On this Valentine Day, it is appropriate to post something about what probably is one of the most romantic fruits: the strawberry. It’s hard to imagine why the apple is the “forbidden fruit” of lore, when the voluptuous and fragile strawberry is so much more tempting. Strawberries are temptingly red and sweet. The are an all time favourite flavour for ice cream, candy, cake, pie and other sweet treats.
3,449,000 mt of strawberries in 2020; up 5.3%. Moreover, higher production of fresh strawberries will back further development of the strawberry processing sector in the country. It is estimated that China’s frozen strawberry production will increase by 15% year-on-year to 150,000 mt. Beijing’s Changping region is a major strawberry producing region in China.
The 7th International Strawberry Symposium was held in Beijing in 2012. The following video gives an impression.
Strawberries are regarded as a delicacy. Hence, each strawberry is treated with extreme care in China. The following picture shows how a grower wraps each single strawberry separately.
As regards exports, China’s fresh strawberry exports are insignificant due to high shipping costs. The following table shows the Chinese exports of frozen strawberries during the past few years
Year
Exports (mt)
2020 (1-10)
5594.6
2019
3678.2
2018
2584.4
2017
2283.0
2016
1575.4
These figures show a steady growth.
For imports, only less recent figures are available.
Year
imports (mt)
2014
7,131
2013
8,076
2012
7,429
2011
5,511
2010
8,276
There seems to be no clear proportion between imports and exports.
The following video is less slick than the one shown above, but gives a direct insight in a Chinese diced strawberry plant.
Strawberry as ingredient
Strawberries are rarely used by the food and beverage industry as whole fruits. They are usually processed into powder, jam, pulp, etc. While such products are mainly supplied to industrial clients, Youlian Food (Longhai, Fujian) also markets its freeze dried strawberry powder in 50 gr packages to consumers that like to bake strawberry flavoured cakes.
The Food Ingredients China (FIC) trade fair, March 23 – 25, 2016, included 6 exhibitors with strawberry-derived ingredients.
Ingredient
number
Juice
3
Powder
2
Frozen
1
I have shown an example of a strawberry flavoured milk beverage in an earlier post. In this post, I will list a few other examples of strawberry flavoured foods and drinks. Also see the vinegar strawberries in my post on vinegar-based foods and beverages.
The interesting aspect of this recipe is that wax gourd (donggua) is used to create a fruity mouth feel, which is apparently not accomplished by the strawberry pulp by itself.
This is a good example of a Chinese formulated dairy drink in which milk is but one of the many ingredients. The brand name Zhen Guoli translates as ‘Real Strawberry Cubes’. That may be true, but it is a far cry from real milk.
The following two pictures show a few strawberry flavoured foods on the Chinese market in 2022. The first is a mix of products and the second shows exclusively strawberry milk. Real strawberries may not be used in all these products, obviously.
Funny combinations
Chinese can come up with funny combinations of flavours. Baozang launched a Cheese Strawberry drinking yoghurt late 2019. An influencer praises the combination of the ‘fermenting cheese flavour and the sweetness of the strawberries’. Why not?
With a considerable native Muslim population, in particular in the West China region, Halal food has always been part of Chinese cuisine. Halal restaurants can be found in cities all over China. Look at this entertaining video on hand pulled noodles.
Virtually all Chinese university campuses include a separate Halal dining rooms for domestic and international Muslim students.
Other dishes from China’s Western region that are now available nationwide include; cooked mutton (shouzhua yangrou), mutton buns (yangrou paomo) and shaslik (yangrouchuan).
Many Chinese manufacturers of food ingredients are actively advertising their products as Halal certified, as is shown by this photo taken during the influential Food Ingredients China trade fair.
Halal food manufacturers in Northwest China want to become household names around the world. Eager for the economic rewards that breaking into the global market of 1.6 billion Muslims will bring, these firms want to be trusted by Muslim consumers around the world, especially in the holy city of Mecca. According to Wang Guoliang, Deputy Secretary General of China Islamic Association, the global halal sector is expected to reach US$ 6.4 trillion in 2018.
China should have the ability to become a major halal player. While the country is a net food importer, it’s competitive in niche food markets. In the late 2000s, China was the fastest-growing exporter of kosher products in the world. With more than 500 kosher-certified factories around China, fully half of China’s food exports to the United States, the world’s largest kosher market, are kosher. It is a remarkable accomplishment given that China has no indigenous Jewish communities. But China has a flourishing domestic halal industry of its own, valued at USD 20 billion, to serve its own Muslims, of whom there are about 23 mln.
National Standard
Chinese Muslims have become more vocative about lack of respect for Halal regulations. In Xi’an (Shaanxi), Muslim residents took to the streets in 2015 to protest the sale of alcohol in Halal restaurants. In Xining (Qinghai) a riot erupted in the same year after residents discovered pork products inside a halal bakery’s delivery van. During the Party Congress of March 2016, delegates from Muslim regions called for a National Standard (Guobiao) for Halal food.
Ningxia
Zhang Hongyi is an ambitious man. As the general manager of the Jingyitai Halal Food Company, located in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Zhang has plans to build a halal food factory in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). If his plans are a success, Jingyitai would become the first Chinese halal food manufacturer to make a direct investment in an Arab country. According to Zhang Hongyi, “Mecca is the center of the Muslim world, if we can tap into the market in Mecca, we would become trusted by Muslims all across the world, making it easier to enter other Muslim markets.”
China has a Muslim population of 23 mln, a tiny fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims living around the world. With the support of the local authorities, halal food manufacturers in Ningxia have started to eye the world’s growing market for halal food and are eager to expand their businesses overseas to reach this potentially huge market.
Another Ningxia-based company, Bofeng Beef Group, has established a subsidiary, Bogong Halal Food Co. Ltd., with a capacity to process 100,000 cows p.a. into halal beef products, in 2015.
An example of a non-Muslim Han Entrepreneur moving into Halal beverages is Sun He, the manager of Qiye Qing (Wuzhong, Ningxia), a company that turns Ningxia’s iconic gouji berries, known in traditional Chinese medicine for their health benefits, into a cloudy orange-colored bottled beverage. The drink is certified halal under Chinese certification, meaning it contains zero percent alcohol — a surprisingly difficult technological achievement for factory-processed juices, which usually contain alcohol in trace amounts. The manager, Mr. He Jun, believes this move is a great opportunity to cash in on the Middle Eastern and Central Asian markets. The picture shows an ad of this beverage. The ingredients as listed on the label are:
However, how to gain acceptance from Muslim nations for halal food made in China is a major problem. Observers have said that China’s halal food manufacturers, who are mostly small- or medium-sized enterprises, face many difficulties in overcoming ideological and economic barriers to this kind of international trade.
Gansu
Gansu province is also the home of a considerable Muslim population. A Chinese-Malaysian halal food laboratory has been officially set up in that region in 2015. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has launched a halal food programme with Malaysia, under which Gansu Province will lead its implementation, giving full play to the province’s strength in Muslim culture, science and technology, location, trade, industry and other aspects. Gansu will work closely with the Malaysian side in halal food processing and biological material research and certification in order to build an international-level halal food testing laboratory. With the laboratory construction seen as the turning point, Gansu will lead the establishment of China’s halal food industry technology innovation alliance, to build a platform for technical co-operation between China and Muslim countries.
It is peculiar to note that these innovative programs in the field of Halal food in China are concentrated in Ningxia and Gansu and not so much in Xinjiang, which has China’s largest Muslim community.
Late 2018, the Gansu authorities announced that the Gansu Provincial Administration for Market Regulation stated on its official website it will abolish four local regulations on halal foods and related producers. The four regulations include guidelines of general principles of halal food certification, halal dinning enterprises, halal dairy producers and halal wheat food producers. “The guidelines were published in March 2013 according to the uniform standards set by the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Yunnan and Ningxia Hui autonomous region,” said Wang Xueren, director of the Policy and Regulations Department of the Gansu Ethnic Affairs Commission. “Last year, Ningxia abolished the regulations.” The guidelines were published in 2013, which aimed to set nationwide uniform standards for halal foods, according to Xinhua’s report in 2013. However, it doesn’t seem to work well. “After five years’ enforcement, we didn’t find its great significance to the market,” Wang said. “Furthermore, the current market has changed greatly over the past years, which created disparities from the policies.” For instance, halal foods mainly refer to meat-sourced edibles, but the halal foods regulated in the guidelines published in 2013 also include soy sauce and vinegar, he said.
This measure follows the trend within the central government that Halal certification is a matter of (local) religious organisations and not a function of the secular administration.
Influence in the capital
Beijing is known for its wide range of local snacks. Many have been introduced by migrants from other regions settling down in the capital. One group became a major if unexpected influence on what Beijingers ate: the Muslim community, mainly Uygurs from Xinjiang who had traveled to the capital along the Silk Road with other merchants of West Asian origin. Muslims have a long history in Beijing. Uygur chefs brought their food with them because they couldn’t eat at non-Muslim restaurants. Soon, they established their own eateries – the famous mutton hotpot restaurants like Donglaishun. Their snack shops offered a variety of fried and baked pastries. Many adopted local ingredients and flavors, and again, over time, they became part of the city’s epicurean traditions.
No national household names
Beijing hopes to create national champions out of the hundreds of Chinese halal food companies already in operation. The industry is highly decentralized, with local companies, mostly without nationally recognized brands, serving pockets of Muslims thinly dispersed across the vast country. China lacks national halal standards – most certification occurs on the local or provincial level – and obtaining internationally recognised halal certification has posed a challenge. Malaysian halal certification is the gold standard, but globally, halal certification is still a new phenomenon. Many Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have poorly developed industrial sectors, and many halal consumers continue to rely on locally made products that they recognise and trust.
For Chinese halal food manufacturers looking to expand their businesses, going abroad has become a necessity. According to Li Ziran, the director of the Institute of the Halal Industry at Ningxia University, most halal food companies in China supply only the local market. Their scale is limited.
According to statistics issued by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, 97.3% of the 2,400 cities and counties in China surveyed have halal food industries, but the structure of the industry is atomized, lacking nationwide household names and leading companies.
The halal food market in Ningxia is typical of this trend. Statistics issued by Ningxia’s Bureau of Commerce show that there are 192 halal food manufacturers in Yinchuan, most of which have fewer than 100 employees. The majority of halal food manufacturers in Ningxia need to modernize their production facilities to be able to compete with Muslim food companies in other parts of the world, but cannot afford to do so.
Zhang Hongyi realised that this was necessary and in 2009 he transformed his company from a traditional pastry maker into a comprehensive halal food company that provides staple foods as well as frozen products. The introduction of new technologies was key to this transformation, and since 2010 Zhang has cooperated with the China Agricultural University (Beijing) on research into methods to prolong the shelf life of frozen noodles, dumplings and rice while maintaining their flavour.
