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May 8 (NBD) -- "Does your company produce artificial meat?"

"I heard your company has made artificial meat?"

"Do you know..."

The phones in the investor relations offices of Chinese listed food and medical companies kept ringing recently, and the keyword from the other end of the line has always been "artificial meat", which refers to imitation meat either made from plant or grown in a laboratory from cultured cells.

Chinese investors are looking for opportunities in the domestic market to cash in on the growing popularity of meat alternatives, as the plant-based meat maker Beyond Meat went public in the U.S., becoming the first publicly listed veggie meat company.

The share price of Beyond Meat surged 163 percent in the company's first day of trading.

Guosheng Securities in a report pointed out that the market size of imitation meat is expected to reach 14 billion U.S. dollars, assuming such meat alternative can replace 1 percent of global meat consumption.

Through the A-share market, National Business Daily noticed that stocks related to the "artificial meat" concept rallied in recent trading days. However, such shares were bought mainly with idle funds, and few institutional investor was seen behind the trading.

Industry insiders held that the "artificial meat" market overseas will see rapid growth due to increasing health problems of obesity and hypertension, whereas the market size in China will stay comparatively stabilized since snack food of vegan meat currently dominates the sector in the country.

But China's "artificial meat" market will gradually expand with varying imitation meat products, as the number of vegetarian or semi-vegetarian consumers increases.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn