Nat will talk about the critical moments in how his business has had to adapt and how restaurants need to change to the 'new normal'. Franklin will bring us the latest information about his plant-based meat business in China and how he established this innovative food company. Homeslice & Z-Rou have teamed up and launched a Z-Rou plant-based meat pizza in March.

Please join us on 19 Jun to listen to these fantastic success stories and to exchange idea with your fellow peers and of course, enjoy the pizza!

Agenda:

6.30 pm -7 pm: Registration

7 pm - 7:05 pm: Welcome and Introduction

7:05 pm - 8 pm: Panel Discussion and Q&A

8 pm: Wrap-up and Closing Remarks，Networking

8.30 pm：Event Ends

Notes:

Homeslice & Z-Rou vegan pizza and drinks will be served at the night.

Participants can send their questions in advance using the registration form.

In case of cancellation, please kindly note you must email the BritCham Shanghai Event staff Hilary.Wu@britishchambershanghai.cn before 6:30 pm, 18 Jun. Due to the service charges of Event Bank and online payment platforms, we can only partially refund up to 90% of your ticket price and payment will be processed within 14 days after the event via your original payment method. However, it is non-refundable for cancellation request made beyond the above mentioned timeframe.

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Related Readings:

Nat Alexander and Homeslice: One of the Restaurants Impacted By COVID-19.   

(Excerpted from Nat's interview with TimeOutShanghai during April 2020）

'TimeOutShanghai: How is the COVIC-19 outbreak affecting your business? 

Alexander: We had closed two of our stores for Chinese New Year, but ended up having to close all of them for a further ten days, reopening for delivery only last week. We didn't have enough staff to open all of them. Several of our staff were unable to leave their homes, so we only had about one-third able to work. Even when the rest of the staff can come back to Shanghai, they can't work for 14 days. We are unable to offer in-store business, except to customers coming to collect orders, so that has a big effect. Commissions on delivery always eat into profits, but only doing delivery will mean a bigger hit. has closed two of their store for Chinese New Year, but ended up having to close all of them for a further ten days, reopening for delivery only last week. They didn't have enough staff to open all of them. Several of their staff were unable to leave their homes, so they only had about one-third able to work. Even when the rest of the staff can come back to Shanghai, they can't work for 14 days. Also, the restaurant was unable to offer in-store business, except to customers coming to collect orders, so that had a big effect. Commissions on delivery always eat into profits, but only doing delivery would mean a bigger hit.'

Click here to view the original article​ 

As Nat said, the consumers are returning to restaurants slowly, and the businesses are resuming. 

Homeslice announced their Summer pizzas at the end of May in a very delightful tone: 'After an unpredictable Spring, Shanghai has burst into life again in the run-up to summer; schools are reopening, restrictions are lifting & bars and restaurants are getting busy once again, so what better time to announce our new seasonal specials, than the first official day of Summer!'

Homeslice has also been working with Stepping Stones for a few years, ( i.e. 10% of the sales of each guest chef pizza goes to this NGO whose mission is to improve the education and general welfare of disadvantaged children).

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Franklin Yao and Z-Rou: Plant-Based Meat: Buzzword, Hot investment or Tasty Food? 

'Plant-based meat' has been a buzzword that's not only dominating headlines but also a newfound food in more restaurants, it is also a hot investment for investors.  Ever since the US plant-based meat company Beyond Meat was listed on Nasdaq in May 2019, the capital markets' response to the meat alternative was nothing short of a frenzy. The market for plant-based foods are booming, the business accelerates rapidly, due to a few environment, health and safety reasons.  

As a fact, interest is growing - and companies within and outwith China are responding.  In April, fast-food giant KFC test-launched its vegetable chicken nuggets, which are made by US agri-food behemoth Cargill and Starbucks added new plant-based options to its menu at about 4000 Chinese outlets. The dishes included a Beyond Beef Pesto Pasta and an Omnipork Vietnamese Style Noodle Salad.  There are an increasing number of domestic start-ups and traditional veggie food companies joined the plant-based meat competition, the following picture is a collection of these products have been launched in China market in the past 12 months: 

China Market: Not all about the adoption of Western ways.

When the buzzwords dominate the news these days, the criticism from Chinese consumers is increasing. From many people's perspective, plant-based meat as 'artificial meat' is just another form of soy products. Also, for centuries, religious people living in China have chosen vegan and vegetarian diets for centuries. There are records of monks eating tofu-based meats as early as in the Tang Dynasty. 

Franklin Yao, recently said to That's Beijing  'When you look at fake meat in the Buddhist sense, you are not trying to be the same as the meats you grew up with. But what Beyond and Impossible have done is taken an iconic American product – the hamburger – and allowed you to eat it vegetarian in as close of sense as possible. And this is the same thing we're doing with ground pork. What we want you to do is be able to enjoy the dishes that your mother or grandmother made, or the spaghetti Bolognese that you'd go out to eat in a restaurant, in a better way. And I think that's really the difference between where we were before and where we are now." At the event, Franklin Yao will discuss his opinions of selling plant-based meat products to local foodies and ways to adopt Chinese food culture.