Distrust and doubt
Analysts have said that the cultural differences between Chinese Muslims and Muslims from other countries, caused by many years of isolation, including ritual and customary differences, might make it harder for Chinese halal food manufacturers to be seen as “authentic.”
Ideological differences between the Chinese government and the Muslim world is another hurdle that Chinese companies that wish to sell food in Muslim countries have to get over. According to Zhang Hongyi: “The truth is that China is a non-Muslim country and its ruling party promotes atheism. Despite our assurances that we are a Muslim company and that we closely follow the doctrines of the Koran during our manufacturing process, [foreigners] distrust us and doubt our piety.”
However, the difficulty of adapting your product to a different kind of customer is still one of the largest problems for companies which expand abroad, halal or not. One halal food manufacturer that attempted to go abroad, Hongshanhe, produces chillies and hotpot ingredients in Wuzhong, and started to sell their products in Malaysia last year. But his attempts have not been met with much success.
“How to localize the food to cater to the tastes and consumption habits of the local customers was our main task,” Ma Zhanjiang, owner of the Hongshanhe, told the Global Times.
Wuzhong has 726,000 Muslims, 53% of the city’s total population. The city is planning to build China’s biggest domestic and international industrial zone for buying, processing and selling halal products.
The road to Mecca
Mecca has become the market of choice for Chinese halal food manufacturers looking to expand abroad.
Wang Guoqiang, author of the book The Halal Industry and Certification, agreed with Zhang and said that an effective way for Chinese halal food companies to open up the worldwide Muslim food market to their goods would be to gain recognition and be purchased by the Saudi Arabian government.
Every year, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj buys food and gives to pilgrims coming to the country. If a Chinese brand could become part of this, then they could gain the trust of Muslims around the world.
Last year, over 4 mln Muslim people gathered in Saudi Arabia to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holidays. Of the pilgrims, most of the were from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, as well as around 12,000 Chinese Muslims.
Each year, billions of dollars are spent in Mecca during the Eid al-Fitr holidays, according to statistics issued by the Saudi Arabian Chamber of Commerce.
Saudi Arabia, a wealthy nation with little agricultural resources, needs foreign companies to supply food for the people that come to its cities on pilgrimage.
But, it remains very difficult for Chinese firms to enter this market. Despite China being known as the world’s factory, its halal food exports only make up 0.1% of the world’s halal food market, according to statistics issued by the China Council For the Promotion of International Trade.
The lack of a nationwide halal food certification system, similar to what other Muslim countries have, has become a major hurdle for Chinese halal food companies looking to go global.
Most Muslim countries have had a sound certification system for halal food since the 1970s, and most Muslim countries recognize each other’s certification standards, while China has yet to lay out a nationwide halal food certification system.
Ningxia established China’s first halal food certification centre – the Ningxia Halal Food International Trade Certification Centre in 2009. As of this month, the centre has offered certification to over 100 companies and established a mutual recognition of halal food standards with seven countries, including Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Help to jump hurdles
“Some countries have used the certification system as a trade barrier to prevented Chinese companies entering their markets,” Ma Bing, director of the Ningxia certification centre, told the Global Times. The authorities in Australia have allowed local social organizations and certification companies to control the criteria for halal certification, which has made it more difficult for Chinese companies to know who to go to for certification, Ma said.
Sometimes, despite inter-governmental recognition of halal standards, civil groups still reject Chinese halal foods.
To help overcome these barriers, the authorities in Yinchuan have introduced measures to help its halal food manufacturers go global. In addition to setting up the Desheng Industrial Zone, which aims to be the centre of Islamic industries in Ningxia, it has launched preferential policies such as tax breaks for halal food manufacturers looking to expand abroad.
Zhang Hongyi’s plan is in line with President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt and One Road” development strategy that aims to encourage Chinese companies to expand abroad, especially into central and western parts of Eurasia.
China’s 2 trillion RMB breakfast market is expected to grow with a forecast compound growth rate of 7.7% by 2025.
Introduction
The meal that most people find hardest to change is breakfast. Most people are willing to experiment with different foods during lunch or dinner, but when you are still waking up, you prefer to do so with those familiar breakfast items. However, diets in China, including breakfast, are moving to incorporate more western-style foods, driven by economic growth, urbanization, and market liberation.
A survey conducted in 2020 showed that 35% of the respondents were too busy to eat breakfast every day. 42% said that they spent less than 10 minutes on breakfast. A survey conducted a year later, showed the following reasons for skipping breakfast entirely.
Reason
% respondents
Too busy
49
Other reasons
25
No appetite in the morning
17
No need or directly eat lunch
9
Yet, few studies use microeconomic data to identify the factors driving the trends, particularly to link the rapidly changing demographics to specific western-style foods. Research jointly conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Washington State University, North Dakota State University, University of Florida, and Economic Research Service at USDA used household-level data that were collected in Beijing, Nanjing, and Chengdu in recent years to provide new insights on this issue.
The data were collected through a week-long food diary approach, asking the selected households to record all the detailed food consumption by meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), including each ingredient prepared or eaten in the meal, no matter the meal occurred at home or away from home. The tracked food items includes each item’s name, price, purchase venue, and amount consumed for that meal, which allow us easily to identify and distinguish the western-style items from traditional Chinese diets. A full list of western style breakfasts and the observed frequency for each item are presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Observed Western style breakfast items
Western-style Foods Have Gained Significant Popularity
Most of Western-style breakfast menu items can be found on Chinese dining tables for breakfast, and they have become increasingly popular in urban areas. In Table 1, all observed western breakfasts are grouped into three categories, including bread and cake, milk, and other western foods. Each category further includes several kinds of specific western foods. Clearly, 83% of surveyed households consumed at least one kind of the listed food in Table 1 during the survey week. Of which, fluid cow milk is the most popular, with 564 households reported consumption, accounting for over 70% of the entire sample. Following fluid cow milk are the bread and cake categories, with 47.3% and 16.1% of surveyed households reported consumption, respectively. Although less frequently consumed, it is notable that sausage, cheese, and coffee, three very western items, have been incorporated in Chinese breakfast menus.
Urban households more frequently incorporate the western-style foods in breakfast as income rises
Table 2 Frequency of the Western Foods to Be Consumed In Breakfast in the Survey Week
On average, there were about four breakfasts out of seven (in the survey week) where at least one kind of western food was consumed for each household. Income, as expected, has a significantly positive effect. The number of breakfasts included at least one kind of western-style food is 3.83 for the lowest income group, while it increases to 4.63 for the highest income group. Similar trends can be found for bread, milk, and other western foods consumption in terms of meal number. For bread, the weekly consumption frequency for the highest income group is 2.42 breakfasts, which is one breakfast more than that for the lowest income group.
The positive income effect can also be seen in terms of per capita consumption (Figure 1).
Fig. 1: Per Capita Consumption of the Western-Style Foods in Survey Week
Breakfast cereals
Although cereals are still restricted as breakfast item to a small number of Chinese households, the market is growing. Major players, including Cereal Partners Worldwide, General Mills, Kellogg, and PepsiCo, have all targeted the market in some way. Breakfast cereals are predicted to see 6% value CAGR. Manufacturers will take their inspiration from traditional Chinese medication by offering products containing Chinese ingredients such as red dates, goji berries, and black sesame. Sugar-free products are also a huge rising trend. In 2015 the revenue of general cereal sales amounted to RMB 2.805 billion, whereas in 2022 the market is expected to more than double, reaching RMB 6.2 billion. The value of the 2025 Chinese oat mealmarket is estimated to exceed RMB 12.5 billion.
A domestic player to watch is Guilin Sea Mild (Ximai) Biology Technology Development. With its brand Sea Mild it accounted for a value share of 18% in 2016 as well as the year before. Guilin Sea Mild specializes in hot cereals, which require the addition of hot water or milk. The company built the overall leadership mainly through its well-established brands and strong distribution network. Guilin Sea Mild is also positioned as mid-priced and thus benefits from a broad potential customer base. The company mainly targets elderly consumers with products such as Seamild Nutrition Cereal for the Elderly, High Iron Red Dates Cereal, and High Calcium Walnut Cereal. Sea Mild got listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in June 2019. The company generated a turnover of RMB 973 mln inthe first half of 2024; up 38.83%.
The next step in convenience was taken in 2021, when Ocak launched a sachet-size version of its breakfast cereals.
Women in command
Women (mothers) play an important role in deciding the ingredients on a Chinese breakfast table.The western food consumption varies by demographics, including the characteristics of the female head of household (FHH). In Figure 2, we can see that families with wives who hold college or advanced degrees more frequently incorporate western foods in breakfast than other families. It is also the case for per capita western food consumption, with 1.26kg for families with a highly-educated FHH versus 0.98kg for others.
Fig. 2: Wife’s Education Effect on the Western-Food Choice Is Positive
Younger Generations leading the Westernization of Chinese Breakfast
Family composition also matters, but the effect differs across food types. For instance, families with children tend to consume more bread at breakfast than other families, but the difference is not that remarkable for milk and other western foods. Also, families with adolescents or young adults more frequently consume bread at breakfast than their counterparts, but families with seniors consume bread less frequently, but more frequently consume other western food products. Families with dual-career parents do not present consistent differences from single-career families.
Table 3 Effects of Family Composition on the Western Food Consumption
Regional Effects Are Significant
Western food consumption differs remarkably across cities. Beijing is leading in consuming western foods in terms of the number of breakfasts consuming western foods. On average, there are 4.42 breakfasts including at least one type of western-style food, which leads Chengdu by 0.42 breakfast meals and Nanjing by 1.23. Similar comparisons can be found if we focus on bread, milk, and other western foods. In terms of consumption quantity, however, Chengdu takes over the leading position with per person consumption of1.53kg, nearly double the level of Beijing (0.85kg) and Nanjing (0.79kg). It is noted that the differences across cities may not exactly reflect the regional difference as these surveys in three cities were not conducted at the same time.
Figure 3: Western Food Consumption by City
Entrepreneurial activities
A number of companies have already started cashing in the above mentioned trends by launching foods and beverages specifically formulated for breakfast. Several dairy companies have launched breakfast milk, like Yili’s Oat Milk introduced in an earlier post. In my post on public nutrition in China, I selected a fortified bread from Oishi that is also marketed as a breakfast food. The common element in all these products is: get all the nutrients you need from one single sip or bite.
New policy = new opportunities
In 2016, many roadside breakfast stands disappeared in several Chinese cities, as the nation set out to improve city appearance and food security management. However, that also meant fewer breakfast locations for local residents, opening the door wider for higher-quality ones. Choices used to be mainly limited to international giants, such KFC and McDonalds, but not anymore. Local companies such as Doujiang Ai Youtiao, a Shanghai-based start-up focusing on data-management and freshly-made breakfast, have created a “second breakfast table” for consumers (see photo). The Shanghai-based start-up has many stores in residential communities, offering Shanghai-style local foods and traditional Chinese breakfast, including youtiao (fried bread sticks). Sales are monitored for adjusting taste and service. Moreover, it also boasts a system that can analyse customers’ eating habits and offer suggestions based on previous purchases. By 2021, sales of breakfast foods at convenience stores is expected to exceed RMB 840 billion in China, while the total sales of breakfast foods in the country will reach RMB 1.94 trillion, data from a 2016 survey showed. Now, many Chinese start-ups have set their eyes on the breakfast market, trying to woo more customers seeking high-quality king-like meals with advanced technology and more convenient services, including Baoxiaotuan, a start-up founded by the founder of Steamed Stuffed Bun Restaurant, Qing Feng.
The nationalist trend
The trend towards revival of traditional Chinese values, practices, foods, etc. that started in the course of 2020 reached the breakfast revolution early 2022 with CP (Zhengda)’s launch of a range of ‘breakfast dumplings‘. The are packed in small one-person helpings, also gearing to the growing market for single households. This indicates that young Chinese consumers are longing back for traditional foods for breakfast, but still without the fuzz to prepare them.
Conclusions
The western-style foods, in particular bread and milk, have gained popularity in China and become an important part of urban Chinese breakfasts. In the future, with further income growth, the demand for the western foods will continue to grow remarkably. This finding has important implications for agricultural production and food processing industry. Since making bread requires higher protein wheat flour relative to making noodles, fried dough (youtiao), and steamed buns (mantou). The increasing demand for bread herein is challenging China’s wheat breeding and high-protein wheat production. A potential to rely on imports might be a solution considering China’s limited land for high-protein wheat production such as hard red winter and hard red spring, and its relatively logged wheat breeding technologies.
Regarding milk, it is well known that the recent milk safety incidents such as melamine-contaminated baby formula have terribly damaged consumers’ confidence in consuming domestic produced milk and shocked milk production in China. The fact that Chinese consumers are demanding more milk with the growing income and health desire, however, is unchanged according to our findings from this study. Therefore, how to supply sufficient and safe milk becomes a critical question for policymakers and milk industry to pay enough attention. The western-style food consumption is also significantly related the female head of household’s education achievement and family composition. Particularly, the researchers found that younger generations in urban household are leading the trend for westernization of Chinese breakfasts. Since people often formed their food preferences at young and will stick on when aging, the findings thereby suggests that western-style foods will be included in all age groups in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the FHH’s education is found to have a significantly positive effect on western food consumption, both in frequency and in consumption level. This result suggests that any effort to promote western-style foods in China’s market can increase returns by targeting the FHH.
The other direction: the sophistication of traditional Chinese breakfast
Against the background of growing nationalism in China, it will be no surprise that the opposite of the westernisation of Chinese breakfast, the sophistication of traditional breakfast foods, can also be observed. A good example is a recently opened fast-food outlet of the famous Goubuli Baozi (steamed fill buns) restaurant in Beijing. Apart from its steamed buns, the menu also features typical breakfast items like jianbing and doufunao.
Jianbing resemble French crêpes and are sold on almost every corner of the street in Beijing during breakfast time. The ones sold in Goubuli include Peking duck jianbing cooked with cucumber, sliced Peking duck, pickles and the sweet paste of flour. Three other varieties of jianbing are available: traditional Tianjin-style; bacon; and seafood. The pictures compare a jianbing as sold by street vendors and Goubuli’s Peking Duck jianbing.
Doufunao literally means bean curd brains and is made of soft silken bean curd with sauces and garnishes usually served sweet in southern China, and salty in northern China. At Goubuli it is topped with crumbs of mahua (fried dough twist, Tianjin’s most famous snack), rousong (meat floss), and furu (fermented bean curd). This combination makes each spoonful of doufunao tasty and complex thanks to the savory furu and soybean paste, crispy mahua, and silken bean curd.
Innovative product launches in China is one of my favourite themes in this blog. You can find lots of them in various posts. While we all know that China currently is the world’s largest growing market for food ingredients, both for exporting and sourcing, what is still less known is that no region on the globe sees so many new foods and drinks being launched as China. And innovation in end products is a major creator of demand for new ingredients.
In this last post of 2015, I have delved in the news items on new products that I have retained during my daily scanning of the news streams from China. Apparently, I believed these products were somehow worth saving. Well, I am presenting the to you, my readers, today. Please don’t feel obliged to like them as I did when I saved them. However, please also do not judge them too quickly as funny or useless. Instead, try to see them as reflections of how Chinese food technologists think about developing new foods, drinks, or ingredients.
An interesting finding, after arranging the novel products according to market segment, is that dairy company Mengniu stands out as China’s top food innovator of 2015.
As for time of launching, there seems to be no real favourite month or season for putting new products on the market. However, there are now launches found for the final quarter of 2015. Perhaps the winter blues are affecting food technologists in China.
Moving on to region, Beijing and Inner Mongolia come out on top with 3 launches each. However, all new products of the latter have been launched by one company: Mengniu. A distinctive feature of the new foods and drinks from Beijing is that most of them have been developed in cooperation with a research institute or university. Using the traditional Chinese division between North (of the Yangtze River) and South, nearly all (13 out of 15) of the novel products have been launched in the North. Considering that the home town of Mengniu, Huhhot, is located close to Beijing, as is Tianjin, then almost half (7) of the products have been developed within a large circle around Beijing.
I wish you all the best for 2016 and can assure you that new posts will appear here as frequently as in the year behind us.
Primary produce
Selenium strawberries
The Yegu Group (Beijing) has put the first batch of its selenium enriched strawberries on the market. The Yegu Group has been cooperating with the Beijing Bureau for Agriculture in the development of this product. Apart from the additional fortification with selenium, these strawberries are also produced biologically. High selenium fruits and vegetables are usually produced by adding selenium to the fertiliser, or growing them on selenium rich soil. (February)
Cereals and staples
Potato mantou – a revolution in Chinese staple food
In case you have forgotten what mantou are, please revisit my dedicated post introducing this exciting product. The China Academy for Agricultural Sciences and Haileda Food (Beijing) have jointly developed a type mantou that consists for 30% of potato. This is yet another step in the process of changing the potato into a major staple of Chinese cuisine (also see my post on that topic). The researchers have announced that they next step in this R&D project is to increase the percentage of potato to 40% and then to 50%. Other potato products will also be developed, like: noodles, or bread. (June)
Meat and derivatives
New duck blood products
Huaying Cherry Valley (Xinyang, Henan) is investing in improving duck blood processing. The company has a special subsidiary to develop a range of products from duck blood, including blood powder and blood bean curd. The company produced more than 10,000 mt of duck blood in 2014. This is an interesting example of how a traditional food can be successfully developed into a commercially produced product. Interested in learning more about duck products: see my post on that topic. (April)
Dairy
Mengniu launches cereal milk
Mengniu Dairy (Huhhot, Inner Mongolia) has launched a version of its DeLuxe milk mixed with cereals. It is marketed as the ideal food for office people who have to work late. DeLuxe is Mengniu’s range of milk products fortified with osteoblast milk protein. (January)
Mengniu launches yoghurt ice cream
Mengniu Dairy has launched a line of yoghurtice cream under the Dilan brand. Mengniu intends to position this ice cream as a healthy food choice. I mentioned this product in an earlier post, focusing on the innovative advertising. (August)
Mengniu launches new organic formula
Mengniu Dairy has launched a new type of organic infant formula under the Ruipu’en brand on June 5. With this move, Mengniu hopes to better compete with the international brands. According to analysts, the launch of this new product is a logic next step after Mengniu’s acquisition of Junlebao (2010) and Yashili (2013). The company’s focus is clearly moving from a general supplier of dairy products, to one of high end infant formulae. (June)
Milking a new dairy product
Yukunlun Natural Food Engineering Co., Ltd. (Xinjiang) has launched donkey milk powder as a consumer product. CEO Zhang Ming has spent RMB 70 mln developing donkey milk-related products since 2007. So far, he has managed to break even on his investment. Zhang buys donkey milk from farmers at RMB 28 per kg. The retail price for donkey milk powder is around RMB 4000 per kg, double the price of imported cow milk powder, according to Zhang. (May)
Non-alcoholic beverages
New mineral water
A new manufacturer of mineral water, Dipu Beverage Co., Ltd. (Yanling, Henan), has been established. Its water is said to be rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. (September)
Prickly pear juice
Shengshang Green Food Co., Ltd. (Yangling, Shaanxi) has launched a line of prickly pear juice drinks. The plant has a capacity of 30,000 hls p.a. The prickly pear (Rosa roxbunghii) is a local product, but has so far not been used for industrial processing. (August)
Alcoholic beverages
New apple wine producer
The joint apple wine project of the Shanghai-based Famous Wines Net and Lanhai Fruit Co., Ltd. (Shaanxi), Malanshan Apple Wine, has started production. The current capacity is 12,000 hls of wine p.a. The plant has a storage capacity of 16,000 hls. This figures are expected to rise to 20,000 hls and 32,000 hls respectively by 2016. Apple wine is positioned as a healthier alternative for the spirits that usually drunk in the Shaanxi region. Shaanxi is one of China’s major apple regions. The traditional product in that sector is apple juice concentrate for export. However, this market is very volatile and adding another product, that is also marketable in China would be welcome. (May)
Cocktails gaining popularity
Bairun Flavour & Fragrance (Shanghai) has announced that it will increase its investment in its subsidiary Tianjin Cocktail (Tianjin) from RMB 280 to 500 mln for the production of the Rio range of cocktails. The reason for this decision is the sharply increased demands for ready to drink cocktails. Shanghai Bacchus, one of the leading companies in the Chinese alcopop market, has increased its purchase of Bairun cocktails to 6 438,400 cases in 2014, 8 times the volume of 2013. Note that another innovative aspect of this item is that it is initiated by a producers of flavours, rather than one of alcoholic beverages (July). In 2017, Bairun’s turnover was RMB 1.17 bln, 87.81% of which was derived from the sales of Rio.
Yanjing wheat beer
Yanjing Brewing (Beijing) has launched China’s first wheat (white) beer. The company uses Australian barley and wheat malt in the ratio 55:45. (August)
Arrowroot wine
Fushangfu Arrowroot Wine Co. (Zhanyi, Yunnan) has launched a new type of arrowroot wine, using locally produced arrowroot as raw material. The wine is marketed as a health drink rich in flavones, amino acids and puerarin. It also contains amounts of zinc. calcium and iron. (February)
Ingredients
Banana powder
Chengli Group (Hainan) is the first in China to launch a banana powder to be used as a food ingredient. It is not only a useful flavor, but simultaneously adds many nutrients a food. It can be used in beverages, cakes, ice cream, candy and even infant formula is mentioned as a possible food that can be enriched with this banana powder. (January)
Low salt yeast extract
Angel Yeast (Yichang, Hubei) has launched low salt yeast extracts as an ideal means to lower salt in many types of food. Angel’s food engineers have performed a series of tests with various levels of salt to arrive at the lowest salt level at which the taste enhancing function of the yeast extract is still not harmed. (March)
The oldest Chinese carbonated beverages dates from 1874
Soft drinks is undoubtedly a Western concept. However, the history of domestic carbonated beverage in China is longer than many people may believe. The most famous soda beverages launched before 1949 are:
Most of the HQ locations were cities with considerable numbers of foreign expats.
The Chinese typology of foods and beverages is one of the recurrent themes in this blog. The typical way in which such products are divided in categories in a certain region provides an interesting look on the influence of the local culture on eating and drinking.
This post will continue with this topic with the typology of beverages. This typology has even been officially laid down in a State Standard (GB), GB10789 to be precise. It discerns the following types.
Carbonated drinks
These are relatively new in China and still strongly connected to the Western lifestyle. China’s oldest carbonated drink: Beibingyang (Northern Ice Sea) has been revived recently, which I have introduced in a separate post on the reappearance of old brands.
Protein beverages
Although not a Chinese invention, this category is much more popular in China than elsewhere in the world. They have also been introduced separately in a previous post. Protein beverages are relatively viscous liquids made from various nuts or beans, or milk, or a combination. A number of them include probiotic cultures.
Bottled water
Paying a lot of money for something that you can get from your tap for a much lower price has also taken on in China. China’s bottled water market is expected to reach 490 mln hls of total annual consumption by 2020. The retail value of bottled water in China for 2019 is estimated at RMB 346.2 billion. Apart from the large number of branded water, new mineral water brands keep appearing in China. Many are profiling themselves with the location of their source. The trend of 2015, e.g., in this category was mineral water from Tibet.
Some statistics of the past 5 years
Year
Volume(hls)
Increase(%)
2015
841,016,000
7.60
2014
781,614,000
9.37
2013
665,114,000
13.01
2012
556,278,000
19.20
2011
178,900,000
23.67
Top brands
The following table shows the market shares of major brands in 2017
Brand
Share (%)
Nongfu Spring
8.5
C’est Bon
8.0
Evian
5.0
Chef Kong
4.8
Ganten
4.6
Wahaha
4.5
Coca Cola
4.0
Others
60.7
A new variety was added to the category of bottled water by Nongfu Spring in February 2022: bottled boild water (baikaishui). This type is inspired by traditional Chinese medicine. TCM attributes many healing and nutritional functions to water that has been brought to the boil and then cooled to drinking temperature.
China’s once largest mineral water brand, Laoshan, came back in 2025 with a mineral water enriched with snake grass. Snake Grass, also known as Clinacanthus nutans, is a plant ascribed various medicinal benefits, like anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and antioxidant properties.
Tea beverages
Tea is China’s national drink, but still, tea beverages have been introduced from overseas. When foreign ice teas were launched in China, many beverage makers tried to concoct their own versions. Tea beverages with various fruit flavours appeared one after another.
Milk tea
A rapidly growing subcategory are the milk teas, based on traditional milk or butter teas drunk by Mongolians and Tibetans.
The pictures shows the Sizhou brand milk tea, with the following ingredients:
In the course of 2018, China’s tea aficionados have embraced a new trend, one that is encapsulated in the growing popularity of the milk tea brand, Hey Tea. Originally sold in a tiny alleyway in Jiangmen, southern China’s Guangdong province, the brand went viral on social media because of its signature “cheese” series — a cup of hot tea topped with light cheesecake mix. Since then, Hey Tea has developed into a franchise with more than 80 outlets in 13 cities across the country. In large urban centres such as Shanghai and Beijing, customers routinely wait for hours to get their hands on a cup of cheese tea. Hey Tea’s cheese-inspired beverages are just variations of the same milk-topped teas available at many urban teashops in China. Fresh milk, skimmed milk, and cream cheese are blended and poured on top of iced tea to create a layer of creamy froth about 3cm thick.
Milk tea is becoming such a huge market that ingredients suppliers have started to prioritise it in their R&D. FrieslandCampina Kievit, e.g., is conducting research to develop the optimum dairy ingredients for Chinese milk tea. Aspects considered include: tea type, milkiness, sweetness and mouthfeel.
A new development in the Chinese tea beverage market is mixed tea drinks. Representative brands are: Teaka (tea + coffee), Chef Kong’s tea + milk, Cha pi (tea + fruit juice) and Hongchajun (tea + probiotics).
Multinationals like Coca Cola cannot afford to miss out on the popularity of tea beverages in China. The company has launched a range of tea drinks branded Chunchashe ‘Genuine Tea House’. It is marketed as not containing sugar, but still leaving a sweet aftertaste. It comes in green, black and Wulong flavours.
Herbal tea
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is making an effort to cash in on the increasing interest in health foods among Chinese consumers, as has been introduced in earlier posts. The market value was estimated at more than RMB 40 billion late 2015 and is expected to grow to close to RMB 20 billion in 2020.. A very prominent application of medicinal herbs as food ingredients are the herbal teas that have become popular during the past few years. The first and most popular, Wanglaoji, is still based on a traditional recipe. Later herbal teas are marketed as modern health or functional beverages, comparing and competing with Western drinks like Red Bull. A very recently launched product in this category is Good Night (Wan An), produced by Wan’an Technology Co., Ltd. (Beijing). Ingredients are said to include:
natural GABA, theanine, chamomile and spina date seed
Wanglaoji launched its own cola drink, Wanglaoji Cola, in January 2018. The company promoted it during the Davos Summit.
The value of the Chinese tea beverage market in 2020 exceeded RMB 100 billion.
Coffee beverages
Coffee being such a recent arrival in China, so closely linked to a Western lifestyle, it seems odd to find it as an officially sanctioned subcategory of beverages. However, they have become quite popular. Perhaps they are easier on the Chinese palate than the basic black brew. The have been introduced in this blog before, in a separate post.
Plant beverages
This category includes drinks made from the juice of vegetables and fruits, in various degrees of concentration. Cereal based drinks are also included. A subtype that is especially popular in China is called ‘fruit tea’ (guocha) in Chinese. The best English translation would be ‘nectar’. The are relatively viscous drinks with carrot or hawthorn pulp as the main ingredient.
In 2016, China’s fruit juice retail volume was 134.47 mln hls and retail sales reached RMB 100.914 billion, up 1.88%. Main brands in the Chinese fruit juice market include Uni-President, Chef Kong, Nongfu Spring, and Huiyuan. China’s top producer in this category is Huiyuan Fruit Juice (Beijing). The company was once an acquisition target of Coca Cola, but the deal was vetoed by the Chinese cartel watchdog. Huiyuan recently launched a range of juices in Malaysia under the Yami brand.
The latest addition to the fruit nectars is Zaoshanzha, a drink made from dates and hawthorn by Haoxiangni.
In terms of taste, orange juice is still the largest category of the fruit juice market in China, There are some differences in taste between the north and the south in China. Apple, peach and pear consumption is relatively high in the north market. Pure juice (‘not from concentrate’) is the growth point in this industry. Chinese women have greater demand for juice, which is related to the pursuit of a healthy figure.
Another popular new subtype is formed by the fruit vinegars. These beverages have become in vogue in the years 2015 – 2016 as health products that help burn fat. In the early stage, it looked as if they would become a success, cashing in on the general trend towards more healthy food in China. However, the tide seemed to turn mid 2018, when a prominent brand, Tiandi Nr. 1 (Tiandi Yihao)’s semi-annual report showed a turnover almost half that of the same period of the previous year.
Flavoured beverages
The literal translation of the Chinese definition of this category is: drinks made by combining food flavours, sugar or sweeteners, or acidifiers. We probably could also refer to these as: designer beverages. It is not always easy to distinguish these from other categories. If you boil tea leaves and the add other flavouring ingredients to the filtered liquid, you would have a tea beverage. However, a drink whose ingredients list includes tea extract, would count as a flavoured beverage.
Nutritious beverages
These include sports drinks and other functional beverages. This category started to boom in the course of 2016. As a result, Red Bull is confronted with an ever growing number of domestic competitors in China. One of the frist challengers (August 2016) was a vitamin drink by Want Want, presented in a gold-coloured can.
This product category is getting so popular, that a dairy company like Yili launched an energy drink of its own in April 2018: Huanxingyuan.
Solid beverages
These are sold in powdered from and infused before consumption. There is at least one traditional Chinese drink typically sold as such: suanmeitang or sour plum drink (literally: soup). A more recent, but still traditional, product is instant soy milk. Many members of the other categories are now also available in powdered form.
The picture shows Yiben brand suanmeitang, which contains the following ingredients:
Senke Beverages has launched an innovative type of suanmeitang adding traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, marketed as ‘Lotus Leaf Suanmeitang‘, in the summer of 2018. Apart from quenching thirst, it is said to lower cholesterol and have a certain slimming effect.
Daring launches – low survival
Chinese beverage makers are quite daring in launching newly developed products on the market, where Western multinationals would organise more pilots to test the products’ reception by consumers. However, a recent survey by the China Food Industry Association reveals that only 5% of newly launched Chinese beverages survive. I guess that is test marketing the Chinese way.
How do Westerners appreciate this?
Are you getting bored with my academic stories? No problem, you can now relax watching this home brew video in which a Western lady living in China introduces here own favourite Chinese beverages.
Here is another Top 5, but then of the most bizarre Chinese drinks.
Latest trend: odd flavours
The structure of the Chinese soft drinks market is undergoing rapid changes. Consumers are developing an awareness of personality, paying more attention to individual needs and preferences. This has created a market for what Chinese have started to call ‘odd flavour water (guaiweishui)’. Laoshan, China’s first and for a long time only producer of mineral water, has launched Baishecaoshui (literally: white snake grass water). It is based on Baishecao (oldenlandia). Hey Song Sarsaparilla from Taiwan is also gaining popularity. The current top producer of mineral water, Nongfu Spring (see above), has also launched odd flavour drinks: Oriental Leaves (Dongfang Shuye), which does not contain herbal extracts, but a mix of flavourings and nutrients, and Red Pointed Leaves (Hongse Jianye), which contains extracts from American Ginseng, green tea and bamboo. This market is extremely volatile. The survival rate of new drinks is generally about 10%, and is now dropping to 5%, according to recent market studies. These products are catering to the young and young Chinese consumers have a low brand loyalty where food and drinks are concerned.
As food and culture are so intertwined, proper market research in the food industry should take account of the ways the local culture affects the segment of the food industry that is being surveyed. A good example is the post on Leisure Food earlier in this blog. In this post, I want to introduce the Chinese categorisation of meat products as used in the official publications about the domestic meat industry. I will list the main categories and for each category provide a concise description.
Meat in general
Before turning to the typology, let’s have a look at the Chinese meat market in general. Traditionally, China’s meat of choice is pork, however recently there has been growth in more diverse meats, for example, veal.
China is now the world’s largest producer, consumer, and importer of meat. In 2019, the country consumed around 28% of the global meat supply, which accounts for 73% of the Asia-Pacific meat market value. In the same year, the monthly import of meat products in China reached USD 1 billion, with Brazil being the leading meat supplier whereas imports from the EU countries including Netherlands, Spain, and Germany growing the fastest.
Fresh meat sales in China make up nearly 80% of the market value. Among all the types of meat, pork sales dominate the market, followed by poultry, beef. It is expected, however, that the Chinese beef and veal meat market will witness a rising demand, with the current per capita consumption rates increased by at least 25% in the next decade, whereas pork market growth will slow. Revenue in the meat segment is expected to reach USD 87.75 billion in 2023, and China’s meat market is projected to grow annually by 19.99% between 2023 and 2027.
The 2023 turnover of China’s top 5 meat companies
Company
Turnover (RMB bln)
Growth (%)
Wenshi
89.921
7.4
Shuanghui
60.097
-4.2
Wanzhou
26.236
-6.75
Meiling
22.367
-10.49
Shengnong
18.487
9.93
Sausages
Chinese sausages are basically the same as anywhere else. Not need to give a separate definition here. The overwhelming majority of Chinese sausages are made from pork and their Chineseness is mainly expressed by the use of seasoning and herbs.
Two popular types need to be mentioned separately:
Cantonese sausages
Cantonese sausages or la sausages are fermented sausages. The lactic acid produced during the fermentation gives the sausages a specific taste and functions as a natural preservative. Cantonese sausages are also relative hard, not unlike salami.
A number of research institutes and universities all over China are engaged in R&D to improve the production process of traditional Chinese fermented sausages. Aspects involved include: preventing the oxidation of fat, protecting the colour, enhancing the flavour using enzymes and specially desinged aromas, and decreasing the sodium level.
To learn about a novel type of sausage, date sausages, see my post on dates in this blog.
Ham sausages
This is an umbrella term for a large variety of relatively small sausages that can be consumed as a snack. Chinese love to bring them on a trip, be it a one day tour to a local scenic spot, or a train trip of a couple of days. Although they count as a meat product, many ham sausages have a high starch content to make them soft enough for easy consumption on the road. For the same reason, they are usually relatively small and individually packed.
A development that I also identified for dumplings is the introduction of complete Chinese dishes as flavouring (and texturing) of sausages. The following two pictures show two sausage types launched by Shineway (Shuanghui) in 2025.
Stir fried chili and meat sausages
Sichuan pepper chicken sausages
Ham
Ham in China is again more or less the same as ham elsewhere, made from the same part of the pig. One of my earlier posts is about one of China’s most famous types of ham: Jinhua Ham.
Cured meat
Cured meat products are typically more closely related to the local culture. People in different regions like different combinations of spices. In the case of China, soy sauce is a product often used in curing meat. Star aniseed is also a prominently present in many flavoured meat products from China.
Sauce pickled meat (luwei)
This category has much in common with the previous one, the main difference being that the products in this category are boiled with spices, while cured meats are pickled and dried.
Cured meats are usually eaten a such, while sauce pickled products are dipped in a sauce when consumed. The most representative product in this category is the duck neck which has become a favourite street food all over China.
The industrialisation of this category is still low. The five major brands had a combined market share of just over 20% in 2023.
Brand
Share (%)
Juewei
8.6
Zhouheiya
4.6
Ziyan
3
Huangshanghuang
2.8
Jiujiuya
1.3
Smoked and roasted meat
These products are what the name says: smoked or roasted meat, again usually first pickled.
Dried meat
A very old way to preserve meat is to air or sun dry it. A special product in this category is:
Shred meat/meat floss (rousong)
Marinated pork or beef is roasted over a slow fire until dry and then shredded. Shred beef is used to flavour white rice, rice porridge and my other relatively bland staple foods. An example of such a food is shred meat flavoured bread introduced in my blog on public nutrition in China.
Meat floss comes in three varieties:
Dried meat floss: the standard product;
Short dried meat floss: the standard product, but with vegetable oil added and fried to small pellets of short fibres;
Dried meat powder: the standard product, but with vegetable oil and bean powder added and shaped into small pellets.
Prepared meat products
This is an umbrella term for meat prepared in various ways into semi-finished products. The consumer can transform them into ready to eat products with a minimum of effort.
Canned meat comes in two categories: hard cans (e.g. luncheon meat), what we are used to refer to as canned meat and soft cans, prepared meat packed in aluminum foil. The former has to be removed from the can for further preparation, while the latter can be prepared by boiling the pack in water.
Hamburger
The Western hamburger is undergoing interesting transformations in China to adapt better to the Chinese palate. It is easy to guess that McDonalds was the first channel through which the beef patty was introduced to China. Burger King followed later. Although very few Chinese dislike beef, when Chinese talk about ‘meat’ in general, without mentioning a particular animal, they are always referring to pork. Burger King is responding to by adding a pork-based hamburger to its product range in China. Their ad even uses the same pun that I included in the title of this post.
To still add some foreignness to the promotion, the text in the lower left corner says that the flavour is based on ‘German roast pork knuckle’. A genuine American European Chinese potpourri of flavours!
In our Western view of the world, cream cakes are very much a part of our culture, as the ideal accompaniment of a cup of coffee. The powerful synergy of caffeine and sugar gives a bitter sweet boost to body and mind.
Traditional Chinese pastry is different. Chinese have a sweet tooth as well, but cream is dairy and hence non-Chinese. Dairy products have found their way to China, witness a number of earlier posts in this blog, but it took a while before Chinese bakers starting producing cream cakes that can compare with the ones in a Konditorei in Vienna.
The largest Western style pastry chain in China has an ominous name: Holiland. The story of its foundation is unique as well.
When the founder Luo Hong couldn’t find a decent cake for his mother’s birthday he made a rather extravagant gesture. The then 23-year-old bought a bakery to ensure the problem would never happen again.
That was 18 years ago. Now, at the age of 41, Luo is president of one of the largest bakery chains in China, and controls more than 1,000 cake shops in 70 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Chengdu. They specialise in cakes, breads and other pastries and control 85.7% of the market.
This year the company is moving some stores from their original homes in the suburbs to downtown areas where the footfall is high enough to bring in even more customers.
Unlike other Chinese entrepreneurs whose names are often connected with their business, Luo is better known as a photographer, environmental campaigner and social activist.
He has spent most of his time during the last decade taking pictures and participating in charity events around the world, including the establishment of an environment protection fund for the UN Environmental Program.
Cake inspired by a photo
It’s Luo’s belief that if a company doesn’t have different brands to meet different customers’ demands, it cannot be successful.
A picture of a white swan taken in Cambridge is the inspiration for a new cake he intends to market later this year as part of his diversification into premium cake making.
Following on the success of the black swan series, white swan cakes will feature top-class decorations and accessories. The price will be between RMB 400 and 10,000, putting it into a class of its own. A cake weighing 1.5 is priced at RMB 469. At 21 cake, one of the most popular online cake shops, a cake weighing the same costs RMB 169 yuan.
The wedding cake in the swan series will set customers back RMB 10,000. Fittingly, as part of the service, it will be delivered to the wedding ceremony by Rolls Royce free of charge.
“Cakes and photography are two parallel interests in my life. Sometimes they cross paths. The launch of swan cakes is a combination of my business and personal interests,” Luo said.
To make white swan cakes as exquisite as possible, Luo asked the developers to capture minute details from the queen of birds.
Luo is confident about the cake’s sale prospects and expects they will account for 50% of Holiland’s total annual revenues.
Photos as marketing tool
Luo says photography brings him happiness, inspiration for design and also a low-cost marketing strategy. Some of his photos adorn subway walls after the Beijing municipal government decided this year to improve the city’s culture environment.
“It’s good for our business,” Luo said. “People who talk about the swan pictures will also be curious about my swan cakes.”
Luo knows that in baking it is wise to follow produce what customers like best. One of his products featured a bear decoration but he got rid of it because some of his friends in the finance industry said it brought back unhappy memories of the bear market during the financial crisis last year.
As one of the largest cake shop chains, Holiland also faces the problem of “brain drain”. The high turnover of skilled employees means that Holiland is always in danger of losing key intellectual capital in its core competency areas. The company needs to develop knowledge management strategies to capture, share, and preserve knowledge and integrate knowledge management into its strategic plans, said Luo.
This year, the entrepreneur paid RMB 5 million to American leadership expert, John C. Maxwell, to give a speech about leadership to all employees at Holiland on July 28 and 29 to improve the management skills of his employees.
Online business
Today’s hurried urban life and the convenience of the Internet are luring more customers to online businesses, including bakeries, in China.
Luo and his team have joined the trend. All swan cakes are only accessible to online shoppers. The savings will be used to improve the product. It will come with a steel knife and fork rather than less environmentally-friendly plastic used previously.
Other bakery shops have also found that doing business online is less time-consuming and more economical. E-beecake, 21 cake and Waffleboy are among those becoming more popular with young people.
Other traditional chains are also challenging Holiland’s market position. Beijing-based Weiduomei is diversifying its business by opening three cafes and two Western-style restaurants. Baoshifu (Chef Bao), a popular pastry chain established by a man named Bao originating from Jiangxi, has made name for its shred meat buns, but also carries a broad range of pastries and breads. Bread Talk is focusing on gaining a foothold in high-end shopping malls and office buildings, reinforcing its niche image. Luo says: “Competition is good for the development of the cake market, which still has great potential.”
Holiland is also expanding its portfolio of delicacies to include mooncakes and sweet dumplings. This autumn, the company will introduce a greater variety of mooncakes to attract more high-end customers. Holiland sold as much as RMB 200 million of mooncakes every year in China. According to Xie Li, general manager of Holiland, regular cakes, mooncakes and sweet dumpling are Holiland’s best sellers, accounting for 60, 20 and 10% of the company’s revenues respectively.
Innovation – localisation
Holiland tries to link up with current trends. A great example is the marketing of its ‘drinkable cakes’ launched late 2020. These chestnut and cheese cake flavoured beverages are based on Western flavours, but the marketing is done in traditional Chinese style.
Another way Holiland links up with the Chinese tradition is launching a series of soy milk based cheese cakes late 2020. These are more acceptable to the many Chinese consumers that still have a problem with the creamy flavour of milk.
Brand name with a double meaning (?)
Readers with knowledge of Chinese may notice that this brand name has a double meaning. The Chinese name Haolilai literally means ‘good profit coming’, but the pronuciation resembles haolaiwu ‘Hollywood’. The English name Holiland is obviously inspired by Holy Land. The allusion to the world’s movie capital will attract Chinese consumers’ attention, while Westerners will want to check out a chain linked to the Holy Land. Luo Hong has never explained his choice of brand names, but I am sure the above is more than a conjecture.
Pets
Holiland launched a range of pastries for pets in 2024. You can even organise a birthday party for your pet and his/her friends.
The millet group of plants, like rice and wheat, are grasses that produce small, edible seeds. Archaeologists have long known that they were domesticated very early in China and India; the earliest known noodles, which are 4000 years old and were reported by a Chinese team in 2005, were made of millet. Although rice was domesticated in China’s warm and humid south, millet was domesticated in the north of the country, where conditions were much colder and drier. Archaeological evidence suggests that millet was cultivated as long ago as the Xia Dynasty (21st – 17th century BC) and Shang Dynasty (1600 BC-1056 BC), primarily around the Yellow River basin, northeast China and Inner Mongolia. Yet archaeologists have debated whether these developments were independent or whether rice farmers from the south migrated north and began to cultivate wild millet–which grows much better than rice does in cold and dry conditions–thus transforming it into domesticated varieties.
Revolutionary food
Millet (xiaomi ‘small rice’ in Chinese) was the sustenance that Chairman Mao and the Red Army relied on to sustain them during the arduous campaigns against the Kuomintang and the invading Japanese.
Perhaps even more importantly, depending on how you look at it, millet was also one of the first grains used to brew liquor.
Millet itself retains some of the properties we might associate with the soldiers who relied on it back in 30s and 40s. While it prefers a warm climate, it possesses the ability to adapt to other environments, as well as being remarkably drought resistant and able to survive in poor, heavily acidic or alkaline soils. In short, it’s the kind of food you want to back you up in a tough situation.
Perhaps this is why, in some parts of northern China, it is also traditionally eaten by mothers after giving birth. The grain is mixed with brown sugar and boiled, providing a much needed nutritional boost for recovering mothers and their babies. For similar reasons, the elderly are also advised to gobble down a bowl of millet congee every day before going to bed, to provide energy and help get a good night’s rest. For the life in between these stages, traditional Chinese medicine teaches that millet will help nourish yin, remove humidity, strengthen the spleen and stimulate the appetite, as well as nurture the liver and help lift blood production.
Healthy grain
From the Western perspective, millet falls down when compared with other grains in terms of providing nutritional value, primarily because the nutrients it does contain are hard to digest. However, it is rich in calcium, phosphorous, iron, carotene, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, niacin, zinc, manganese, selenium and estrogen, amongst other things. Not bad for a grain that unlike rice does not even need to be refined before it is consumed.
Millet is currently being rejuvenated in China, as part of a revival of ‘coarse grains’. Obesity is a growing health problem in China and eating more coarse grains is regarded as one way to fight overweight.
There is also a nostalgic trend to revive ‘rural cuisines’ in China’s major cities. This is another opportunity for millet to return to the Chinese dinner tables.
Branded millet
A brand promotion meeting for Shanxi millet was held in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, Feb 27, 2019. Nine companies were selected to be members of Shanxi Millet Industrial Alliance which is comprised of 28-member businesses attending the meeting. Several regional millet brands such as Changzhi millet, Yangquan millet, and Wangxiang millet, have been established in recent years, bringing greater economic benefits to local farmers. Apart from further expanding the market in Beijing, Shanxi will explore new markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2019, according to Wang Yunlong, director of Shanxi Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. Promotion events for Shanxi millet will be organized in Shanghai and Guangdong province. Members of Shanxi Millet Industrial Alliance are encouraged to carry out marketing campaigns targeting senior residents, workers and students as well as develop supermarket counters and outlets selling millet.
Qinzhou Yellow Millet Group
Based in Qinzhou city, Shanxi province, is one of China’s leading millet processors. The company has signed a strategic alliance with Canada-based importer of Asian food Afod Ltd. in 2020. The first 200 mt batch of yellow millet was shipped to Canada within that year. The founder of Afod is a Canadian-Chinese, whose hometown is in Shanxi. Qingzhou Yellow Millet Group itself was established in the 1990s as a local flagship company in the processing and sales of the products. Shanxi is good for about 10% of the national millet output.
Aohan Banner Millet
Haiqing Liu is the driving force behind a recent revival in local millet farming in Inner Mongolia. His unusual journey started in 2017, after graduating university, when Haiqing, unlike many of his peers, decided to return to his village and build a future in farming. His idea was to set up a cooperative with local farmers, specializing in ancient millet – produced ecologically. Contrary to his expectations, the idea was not an instant hit with local farmers. Faith was limited in the young graduate, he recalls, and funds were equally scarce. As a result, their early production was “skinny”, he says. All signs pointed to a premature end of the cooperative when Haiqing had an idea: internet crowdfunding. If he could just get 100 people to buy 10 jin (5 kg) each of millets at the price of RMB 150 per person, they could boost local incomes and revive ancient agriculture all at the same time. Within a week, he raised RMB 16,000. This produce-on-demand model – or “Sales before production, production according to sales”, as Haiqing calls it – ultimately became part of their success. It guarantees that farmers get a good price for their product and never produce too much. In 2018, the cooperative registered the trademark Aohan Banner Millet, which refers to the region and guarantees the conservation of traditional millets species like sorghum and foxtail.
Products
So what finished foods based on millet are available on the shelves of Chinese supermarkets? I will introduce a few.
Millet babao porridge
I already introduced babao porridge in one of my earlier posts. Millet can be used as the basic raw material instead of rice. In fact, porridge is the most typical way to eat millet in China. During the colder months, vendors selling millet porridge can be found on many street corners in Beijing.
Millet guoba
Another old acquaintance that can be made from millet is guoba. Sun brand guoba, the oldest branded guoba in China, is available in a millet version. The ingredients listed on the package are:
Fensi, glass noodles are usually made from rice (and occasionally from lotus root meal), but again, millet can be used as raw material as well. The Chunsi brand glass noodles are market as ‘made from 100% course grains’.
Millet tortillas
With the word ‘tortillas’, I am simply following the English words on the package. We could also refer to this product as millet crackers. The picture shows the Shanbao brand of millet tortillas. The ingredients list reads as follows:
The ice cream market in China has witnessed steady growth over the past years. In 2021, the country’s ice cream industry was valued at RMB 160 billion, with a growth rate of 8.84%. The market is expected to reach RMB 275.19 by 2027.
Chinese invention
Ice cream is believed to have been invented in China, but it’s taken more than 2,000 years for the Asian powerhouse to warm up to the frosty dessert. Their version of ice cream was made from a soft paste of tender overcooked rice, combined with spices and milk and then packed in snow to solidify. It probably was more of a gritty ice milk and less like today’s smooth ice cream.
Although popular among the nobility, the difficulty of storing ice made these treats prohibitively expensive for commoners. It wasn’t until the Song Dynasty (960-1279) that ordinary people gained access to chilled treats. A 12th century memoir mentions a wide variety of chilled delicacies, including marinated plum water, coconut wine, and kumquat snow bubbles. It was also during this time that ice porridge, osmanthus shaved ice, etc. Marco Polo also made note of “milk ice,” a slushy mix of jam and milk that melted in the mouth. This was probably due to the fact that Marco Polo entered China during the Mongolian period. Unlike the Chinese, Mongolians consume dairy products on a daily basis.
When Chinese started living in Europe for studying or acquiring technical knowledge, the returned to their mother land with stories about sweet chilled delicacies. It is no surprise that the first modern ice cream was served in Shanghai, the region with an early and strong Western influence. The following picture shows an ice cream parlour in Shanghai during the 1930s.
In 1927, the American merchant A.P. Henningsen opened the Henningsen Produce Company in Shanghai and began making ice cream bars. In 1948, the factory was sold to what later became the Shanghai Yimin No. 1 Food Factory, which continues to produce blocks and cups of Neapolitan and regular vanilla ice cream today.
China is now the world’s biggest ice cream market. China has produced 2,214,000 mt of ice cream in 2021; up 5.91%.
Hybrid loan word
The Chinese word for this cold treat so loved worldwide is an interesting combination of a Chinese stem and a loan word. Bing is the Chinese word for ‘ice’. The jiling part has entered Mandarin from Cantonese, where it is pronounced something like ‘keeling’ or ‘keelam’, which is a local rendering of the English word ‘cream’.
One third of all ice cream bought globally is consumed in China, which became the largest ice cream market in the world in 2014, beating the US by a lick with USD 11.4 bn in sales compared with USD 11.2 bn.
Chinese people spent 54% more on ice cream in 2014 than they did five years earlier, while the US market managed a more tepid 6.6% growth. However, Americans retained their crown as the most gluttonous ice cream consumers in the world, consuming 18.4 litres of the dairy dessert per capita in a year – more than four times more than the average Chinese person’s annual intake.
Rising incomes are driving the growth in China’s ice cream market, helped by the country’s increasingly developed retail infrastructure and facilities for storing and supplying “cool cargo” such as fresh produce, frozen foods and pharmaceutical drugs.
The pace of development, coupled with the immensity of the population, is having an increasing impact on the Chinese ice cream market. However, the vast array of locally produced, low-price brands present a challenge for global ice cream giants looking to develop there. Top Chinese dairy company Mengniu recently launched China’s first yoghurt ice cream.
Just two non-Chinese companies make the list of the country’s 10 most popular ice cream brands. Unilever, which owns Wall’s and Ben & Jerry’s, is the fourth biggest company in China with around 3% of the market, while Nestlé holds 1%.
The value of the Chinese ice cream market in 2018 was RMB 123.937 billion and is expected to exceed RMB 160 billion by 2021.
An interesting spin-off of the COVID-19 epidemic was a surge in ice cream consumption, even during the coldest period of year. A survey reported an 18% year-on-year growth in ice cream consumption during the Jan 25-Feb 7 period and a further jump to 37% in the next fortnight, when COVID-19 and quarantines peaked.
Regional production
The following table shows the production of ice cream in China in 2017, broken down in major administrative region.
Region
mt
National
3,783,321
Henan
596,858
Guangdong
525,317
Jilin
325,367
Hubei
319,049
Sichuan
261,499
Guangxi
210,840
Hunan
194,380
Hebei
173,731
Beijing
155,946
Liaoning
132,678
Shaanxi
132,064
Inner Mongolia
112,137
Jiangxi
90,538
Guizhou
87,176
Anhui
77,032
Zhejiang
73,389
Tianjin
72,683
Heilongjiang
71,494
Shandong
68,827
Shanghai
32,300
Xinjiang
29,590
Yunnan
15,841
Jiangsu
15,701
Fujian
8,884
As is the case with many statistics like these, it is useful to also look at the total figure of the cities Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei province, that are geographically one region. The Chinese government is currently conceiving a development plan to (re)integrate those regions. The total volume for ‘Greater Hebei’ would then be 402,360, making it China’s 3rd ice cream region.
Local flavours
Ice cream makers have adopted the products they market in China to the Chinese palate. Most Nestlé Ice cream has a different flavor than in its Western markets. Not as rich or sweet. For the most part at a Chinese Buffet you can find the typical frozen Ice Cream sections for scooping: chocolate, milk/vanilla, strawberry. Then you have red bean (see photo), taro, green tea, sesame seed, green bean, ginger or red date. There is a plethora of fruits in China like longan, lychee, durian, etc., which can all be used to flavour ice cream. Smaller local companies try to experiment with odd flavours, like: ‘sweet green pea’ and ‘tomato-strawberry’ popsicles, to lure consumers away from the major brands.
Innovative flavours
A number of local players has started experimenting with flavours inspired by traditional Chinese cuisine. Wufeng introduced a spicy chocolate flavoured ice cream called Mengxiaola in 2016. Moreover, an ice cream store called Global has squid ink flavour and other unique flavours from across the world. Yolk ice cream can be found in Bonus, a Chinese ice cream store in Shanghai. These are all newly invented flavours and consumers are keen on trying them. On a widely used restaurants review and recommendation app called Dianping, Global scored 8.3 on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of its flavours, which is a pretty high mark.
Agreeing symbolism
Fonterra’s Tip Top ice cream started to be sold on trial through Tmall in June 2016. one of China’s leading e-commerce providers, operated by Alibaba Group. Distribution will be handled by specialist frozen products distributor Zhuhai Ice Technology. It is still too early to report on the launch’s success, but I expect that Chinese consumers will be attracted by the icecream shown this picture, as the tiger is a symbol of strength and energy in Chinese culture.
Artisan involvement
The Chinese ice cream market is now so developed, that it is drawing the interest of international chefs. French chef Gerard Taurin, a pastry chef from Normandy, offered his latest creation at Beijing Galeries Lafayette in June 2015. Most of his ice cream is made with unusual, but very Chinese, ingredients, such as jasmine, goji berries, ginger and Sichuan peppers. Taurin’s selection comprises 10 flavours, including black sesame, tapioca pearl, hawthorn fruit, millet, jujube, cinnamon and eucalyptus. His ingredients are inspired by his travels to Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi and Sichuan provinces. He has shared his ice cream with people on the Great Wall, in the Forbidden City and in Beijing’s hutong alleyways to see how Chinese consumers react to his creations.
Memory lane
All these innovative products have pushed away older ice creams that used to be produced in the early days of the PRC. This has created a craving among older consumers for flavours from the good old days. I have reported on the return of old brands in previous posts. One local company in Heilongjiang province has launched Dongbei Daban ice cream,playing the nostalgia card to promote its ice cream. Dongbei uses 1980s style packaging to wrap the same simple shaped cones designed from that era. For older customers, this brings back memories of their childhood.
In a comparable move, China’s oldest soda drink brand Beibingyang launched an ice cream popsicle of its own in 2020: Brow Sugar Pearl Double Stick ice cream.
Beibingyang made a major move in increasing its visibility in 2025 by opening a chain of its own ice cream shops. I visited one in Beijing’s Chengxiang Department Store.
A related trend that started during COVID-19 time is the national(ist) trend (guochao), a nostalgic trend reviving traditional Chinese symbols. Haägen-Dasz followed suit early 2022 by launching a box of ice cream of various flavours packed as a box of Mahyong stones.
Less sugar, less fat, healthier ingredients
Considering that China has the largest occurrence of diabetes in the world and that obesity is also on the increase, an increasing number of people are calling for healthy or low-fat diets, which facilitates the creation of new ice cream types. Noticeably, frozen yogurt has also become a popular choice in China. The probiotics found in frozen yogurt help conserve some of the nutritional value in ice cream, which is conducive to maintaining beauty, slimming, and digestion. Another example is the “one egg” ice cream introduced by Deshi in 2016. The special ‘’egg + oats’’ ingredients drew a significant amount of attention. Astoundingly, the average daily sales volume of “one egg’’ (see photo) was 2 million in Northeast China in the beginning of 2017.
Moutai + Mengniu = baijiu + milk = ice cream
A different development, for some people perhaps less healthy, is that China’s top distiller Moutai and dairy company Mengniu launched three flavours of prepackaged ice cream in May 2022. The three flavours－plum, vanilla and milk－come in small-sized tubs of 75 grams each, are spiked with 2% alcohol. With this move, Moutai hopes to approach more young people. In spite of some improvements, baijiu still has an ‘old men’s drink’ image.
The demand for diversity in choice of flavours (and related colour, texture, etc.) has also reached the ice cream business. This picture shows the various flavours of ice cream wafers offered by Dadongbei in 2025.
The right column from top to bottom: white peach, coffee, melon, strawberry, milk;
The left column similar: melon, white peach, red bean, durian, hawthorn, taro.
DIY experience
As Chinese are putting more focus on experience as opposed to the food itself, ice cream is no longer just seen as a mere treat, but as a product of a modern life style. In traditional Chinese mind-sets, eating very cold food is perceived as adverse to health. However, the considerable impact of Western ice cream has changed perceptions. Nowadays, DIY experience ice cream stores is a new strategy to cater to the requirement of customers. Nestlé, Yili , and the Japanese brand Meiji have together invested over RMB 1 billion for developing new ice cream projects in 2016 to win more shares on the market. In May 2017, Magnum reopened its DIY experience shop called “Pleasure Store” in K11 Shopping and Art Center, Shanghai for the third time, which rekindled the enthusiasm of many ice cream lovers. In other cities like Nanjing, Beijing, Chengdu, Pleasure Store also left footprints in the busiest commercial districts like respectively Jinmaohui , Sanlitun and Taiguli in the last two years. The DIY experience does not only endow ice cream with higher value, but also strengthens the ice cream brand and customers relationship.
Prée: extremely tasty and expensive
The best evidence of the money (urban) Chinese are willing to pay for high-end icecream is Prée that opened its doors in Shanghai’s expensive entertainment quarter Xintiandi. This new high-end ice cream lounge claims to use “smart technology” and alleged recipies from “a very low profile three-star Michelin chef”. The cream gets made fresh on site, with black truffles, bourbon, roasted cherries, and other pieces of luxury. The name is said to have been derived from a popular ice cream shop owner in a small Swiss town, on a street called Ai Prée. The owner, this mystery Michelin man, only uses traditional recipes combined with advanced ice-cream technology, the PacoJet. With prices ranging from RMB 42 to 88 for a dressed up ones-scoop cup, it is the most expensive icecream parlour in China, but the customers are raving about the experience. Prée opened a subsidiary in Hangzhou mid 2018.
The next step in this trend took place in Xiamen in 2024, where people started selling ice cream combined with French fries or noodles.
Trade fair
Ice cream is now big business in China and in particular so for the suppliers of a broad range of ingredients: flavours, sweeteners, emulsifiers, thickeners, etc. This generates a more than enough critical mass for a dedicated trade fair. CICE 2015 – The 11th China International Ice Cream Industry Exhibition will be held in Beijing, April 16-18, 2015. Here, I will only copy the ingredients part of the published scope of this exhibition: specific herbs, flavors and fragrance for ice cream, compound dairy stabilizer for ice cream, natural coloring materials, diet coloring materials, sweetening substances, lactic acid bacteria, specialized & condensed milk essence, special ice cream protein powder & bean powder, other supplements include potato powder, malt essence, fresh cream, dried cheese element, primary dairy products, dairy purification powder, natural fruit powder, chocolate plate, coffee bean, coffee powder, coco fat substitute, nuts, dried fruit.
Downs too – between all the ups
Rising rents and lower profits have forced Haagen-Dazs to close stores in second- and third-tier cities in China in 2015 and 2016 amid a slowdown in the ice-cream market mainly due to a lack of innovation and its inability to keep pace with demand from increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers. Many Chinese consumers perceive Haagen-Dazs as overpriced. To quote one media article:
‘Two egg-size scoops of Haagen-Dazs icecream costs me RMB 60. I get more value for less by eating two eggs‘
However, the brand has 380 stores in 84 cities in the country, despite the challenges at markets in second and third tier cities in the country. The company reports it still maintains strong growth in large cities. Revenues in Shanghai and Beijing grew 16% and 13% respectively in June 2016, and it opened more than 60 new stores as well in 2015. Insiders believe that the slowdown is partly due to rising rental and labour costs, which have made it become more conservative regarding expansion. Haagen-Dazs also faces intense competition from many other food service players. Many cafes and coffee shops outperformed Haagen-Dazs thanks to their sophisticated dining environment and rich product availability.
Challenging flavours for the coming year(s)
The authoritative magazine for the Chinese flavour industry ‘Domestic and Overseas Aromachemical Information (GuoneiwaiXianghua Xinxi)’ of June 2016 carries an interesting article on possible new ice cream flavours, based on ideas collected from all over the globe. I will list the flavours mentioned here.
Bacon flavour
Ice cream flavoured with a tincture of bacon, adding a little caramel, to obtain a proper salty-sweet balance.
Beer flavour
An idea from Ireland, reported best in combination with dark chocolate.
Chili flavour
Chili and chocolate already has become an accepted combination, so why not try it in ice cream? Some Mexicans in the US flavour their ice cream with Tabasco. Perhaps Laoganma can get involved in this project.
Celery flavour
The origin of the flavour is closer: Japan. The taste sensation of celery ice cream is reported to be close to that of wasabi.
Garlic ice cream
I have actually tasted this one of my favourite eateries in Amsterdam: the Garlic Queen. It is also a must-eat during the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Chinese are big garlic eaters, so garlic ice cream should have a market there.
TCM ice cream
Last but certainly not least, Tradition Chinese Medicine (TCM) includes a number of herbs that could be used in ice cream. No one would object to turning such a delicacy into a health food.
Brand alliance
An interesting product is White Rabbit ice cream, i.e. ice cream flavoured like the famous White Rabbit candy. It is a very Chinese way of trying to create synergy from co-branding.
These ideas provide a rare insight in what Chinese food technologists are thinking about developing new types of ice cream. I will keep you informed about which of these flavours will be turned into a commercial product.
Seed and nuts giant Qiaqia launched a series of ice cream products using its core products are flavouring-texturing ingredients. The following two products were launched in 2025.
Melon seed popsicle
Pecan nut popsicle
Russian ice cream diplomacy
Russian ice cream has been rapidly gaining popularity in China during the past couple of years. Particularly in vogue are the products of IceBerry and sold in Qing-Feng Steamed Buns (mantou) Shops.
The photo shows a freezer containing the ice creams was labelled “Russia’s national gift”－a phrase which refers to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who brought a few boxes of that as gift for his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping when they met on the side lines of the G20 Hangzhou Summit in east China’s Zhejiang Province. Some Chinese media are referring to this as ‘ice cream diplomacy”.
The ice cream is priced between RMB 6 to 30, and each store sells an average of 300 ice creams a day. According to Roman Lola, the CEO of IceBerry, the company plans to export 500 mt of ice cream to China in 2017. It will not be an easy trip for the ice cream to travel from Russia to China, as the chilly dessert needs to be moved within a temperature-controlled supply chain. “Compared to high-end ice cream brands in Europe and the US, the Russian ice cream has an obviously benefit on price,” said Wang Xianzhe, a company manager focusing on Russian food imports in China. “The good quality and affordable price, let alone President Putin’s advertising effect, all support the Russian ice cream catching on in China.” IceBerry’s ice cream is reportedly made from high quality milk from the Ural and contains no preservatives or other artificial additives. The Russian export of ice cream to China in 2017 was worth USD 2.7 mln; up 13%.
Ice cream from space
Shanghai Space Food Co., Ltd. has acquired the license to produce and sell Astronaut Ice Cream in China. It is basic ice cream in a number of flavours that is said to be similar to ice cream prepared for consumption by American astronauts. It is supposed to be on the market early 2020.
Most Chinese believe that cheese smells like a kitchen rag, but there definitely is a future for cheese in China.
First of all, you should know that most of the Chinese do not like cheese, or at least the typical cheeses Westerners eat every day. Indeed they think it smells horrible and find hard cheeses such as Gruyere or Emmental outright disgusting. In 2017, the per-capita consumption of cheese in China was 0.1 kg a year, while it was 2.4 kg in Japan, 2.8 kg in South Korea and 18.6 kg in Europe. The value of the Chinese cheese market in 2019 was RMB 6.55 billion; up 12%.
A remarkable news item of the first quarter of 2020 was that a survey showed that home cooking during the COVID-19 lockdown caused a 32% increase in cheese consumption in China. The extraordinary period apparently trigger Chinese to do extraordinary things.
More and more Chinese people would like to try new things and to taste imported products, as is attested in many of the posts in this blog. This also includes cheese, especially in first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou. However, almost all cheese consumed by Chinese is processed, as this removes some of the most problematic properties (texture and odour). Reliable cheese-related statistics about China are notorious hard to get. According to a usually reliable Chinese soure, the country has produced 27,000 mt of cheese in 2016; 10,000 mt made from domestic raw milk and the remaining 17,000 mt being processed imported cheese. The OECD-FAO and USDA statistics are considerably higher, but I suspect that those figures include some yoghurt, which by some producers, in particular in the South, is named suanrulao ‘sour yoghurt’.
Government support
Chinese Vice Agriculture Minister Yu Kangzhen stated on Dec. 13, 2017, speaking at an event to encourage cheese consumption in schools, that efforts should be made to develop dry dairy products like cheese to improve dairy product structure and boost the dairy industry. Chang Yi, chairman of Beijing Sanyuan Food (see below), said at the event that China’s cheese consumption could grow by more than tenfold in future, and that he expected the cheese industry to maintain annual growth of 20% in the next five years.
Imports
While domestic production is growing, most cheese consumed in China is imported. China imported 108,300 mt of cheese in 2018, 2.8 times the volume of 2011.
Region
share (%)
New Zealand
42.2
Australia
27.2
USA
18.6
The old world is obviously lagging behind, which is again a result of the Chinese dislike of unprocessed cheese.
In 2023, cheese demand reached 332,000 mt, while domestic production was far lower, at 172,000 mt, in spite of the strong growth compared to the above figures. This has forced China to continue to rely on cheese imports, which were 155,000 mt in 2024, a slight decrease from the previous year, when the imported volume was 162,000 mt. Imports from Italy were reported to be growing.
Mozzarella is a major item in the list of imported cheese. Fonterra has recently opened a cheese plant in Australia to better supply the Chinese pizza market. According to a Fonterra spokesperson, already half of the Chinese pizzas are topped with mozzarella from Fonterra. Mengniu and its partner Arla have launched mozzarella in 2018.
China is lowering its cheese tariffs from 12% to 8%, effective from December 1, 2017. This will certainly boost the sales of imported cheese.
Distribution Channels
93%
in supermarkets and hypermarkets
4.8%
in small independent grocers
1.9%
in other food retailers
0.3%
small outlets like hotels and upscale restaurants targeting expatriates
The supermarket is the no.1 distribution channel, because it is absolutely necessary to maintain the cold chain for cheese. Many small grocers cannot provide this quality service. With the development of the Internet and new ways of consumption, it is now possible to buy your cheese online.
Imports are still rising significantly. China has imported 16,446.9 mt of cheese during the first 4 months of 2017; up 41.25%.
Drivers for demand
Demand for cheese is driven by two factors: Chinese consumers looking for high quality dairy products and safe products prefer major western brands. Lifestyles are moving towards European standards of consumption.
The tastes of Chinese regarding cheese will develop gradually. Traditionally Chinese food is served with several dishes. And unlike us, Chinese don’t eat cold meal. However, pizza has made extremely popular in China after the arrival of Pizza Hut in the Middle Kingdom. Its success has inspired many Chinese entrepreneurs to venture into Italian restaurants, and cheese is an inalienable ingredient of Italian cuisine.
Main brands
The site Manufacturing News has published the following list of China’s top 10 cheese brands of 2015
Half of these are indeed domestic companies, but most of them import bulk cheese and further process it into processed cheese in various shapes and flavours.
The oldest domestic cheese producer is Sanyuan (Beijing). It imported a Danish cheese production line in 1985, mainly to service the foreign diplomatic community in the Chinese capital. Sanyuan still produces this cheese under the Beijing Cheese (Beijing Ganlao) brand. It now has a capacity of 10,000 mt p.a.
Strikingly, most domestic companies that actually produce cheese in China are small, often privately owned, enterprises. There is Qishi (Inner Mongolia), China’s first producer of Mozzarella, but the most interesting case is no doubt Le Fromager de Pekin, a company set up by a Chinese, Liu Yang, who learned making cheese in France. Liu spent 7 years in France studying the language, business administration and cheese making. Upon his return to China in 2007, he stumbled through careers in translation and IT sales before opening Le Fromager de Pekin, which sells about 5300 pounds of cheese a year. Although Liu’s mission is to promote cheese to fellow Chinese, almost all of his clients are expatriates living in Beijing. Still, he’s convinced that will change. Watch this video report about his activities.
Case study: Yellow Valley: Gouda as only a Dutchman can make it
When Marc de Ruiter’s Yellow Valley business opened up in 2004, it was the first fair trade Gouda cheese producer in China. Known by almost half the expat population in Beijing. Here is a video impression from 2009.
Yellow Valley is located near Taiyuan (Shanxi). It is a small production facility on the premises of a dairy farm. Here, Marc de Ruiter, a Dutch agriculturist, produces his original Gouda cheeses. He is supported by two full-time employees – one cheese maker and one who handles marketing and sales. Two part-time employees take care of the online sales activities via China’s e-commerce platforms. The small Gouda cheese making business grew more successful over the years and the Yellow Valley products were widely known in China’s largest cities. After China was hit by the melamine milk scandal, Yellow Valley had to close down, like many small dairy-processing businesses.
After the close-down from 2011 to 2015, Marc found a way to restart. “Producing ‘farmhouse based cheese’ was the loophole I needed. It requires a lot less licences and permits. The cheese can only be sold directly and online – not in stores.” The Yellow Valley ‘new style’ offers a wide range of traditional and special products, like the original Cheese, the Aged, Herbs de Provence and Cumin varieties and even with local cheese favourites with onions and garlic. There is even a spicy variation red Currently, nearly 90% of its sales go through WeChat, Weidian and Taobao channels.
After the reopening of Yellow Valley in mid-2015, Marc aims to increase production. The company is expanding its facilities to 65+ square metres of production space, a ripening chamber and an exhibition space.
Cheese spread
Shanghai Bright’s cheese spread won a Superior Taste Award by the International Taste Institute in 2024.
Foreign acquisition
French cheese maker Bel acquired 70% of Shandong-based Junjun Cheese in 2022. Bel has said not more about this move than that it expects hat it will hasten its advance in the Chinese market.
Cheese as flavouring ingredient
So the Chinese are surely developing a taste for cheese, but what would it take to bring this market to maturation? One problem is that cheese is hard to integrate in Chinese cuisine. You can try to design a recipe for cheese-filled dumplings, but this may make them taste more like an Italian dish than a Chinese snack. The same would happen, if you would sprinkle grated cheese over a bowl of Sichuan-style dandan noodles. It may actually be tasty, but I wonder if it would ever become a hit. One solution could be to do tests with adding molds like those used to produce furu (fermented bean curd) to cheese and develop an indigenous moldy cheese. Huangshan Tianfeng Foods Co. produces a version of the traditional Chinese rice cake niangao flavoured with cheese. Sailor Foods (Fujian) has launched a Cod & Cheese Sausage in 2019. It is a steamed cod-based sausage, with chunks of cheese to add a new flavour, while avoiding a strong cheese taste.
Zhenzhang Food Co., Ltd. (Xi’an, Shaanxi) has launched a cheese-filled mooncake in 2020, using Tatura cheese cake as the main ingredient for the filling. You could see it as a Chinese style cheese cake.
Hsu Fu Chi launched a cheese flavoured saqima in 2021. The company states that it uses imported Danish cheese.
Another problem is that the little natural cheese that is actually produced on Chinese soil is not linked to the local food tradition, the local terroir. When I first lived in China in the 1970s, we could buy cheese from Heilongjiang province (the home region of Mr Liu Yang), close to the Russian border. That was real natural cheese. However, production seems to have halted; pushed from the market by imported cheese and locally produced processed cheese. An idea for Mr Liu Yang would be to promote his Beijing-produced cheese as the ideal companion of Beijing’s famous baijiu (distilled liquor): Erguotou; a beautiful marriage between the old and new local tradition.
If this post is of interest to you, you may also like to read:
Peverelli on Chinese food and culture 
