Stating that China is a huge nation with a very diverse population is kicking in an open door. However, a major shift is taking place in the demography of China that is exercising significant influence on a number of markets, including food and beverage. I like to refer to it as the shift from ‘big collectivism’ to ‘specialised collectivism’. In fact, Chinese collectivism has always been smaller than in, e.g., Japan. Where Japanese copy each other’s behaviour on a massive scale, not rarely on the national level, Chinese focus on smaller groups, like: family members, people from the same neighbourhood, colleagues in the same department of their work unit, etc. Still, due to the huge Chinese population, even a small group is still enormous and therefore interesting to anyone who is (re)designing foods for the Chinese market. This post is taking a closer look at some of the more important demographic segments.

Would it be worth your effort to develop food for golfers? (read the post and find out more at the end)

Elderly

I have reported about food for the elderly in an earlier post. Here, I will provide more background information. Population is the foundation and main body of economic growth and social development, and age structure is a core determinant of population quality and population structure. It is of great significance to study the age structure of the population, especially the aging problem. China’s population aged 60 and over is about 260 million, accounting for 18.7% of the total population. Due of the importance of this consumer group, not only because of its size but also because the elderly are still held in high regard in China, the Chinese government has issued a large body of legislation for ensuring that the elderly are taken care of.

Aging society

China has entered an aging society in 2000. The average age of the population has caught up with the United States and Japan. Due to the decline in fertility rate and the increase in life expectancy, aging is an important problem faced by all countries in the world, but due to the long-term implementation of family planning policy, this problem is more urgent in China. According to the internationally accepted classification standards, when the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 and over in a country (region) exceeds 7% of the total population, or the proportion of the elderly population aged 60 and over exceeds 10% of the total population, that country (region) is regarded as having an aging society. According to the statistics of the United Nations Population Program, in 2000, the proportion of China’s population aged 60 and over exceeded 10% for the first time to reach 10.03%, and in 2002, the proportion of China’s population aged 65 and over exceeded 7% for the first time to reach 7.08%, marking that China has officially entered an aging society in 2000. In 2019, China’s population aged 65 and over reached 176 million, nearly double the 88 million in 2000, accounting for 12.6% of the total population. In 2019, the average age of China’s population reached 37.6 years old, compared with 38.9 years old, 46.7 years old, 41.7 years old and 30.0 years old in the United States, Japan, Europe and India in the same period. It is estimated that in 2030/2050, China’s population aged 60 and above will account for 24.8% – 34.6%, 65 years and above will account for 16.9% – 26.1%, and the average age of the population will reach 41.2 – 45.6 years.

Life expectancy is rising, birth rates are low, and the Chinese population is aging at an unprecedented rate. With the improvement of living standards and medical conditions, the life expectancy of the Chinese population has increased significantly, from 44 years in 1960 to 77 years in 2019, and the life expectancy of the population in some developed coastal areas is higher. The life expectancy of Shanghai’s population in 2019 was as high as 83.66 years. The Chinese birth rate in 2019 was only 10.48 per thousand, and the number of newborns was only 14.65 million, down 580,000 from 2018 and a new low in 70 years.

The policy of encouraging childbirth after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, generated the first baby boom in New China. The birth rate remained above 37% for five consecutive years. The improvement of the economy after the end of the natural disasters in 1959 – 1961 led to compensatory births, triggering the second baby boom, with more than 250 million births within 10 years, accounting for 17.6% of the total number of Chinese population at present. These two waves of baby boomers will gradually enter old age between 2010 and 2030. The rate of aging in China from 2010 to 2030 is expected to be similar to that of the most rapidly aging period in Japanese society (1990-2010). The insufficient number of newborns will accelerate the aging rate of the Chinese population.

If this rate develops, the average age of the Chinese population will reach 45.6 years old in 2050, the proportion of the population aged 14 and under will only be 14.15%, and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over will reach 26.07%, when there will be one elderly person aged 65 and above in every four Chinese.

China’s “silver economy” has broad prospects

The elderly care industry is a comprehensive industrial cluster to meet the health and happiness requirements of the elderly population. On the whole, the elderly care industry covers food, housing, care, medical treatment, finance, culture, entertainment, science and technology and other aspects, and is an industrial system that meets the multi-level needs of the elderly, from the basic living needs (housing, food, medicine, clothing) to the psychological and spiritual needs provided by (fun in life). The three pillars of China’s pension system are basic pension insurance, annuity and personal pension, of which the first pillar accounts for 85%, much higher than the 11% in the United States. According to international experience, the pension replacement rate is greater than 70% to maintain the standard of living before retirement, if it is less than 50%, the living standard will drop significantly compared with before retirement.

Chinese traditional culture is deeply influenced by Confucianism. Home care is more in line with secular concepts than welfare facilities for the elderly, so home care and community care will continue to be the mainstream of China’s pension model. Facility care will be there as well, but as an auxiliary model. From 2010 to 2018, the number of people aged 65 and over in China increased by 47.64 million, while the number of elderly care institutions increased by only 128,000 and the number of elderly care beds increased by only 4.122 million, with an average of 1,393 elderly people having an elderly care institution, the supply is far less than the market demand, and home care is more in line with China’s traditional culture.

Government support

The central authorities heavily support keeping this large segment of the population healthy. Through its Office of the National Working Committee on Aging, the government has issued a plan to organize the elderly nutrition improvement action in the country from 2022 to 2025.

The notice proposes four actions, including publicizing the nutrition and health knowledge of the elderly, strengthening nutrition intervention for the elderly, improving the ability of elderly nutrition and health services, and carrying out public welfare activities for elderly nutrition and health. Apart from the general Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Citizens, that saw an updated version this year (from the previous 2016 version), the government also issued a separate Dietary Guidelines for the Elderly and one for the very old (<80 years).

The government also organizes several campaigns for promoting healthy living and eating, like: the National Elderly Health Promotion Week, or Respect for the Elderly Month. The phrasing of the latter refers to an important trait of the Chinese policy towards promoting the health of the elderly: the duty of the young, in particular children, to see to it that their parents lead a healthy and happy life. The government rolls out the playing field, but the policies are executed by the children, where necessary assisted by government officials of various administrative levels.

The lowest administrative levels have a special role in the implementation of the national policies. Senior citizens move less easily than younger generations, so it is imperative that their care is in the hands of grass root level administrations, like communities (shequ 社区) or neighborhood commissions (jiedao 街道). These administrations include Elderly Affairs Offices (laonianban 老年办) to see that the elderly under their jurisdiction are take care of well, including their nutritional needs.

Children and local government officials go about carefully, when trying to improve the eating and drinking habits of the elderly in their care. A report published by the site Herbridge gives some interesting examples from interviews with various consumers.

• The elderly may have fixed habits that are not easy to change. E.g., many stick to old habits and buy what they have bought for decades, without giving a thought to whether their bodies are still capable of digesting high sugar high fat foods.
• That situation is turned around by another group of elderly. A woman who buys the groceries for her mother complains that her mother now prefers fruits and vegetables, but that she worries that this will lead to malnutrition, while her mother is already very thin. Meat and fish are still regarded as the most nutritious foods by many Chinese. While the young now like to have slim bodies (see further on in this report), most middled aged Chinese still regard a slightly protruding tummy as a sign of good health.
• Then there are also people with some basic knowledge about food ingredients who try apply that insight to adjust their parents’ diet. One interviewee has bought a jar of xylitol powder to substitute the sugar jar in the family kitchen. She now sweetens foods and drinks for her mother with xylitol wherever possible.
• A final example of inventive adjustment of a parent’s nutrition is a man whose father stopped liking oatmeal porridge made with milk, although he bought an expensive type of ‘smooth milk’ for his father. He then replaced the milk with unsweetened yoghurt which his father liked very much. The report does not mention if this was a case of lactose intolerance. It is still a great example of how deep present day Chinese are involved with nutrition.

The Young (?)

The ‘young’ is insufficient for denoting an age group in present day China. China has developed so rapidly during the past decades, that Chinese marketers like to divide the country’s population in cohorts named after a decade – such as the post-80, the post-90 and the post-00. Each group is characterized by a number of distinctive habits and world outlook. The post-80s were born after the end of the Cultural Revolution and have been shaped by the early years of the economic reforms that changed the lives of Chinese so profoundly. They are approaching 40 now and most of them are married and have children. They are much more affluent than their parents but are not big spenders on food, as there are so many other expenditures to worry about. A considerable part of those expenditures are for their children, the post-00s, including candy and snacks.

Single dogs

This is another category that has been introduced in an earlier post. The post-90s are young, well-educated, concentrating on their careers in corporations or their own start-up enterprises. With a few exceptions, they are all only children and have been spoiled by their parents and grandparents, as a result of which they have developed a taste for good food. Moreover, a considerable part of them are single and living by themselves. They may marry once, but they give priority to their careers. Many pursue that career outside their hometown, so also away from their school and neighbourhood friends. A modern term for these people is Single Dogs (danshengou 单身狗). Experts estimate the current number of people in the post-90 cohort at 188 million, approximately 14.1% of the Chinese population. 92 million of them were living a single life in 2021. In spite of their young age, many of the post-90s are complaining about ailments resulting from their demanding lifestyle. A 28-year old female Internet programmer is quoted as saying: “I used to buy supplements for my parents, now half of the supplements I buy are for my own consumption.”

So, what and how do the post-90s eat, besides taking supplements? Based on my own observations, they easily spend RMB 100 per person per day on food. They typically live in two-bedroom rental apartments. They have the equipment to cook but many lack the skills. They are the generation of ‘little emperors’, spoiled by their parents, who provided three meals a day, so their child could concentrate on their education. As long as they came home with top grades, the sky was the limit in regards to what their parents would do for them.

The post-90s also lack time. They are enjoying the freedom of their own apartment but are still leaving home early and returning late. They do eat fast food occasionally but they have learned to appreciate good food and they are also still Chinese, so their palates are longing for the right textures and flavours. They are conscious about good nutrition as introduced in the previous report.

The Chinese food industry is allocating considerable R&D funding to serve this cohort, which has resulted in an impressive range of ready-to-eat or semi-finished products. This is a brand-new food category in China, so there is no ready-to-use categorization of products. To cash in on this trend, food producers and retailers have started making and selling single-portion packed versions of a large spectrum of foods and drinks.

Punk diet

One of the ‘bad’ habits many of them share is staying up late, or even regularly skipping sleep altogether. A survey has shown that 44% of the 19 – 25 years cohort stay up until after midnight. In order to stay awake, they need aoyeshui (熬夜水) night owl beverages (literary: staying up all night water)’. Most of these are based on the milk tea drinks that have become so popular among young Chinese. Some also contain traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, which links these drinks to the nationalist trend (guochao 国潮).

This does not mean that the post-90s neglect their health. On the contrary, a healthy body is as important to them as I indicated in the first report. They smoke considerably less than their parents, for example. However, they want to combine healthy living with happy go living lifestyle. A term that has become fashionable among the same post-90 consumer segment is pengke yangsheng (朋克养生), or the ‘punk diet’: nutritious food presented as junk food. The choice of this term indicates that these consumers give themselves a kind of subcultural status. A concrete product type will help clarify this term and a good example food in this context is the energy bar. Energy bars are the ideal ‘punk diet’ food. They can be consumed with one hand, while the other remains functional (e.g., for moving a computer mouse). They provide energy, but are also a source of fibre and nutrients, so comforting to both your stomach and your consciousness. The Chinese name for this product, yingyangbang (营养棒), literally means: ‘nutrition stick’. You can find some examples on the Trends page of this blog. Nuts, a natural source of nutrients, form a common ingredient, but you can add whatever you want, or, better, is allowed by the local regulations. Another occasion for consuming energy bars in China is what I would like to translate as ‘après fitness’ (jianshenhou 健身后) as a parallel to après ski. The Chinese are only just starting to ski, but fitness centres are extremely popular in this age group. One recent study states that there are more than 43 million patrons of fitness centres in Chinese cities. After a tough spell on a treadmill, you need something that gives you energy without making you regain the weight that you just lost. The same study mentions energy bars as the favourite après fitness snack.

Bread as breakfast or snack

As introduced above, a long breakfast does not suit the lifestyle of the Chinese post-90s. Western style baked bread, that is easier to keep that the traditional steamed bread is more and more accepted as the ideal breakfast item. Moreover, it also makes an easy to consume between meals snack. You can take it to office and eat it again with one hand. To cater to post-90s demand for convenience, several Chinese bread suppliers have designed products consisting of two slices of bread with a filling in between. You just buy it, tear open the pack and eat it.

Liquid meals

When the pace of life is seen as becoming so hectic that you even lack time to chew, but you still want a nourishing meal, post-90s Chinese may look for something liquid. You can gulp it down, while still believing that you have ingested a little more than just calories. A traditional product ticking these boxes is congee. Instant congee has been on the market in China for several years. However, more nutritious products have appeared recently.

Children

This section concentrates on foods designed for the post-00 group, though not including babies or infants. One Chinese supplier defines the age group for its ‘children snacks’ (ertong lingshi 儿童零食) as 3 to 12 years. However delimited, this is still a huge consumer segment. The number was estimated at 159 million in 2020.

A salient feature of this segment is that these consumers usually do not buy the products themselves, but their parents, grandparents or other family members. However, they do regularly influence the selection of snack food purchased for them. Advertising therefore needs to appeal to both children and adult relatives. E.g., children like brightly colored packaging and advertisements related to their favourite cartoon figures. The adults will first look at the ingredients to see how ‘healthy’ the product is. Moreover, parents frequently exchange ideas about this on social media like Xiaohongshu or Weibo.

More light eating

Talking about health, Chinese parents are basically applying the same criteria to snack food for their children as they use for the foods they buy for themselves. In that respect, the contents of the first report apply to this category as well. Low fat, low sugar and low salt are mentioned frequently by people who discuss candy and other snacks for children.

A number of ingredients are perceived as especially important for the physical and mental health of children. We can take the popular category of soft candies (yingyang ruantang 营养软糖) as an example. Soft candies are used most often in professional literature on fortified children snack food.

White gold

Dairy, often referred to in China as the white gold, continues to have a high healthy profile among Chinese consumers and this is even stronger in the context of children. Foods made from milk, containing milk or adding an ingredient derived from milk are automatically regarded as more healthy. However, making a child drink a glass of milk is not easy and dairy based snacks offer a welcome alternative. One that became popular in 2023 is the cheese popsicle.

Women

As any society, the different likings of food between men and women have been a topic of discussion for ages. Also, some foods have been prepared specially for women for centuries. Bird’s nests are a good example. They are believed to be good for one’s complexion.

However, more recently foods have been launched in China that are positioned as typically for female consumers. Female consumers have become so valuable, that Chinese marketers are starting to talk about ‘her economy’ (ta jingji 她经济) as a separate market segment.

In the realm of snacks, fruit jellies are a product almost entirely consumed by women in China. Recently, some manufacturers have developed more exciting and healthy versions. There are now jellies with fruit chunks to increase the fruit contents up to 25%, or jellies flavoured with flowers or traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) herbs. Just to mention a few the most frequently used: Red dates or goji berries nourish qi and blood, moisturize and the complexion. Mung beans and white fungus detoxify the intestines and have an anti-aging effect. Black sesame seeds keep your hair black. This fits in with the general health trends introduced in the first report.

Female ingredients

Some ingredients are typically used in foods for women. An example of such an ingredient is peach gum. Peach gum is regarded as a beauty tonic in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It comes in the form of amber-hued crystals and is the resin of the Chinese peach tree (prunus persica). It is known for its beneficial properties on improving various skin conditions. Commonly prepared into soup-like desserts, often adding goji or dates. It is generally tasteless with a gelatine bouncy texture similar to bird’s nest. Peach gum is popular among Chinese women as it is rich in collagen.

Cosmetic food

The latest development in this trend is ‘cosmetic food’. So far, most of these are beverages fortified with collagen, like collagen yoghurt by Sanyuan.

More segments

When you put yourself to it, it will be possible to discern a few more special consumer segments. An obvious one is the ethnic segmentation. I intend to add a section about that to this post in the near future. However, Chinese marketers seem to develop a liking to this. The segments highlighted in this post are those worth considering when designing new or adapting existing foods for the Chinese market.

However, it is possible to pick out a more specific demographic group that you deem large and/or affluent enough an develop a product specially for that group. Eurasia Consult can assist you with this. We understand Chinese culture and how it affects food and drinks and we have a large database of foods available on the Chinese market.

*As for the question about Chinese golfers: unofficial reports mention more than 4 mln Chinese who play golf occasionally and about 1 mln regulars. The 2022 Chinese golf market (including everything, from golf club membership to equipment) was worth RMB 493 mln; up 4.8%.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a major book introducing the cultural drivers behind China’s economic success