemiq writes. “China sits at the centre of both transitions. By 2025, it accounted for approximately 80% of global solar manufacturing capacity and 70% of global EV production. Its role as the world’s largest manufacturer of these technologies extends deep into the value chain, where it is responsible for 80-95% of solar component manufacturing and 80-99% of battery component production.”
Food systems differ from energy and transport systems, Systemiq acknowledges, but “what links these transitions is not the precise end goal, but the playbook used to pursue it.”
2030: The Optimisation Phase
By the end of this decade, Systemiq’s analysts project China’s investments in biotechnology and alternative proteins will reduce domestic imports of soybeans, which are primarily used for farmed-animal feed, by roughly a quarter—equivalent to nearly all of its current U.S. imports.
This is partly because fermentation-derived ingredients are projected to reach price parity with conventional animal equivalents by 2028, which will both lower a barrier to entry for potential alternative protein consumers and reduce reliance on soybeans as a conventional animal-feed component.
However, the authors caution that in 2030, most alternative protein ingredients will remain more expensive than animal-based equivalents, meaning that consumer uptake will be relatively limited. During this transitional period, China’s leadership is expected to continue prioritising R&D investments aimed at driving down costs, while proactively encouraging the domestic foodservice sector to “experiment” with integrating plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins into their recipes.
2040: Structural Change Begins
By 2040, Systemiq projects that China will completely flip its current positioning as the world’s largest importer of animal proteins to become a net protein exporter.
This inversion will have seismic effects in Australia, Brazil, the U.S., and other major trading partners that currently sell meat to Chinese consumers. Traditional producer countries would also be wise to keep pace by making their own national investments in future-food biomanufacturing before they inadvertently cede the entire alternative protein category to China, as they already have for solar and EVs.
Additionally, by 2040, Systemiq estimates that alternative proteins will account for a meaningful share of the meat and seafood market in China—approximately 14 percent for beef and 16 percent for seafood—as both plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins increasingly achieve price parity with their animal counterparts.
2050: New Equilibrium
By 2050, China’s food system—and thus the global food supply at large—will look radically different than it does today.
After decades of strategic R&D investments, Systemiq’s analysts believe cultivating meat directly from cells will become commercially viable, and alternative proteins will account for 35 – 55 percent of China’s total protein consumption, including 25 – 35 percent from cell cultivation. Plant-based and fermentation-derived ingredients will account for double-digit percentages on top of that, resulting in a colossal drop in conventional meat production and consumption.
Implications for Alt Protein Producers
In its report conclusion, Systemiq’s authors pose three critical questions for alternative protein stakeholders around the world:
- Are you prepared for Chinese biomanufacturing to drive down the cost of production equipment? “If China follows the solar and EV model, bioreactors and fermentation systems could soon become significantly cheaper. This is a win for the industry overall but may erode the advantage of early movers who built at higher costs.”
- Are you prepared for Chinese alternative protein products to enter export markets? “This means direct competition with established producers.”
- Are your regulatory frameworks keeping pace with the speed of innovation? “Novel food approvals and labelling requirements will shape the pace of consumer adoption.”
To my eye, these three questions are each different sides of the central question that all countries and companies should ask themselves today: China has a plan to rapidly scale alternative proteins—do you?
Onwards,
Ryan Huling
Senior Writer | GFI APAC
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