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Dairy: a leading source of nutrition in the Chinese food industry

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I have posted on dairy a number of times.

Central product group

Dairy is obviously a central product in the Chinese food industry. In this post, I will introduce the developments in the past 1 – 2 years prior to the date of posting. I will include background information from the above mentioned posts, so you can read this post by itself, without having to click on those links all the time.

Tradition

China is not known as a traditional dairy nation. However, milk and dairy products have been an essential ingredient of the diets of a number of ethnic minorities. These products have been introduced in Chinese cuisine in areas where they mixed with those of Han Chinese. Especially the various dairy products made by Mongolians have been known by the Han in the Northern regions of China. The following pictures shows a Mongolian woman exhibiting a number of dairy products.

Some of the better known products are: milk bean curd (naidoufu), cheese (nailao), milk curds (naigeda) Most of the Mongolian products are solid and sweetened. In this way they keep longer. The cheese, e.g., looks more like toffees in shape, texture and flavour.

When Westerners started settling in China, they introduced their dairy products and also started producing some. This was first of all for their own consumption, but several Chinese who regularly interacted with them acquired a liking for some dairy products. Yoghurt was easy to accept, as it was suitable for consumption even by people with a lactose intolerance. Sweetened condensed milk was also liked and became the first domestically produced dairy product. In some regions, in particular Guangdong whose capital has been China’s main foreign trade port for centuries, Chinese developed a number of dishes with (sweetened condensed) milk as the main ingredient. Milk tea (naicha) and fried milk (zhanai) are best known in this category.

A number of companies have developed industrial processes for producing these traditional products. No need to introduce milk tea, as this rage has been exported to several Southeast Asian countries and even to some Western nations with a large number of ethnic Chinese.

Ruiyuan Dairy (Xinjiang) is producing naigeda on an industrial scale. The company has two patents for this new process. Some of the redesigned traditional dairy products have little in common anymore with the original thing. A good example is the industrially produced naisu (‘milk crisps’) by Duoweier Bioengineering (Chifeng, Inner Mongolia). The ingredients list is quite impressive, but has nothing to do with the traditional product:

whole milk powder, starch, crystal sugar, vegetable fat, glucose syrup, vegetable oil, additives [emulsifiers (sodium caseinate, glycerol fatty acid ester), stabilizer (sodium biphosphate), silicon dioxide], dextrin, whey powder, water, glucose powder, maltose, cream, lactic acid, citric acid, food flavour.

The effect of the long ingredients list is softened by the Mongolian symbols on the packaging: a girl in traditional attire pouring milk and the yurts in the background.

History

The development of the modern Chinese dairy industry can be roughly divided in three stages:

  • 1949-1998; a period of gradual growth;
  • 1999-2008; period of rapid growth. Since 1999, the development of China’s dairy industry has entered the “golden decade”, and the demand for dairy products increased rapidly. That of the liquid milk market grew with an average of 60% per year. However, the weak spot in the value chain was milk collection between dairy farms and the dairy processers. This led to the famous ‘melamine incident’ in 2008.
  • 2009-present; It took a major effort for the domestic dairy industry to regain the confidence of Chinese consumers, but it succeeded a few years ago and the industry is growing reasonably well.

Current situation

Although the dairy stock is showing a continuous decline, it does not affect the milk production, because the milk per cow is increasing. China’s raw milk production reached 39.32 mln tons in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 6.77%.

Also in 2022, the per capita dairy consumption of Chinese consumers increased to 24.36 kg/ person/year, a year-on-year increase of 0.74% compared with 2021. The volume of 2015 was 21.41 kg/person/year.

Dairy is regarded as a major source of nutrition by the Chinese government. It is therefore strongly promoted. Chinese consumers also perceive milk and dairy products as a major source of nutrition, in particular for young children. Dairy is placed in the second tier in the current Chinese nutrition tree (pagoda in Chinese).

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, The total volume of dairy products in 2022 was 31.177 mln mt, up 2.84%. Liquid milk accounted for 93.79% of this volume. It was followed by milk powder, accounting for 3.23%. Half of the latter was infant formula; the other half consisting of a wide range of powders for various consumer segments. The remaining 2.98% consists of various products, like: yoghurt, butter, cheese, condensed milk, cream, ice cream, etc.

A2 milk

The Chinese market for A2 milk is growing rapidly. At a time when the birth rate is declining, A2 Milk Company reportedly does very well with double-digit growth in revenue and profit. The company’s financial report for the first half of 2023 shows that early infant milk powder sales reached NZ$ 270.7 mln, an increase of 43.5% year-on-year. Liquid milk sales in China and other Asian regions also increased by 34.6% to NZ$ 7.5 mln. Revenue from other nutritional products also increased by 83.7% to NZ$ 17.8 mln.

Culturally, Chinese are susceptible for ‘rare healthy products’. Chinese influencers are generally positive about A2 milk powder. Discussions among specialists show more varied opinions. Many experts doubt whether A2 milk is really worth the premium price.

Other milk sources

Milk comes from cows. This is so well known that the standard Chinese word for ‘milk’ is niunai ‘cow milk’. Milk from other sources is also available. Of these, goat milk is large enough to influence the total milk supply. Other sources have sprung up in recent years, which come in small quantities and have a more fancy image.

Goat milk has the image of being slightly easier to digest that cow milk. It has been around for longer in China. The main production regions, Shandong, Shaanxi and Yunnan do not form a geographic cluster. It is more a matter of local tradition than climate or geological conditions. The value of goat milk market in 2020 was RMB 10.4 billion; up 3.9% compared to 2019. Approximately 30% of the goat milk powder consumed in 2020 was imported.

Camel milk is on the rise in China, but quantities are small. China produced 18,200 mt of camel milk in 2021, a little more than in the previous year. In 2020, 11.7% was used for producing ice cream, 20.7% for camel milk powder, 8.6% for fermented products, 4.2% for others and the remaining was consumed as liquid milk.

South China produces small quantities of water buffalo milk and Inner Mongolia small quantities of horse milk.

Plant based milk

This is a big product category in China. in 2022, 22.4% of the Chinese population suffered from lactose intolerance. Vegetable protein drinks are regarded as a good alternative. The total turnover 2021 was RMB 123.4 bln, 10.47% higher than the previous year.

The nomenclature has changed with the coming and going of fashions. Protein drinks (danbai yinliao) was the first name and is still widely used. With the growing influence from the Western vogue for milk alternatives, the term nai (milk) was introduced and gained some hold. This change of term made it easier to let these products (or better, their producers) cash in on the healthy image of milk and dairy.

A broad range of plants is used to produce protein drinks: soybeans, almonds, walnuts, coconuts, peanuts, hickory, sesame, rice, oat. Soybean drinks are the oldest and remain the largest category.

China’s top dairy companies have adopted an ‘if you can’t beat them’ strategy. Mengniu and Yili, the top 2, have launched their own protein beverages recently. Yili announced its plans during a public meeting at the end of 2014. Mengniu has entered into a joint venture with US-based WhiteWave Foods Company, a leading consumer packaged food and beverage company in North America and Europe early 2013. The JV is marketing WhiteWave’s Silk brand protein drinks in China. This product is common in the US and is an affiliate of Alpro, a brand in Europe, though its positioning in China is quite unique. With its convergence of flavours, Silk’s positioning as a 100% natural solution, targeting those that are lactose intolerant, could spell success for Silk in China, especially as consumers become ever more sceptical regarding the origin, nutrition, safety and environmental impact of the food and beverages they buy.

Cheese

Cheese consumption is increasing at an incredible speed during the past few years, considering that not so long ago, almost all Chinese were abhorred about the smell of cheese. Cheese supply volume in China has surged from 140,000 mt to 270,000 mt during the period 2017-2022. This figure is expected to maintain double-digit growth, far above the world average for the coming years.

Although the average cheese consumption in China is far below many Western countries as well as Japan and Korea, it has significantly increased from 80g/person/year in 2017 to 130g/person/year in 2021. At the 2022 China Cheese Development Summit Forum, the Dairy Association of China released an action plan, proposing that the national cheese production would reach 500,000 mt by 2025. Much of the cheese sold in China is processed, but non-processed is increasing.

An interesting development is that Chinese cheese producers are focusing on developing one-bite cheese snacks, for all ages, but in particular for children. This is partly a result of the pressure of the Chinese authorities to increase dairy consumption among children. Such products include cheese sticks, cheese slices, cheese strips, etc. Cheese stick is the most popular one, which was first launched by Milkana, but was popularized by Milkground. Presently, promoted by the increasingly intensive market competition, dairy enterprises have rolled out a wide range of cheese sticks with distinctive features. Apart from various funny shapes, including ‘cheese lollies’, they are also experimenting with flavours. Here is an ad of Milkana strawberry flavoured cheese sticks.

A new cheese stick brand, Cheespirit, launched a series of innovative products on May 28, 2023: ‘Vegetable & Fruit Growing Up Cheese Sticks’. The company claims to have selected 8 kinds of ‘super vegetables and fruits’ to create high-calcium and high-VC cheese sticks, containing 3% dietary fiber. The calcium is 100% milk calcium, with a 1.8:1 calcium-phosphorus ratio. The product contains 40% whey protein, as well as algal oil DHA and various trace elements derived from vegetables and fruits, providing nutrients such as protein, dietary fibre, vitamins and other basic nutrients needed by children. It contains no preservatives. It uses two innovative two-colour-flavours: Lele orange (tomato, carrot and apple compound flavour) that contains β-carotene; and absolute purple (purple sweet potato, purple cabbage blueberry complex flavour) containing anthocyanins to help the children’s growth.

Yoghurt

Yoghurt in the broadest sense of the word (soured milk; suannai in Chinese) is the only dairy product consumed regularly by Chinese city dwellers around the founding of the PRC. As the bacteria consume most or all of the lactose, people with a lactose intolerance can eat yoghurt safely. Yoghurt was available in Beijing in clay pots with a paper lid. Milk and a culture were added to the pots, which were then kept to ferment until the yoghurt, a liquid with curds, was ready for consumption.

In the perception among Chinese consumers as well as in the promotion of dairy products, the differences between yoghurt, yoghurt drinks, fermented milk drinks, etc., is rather vague. There is a huge supply of fermented formulated dairy products. The most salient common trait is that the fermentation has lowered the lactose content, which makes the products available for a wider range of consumers. Other shared traits are that they are relatively sweet (sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners) and very often flavoured with fruit (real fruit, fruit flavours, or combinations).

Modern yoghurt production set off during the 1980s and the development of new products has never really stopped. Especially during the past decade, yoghurt has become a pet product of the Chinese dairy industry, a field in which the R&D departments could realize their wildest dreams in textures, flavours and packaging designs. One could even state that yoghurt has become a kind of fashionable product. Fads come and go and many products seem to have a very limited life span. Still, the developments in this sector contain interesting points to take away.

The nationalist trend

The renewed interest in traditional culture in China (the nationalist trend [guochao) is also reflected in the celebration of traditional holidays, like the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although dairy is regarded as a foreign food group, yoghurts have been launched in connection with traditional holidays. Yili has issued a limited edition of its Ambrosial yoghurt for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Even Beijing’s pastry maker Daoxiangcun, that is not a dairy company, has launched a one-time Dragon Boat Festival yoghurt flavoured with mooncake, the traditional pastry eaten during that festival and of which Daoxiangcun is a main supplier.

Yoghurt and milk tea

Milk tea is a vogue that reached Mainland China from Taiwan and quickly became bigger than in its home market. Young Chinese are willing to line up for hours to get a cup of their favorite milk tea. The latest stage in this fad is milk tea based coffee, i.e. coffee with all kinds of ingredients you can add to milk tea. It has even added a new word to Chinese vocabulary: milk-tea-ization (naichahua). This term is also used for various fads in the Chinese coffee scene. Soft drink maker Genki Forrest has cashed in that by launching a milk tea inspired yoghurt.

Black yoghurt

Launching black versions of existing food products is another trend in China. Black food is traditionally linked to health. Moreover, there is a small but stable group of young people interested in gothic music, including the black outfit that come with it. A number of black yoghurts have been launched during the 2020s. E.g., there is Yiming’s yoghurt coloured with inkfish ink and black sesame seeds.

New raw materials

The plant-based trend has not only reached China as well, it is booming there. There is a plant-based meat tradition in China developed by Buddhist monasteries. Buddhist monks and nuns were not allowed to eat meat, but like their European counterparts, did not want to disregard their craving for the texture and flavour of meat and fish. They developed a broad range of imitations that are still served in traditional vegetarian restaurants and restaurants operated by monasteries.

Solid yoghurt

A recent development is the launch of cubed frozen yoghurt by Yili. Yili claims that it is using a special dry freezing process developed by the space industry that retains the 100 mln lactobacillus bacteria in each cube. The probiotic used is patented by Yili.

Yoghurt candy

The step from solid yoghurt to yoghurt candy is a small one. Xinlüjia (Shantou, Fujian) produces a yoghurt candy called Old Yoghurt (Laosuannai). An interesting aspect (sales trick) is that you can heat the product first in your hand, then open it, and pull it into long shreds. That may not appeal to all people, but the manufacturer apparently believes it will attract younger consumers.

Ice cream

The developments in the Chinese ice cream market have been so rapid during the past few years, that they have been hard to follow. In this post, I will focus on a specific innovative category: savoury ice cream. Until recently, ice cream was typically a sweet to very sweet treat. Now, the most peculiar flavoured ice creams are appearing all over the country. I have selected a few representative products.

Shred meat (rousong) is a Chinese meat-based snack produced by slowly roasting meat for a long time until it is very tender, but still dry, unlike stewed meat, and then shredded. It is usually not consumed on its own, but is used as an ingredient in various foods. Here it is combined with chopped spring onions (the English says chives, but the Chinese, which I take as the original, says onions). It can work. Shred meat is traditionally used to flavour sweet-savoury pastries.

Hot and spicy

A chili flavoured variety was to be expected, so here it is. Spicy food used to be restricted to a few regions in China, but chili has become a vogue in almost the entire country. The packaging promises a lot of fire. I like chili chocolate (the mild type), so I expect to like this too.

More innovative dairy products will be developed in China in the near future. Keep an eye on this post and do not hesitate to contact me for tailor made market reports.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a major book introducing the cultural drivers behind China’s economic success. Peter has been involved with the Chinese food and beverage industries since 1985.

Traditional Chinese food recreated in milk

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Regular readers of this site know that dairy is held in high regards as a major source of nutrition in China. However, many (still a majority) of Chinese have a problem with the typical flavour of fresh milk.

Chinese food technologists have tried to overcome this problem by creating a large array of formulated dairy beverages.

Haihe Dairy, based in Tianjin, the city along the Haihe River, has moved this trend on to the next level by launching a series of drinking milks flavoured as traditional Chinese snacks and dishes. I will introduce them in this post, but I need to warn readers with a faint stomach that some of these products may strike you as less than appetising.

Guoba milk

Guoba has been introduced in an earlier post. It is a kind of rice crisp eaten as a Chinese alternative for Western potato crisps. As the flavour of guoba itself is rather bland, Haihe has made it into ‘guoba dish milk’, including the flavour of seasoning and, looking at the label, other ingredients. I like guoba, but I am not sure if I will appreciate this milk. I will let you know, whenever I have tasted it on the spot in Tianjin.

Mahua milk

Mahua too has been introduced in a post of its own. It actually is a traditional Tianjin snack and the locals love them, hence the text on the pack: ‘Taste in memory’. But, again, will they love this milk as well?

Jianbing milk

Jianbing are sold on the streets all over northern China and I have had a decent one in Manchester as well. Jianbing are like creps, filled with spring onions, youtiao (fried dow sticks) and a mildly spicy sauce. They are an excellent way to address a pang of hunger. And now you can savour milk with jianbing flavour.

Pear cake milk

Another traditional Tianjin snack; a sweet one this time. I can actually imagine that this could be a tasty member of the odd flavour milks by Haihe.

Zengbeng carp milk

I have save the best for last. Zengbeng Carp is a fresh carp, marinated in a blend of seasonings and then placed in a specially designed bamboo basket (zeng). This basket is then rapidly immersed in hot oil, causing the carp to “beng” or leap and sizzle. Lovely, but, I am getting repetitive, will zengbeng carp flavoured milk catch on?

Still, this post shows how far Chinese food makers will go to blend the traditional with the modern. This development fits in with the general nationalistic trend in Chinese society.

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

From milk to candy and back to milk – co-branding Chinese style

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I originally wanted to post this product on the Trends page of this blog, as a notable innovative product. However, thinking more about the history of how the White Rabbit brand has developed (also see my post on candy), I believe it deserves a separate mini-post on the main page.

Indigenous milk candy

White Rabbit Creamy Candy was originally manufactured by the ABC Candy Factory of Shanghai in 1943, when a merchant from ABC tried a milk candy from England and thought that the taste of the candy was not bad. After half a year of development, he then manufactured the factory’s own brand of milk candies. The main ingredient is not raw milk, but sweetened condensed milk, the oldest indigenous industrial dairy product in China. The oldest producers was Baihao, established in Zhejiang province in 1926. The first ABC milk candies were packaged using a red Mickey Mouse drawing on the label, and were named ABC Mickey Mouse Sweets. As their prices were lower than imported products, they became widely popular among the people.

In the 1950s, ABC became a state-owned enterprise. As Mickey Mouse was seen as a symbol for worshiping foreign countries, the packaging was redesigned to feature a White Rabbit and an artist’s paint palette with Chinese and English hand-lettering in a colour scheme of red, blue and black against a white background. The result was a distinctive candy label design that became instantly recognizable around the world. Initially, production of the candies was capped at 800 kg per day, and they were manually produced. In 1959, these candies were given as gifts for the tenth National Day of the China. In 1972, Premier Zhou Enlai used White Rabbit candies as a gift to American president Richard Nixon when the latter visited China. The White Rabbit brand was transferred to the Guanshengyuan Group in November 1997.

See my post on candy for more details about the product, including its formulation.

White Rabbit Ice cream

Although the White Rabbit brand already had some history, its popularity worldwide has grown with the economy of China. Demand is increasing, especially during the Chinese New Year period, when many families provide White Rabbit sweets among other candies for visitors. The product generated a turnover of RMB 320 mln in 2013. The candies are now exported to more than forty countries and territories, including the United States, Europe and Singapore. On December 2, 2017, Wong’s Ice Cream of Toronto, Canada unveiled the first ice cream flavour made from White Rabbit Candy.

This association with ice cream has made Guanshengyuan to launch an ‘ice cream flavoured’ version of its candies. See my post on candy for more details on the formulation.

Starbucks and White Rabbit – cross-cultural co-branding

Starbucks is known for its attempts to grow roots in local markets by adding its own versions of local delicacies, like selling moon cakes for the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival. The company also occasionally serves White Rabbit Candy Frappe. According to a blogger, the it is made with two simple ingredients from Starbucks: Syrup Creme Frap and Brown Brown Butter Shortbread Sauce. If this is correct, Starbucks is only using the brand name and a picture of the original candies. The product itself seems unrelated to White Rabbit candy.

White Rabbit cosmetics

The brand is so attractive that it has been licensed to a number of cosmetics products. The first is White Rabbit Lip Balm, produced by Maxam. It is a limited-edition product and sold out in seconds on the online retailer, Tmall. The product has ingredients including essences of sweet almonds and olive. Shen Qinfeng from Guanshengyuan, stated in an interview: “How to make our brand younger, as well as adding nostalgia and emotion, is something we have been exploring.”

White Rabbit’s popularity in Singapore has given birth to a range of cosmetics, including shower cream and body lotion. While you could say that lip balm is still related to food, as you will gradually swallow it, these products are exclusively for external use. However, the background picture does include ice cream, so there is at least a subtle allusion to food.

White Rabbit milk

The most recent development is that Shanghai-based Bright Dairy launched a White Rabbit flavoured milk. The package tells us that this milk is ‘milk candy-flavoured’. It is like stating that a tangerine tastes like tangerine candy. White Rabbit Milk is the product of Chinese culture. It is the result of a strategic alliance of two major Shanghai-based companies, reflecting the strong regional chauvinism in Chinese culture (also see my post on the various food capitals in China). I have noted in several posts in this blog that the creamy flavour of milk is still not generally accepted in China. Shanghai could be the region in China with the highest acceptance of milk. Shanghai people often like to brag about their love for milk and dairy products. This is why China’s first milk candy was developed in that city in the first place. Now the success of the White Rabbit brand is used to create synergy with another old Shanghai dairy brand. It is not sure yet, whether White Rabbit Milk will be as successful as White Rabbit Candy or Bright Milk, but I will keep you abreast on this blog.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Enzyme applications in the Chinese food and beverage industry

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I have a weak spot for enzymes, as this was one of the first type of food ingredients I worked with, when I started to get involved in the Chinese food industry. That was in 1985.

China is a huge market for food enzymes, possibly the largest. This is not only due to the size of the country and the therefore equally large food and beverage industry. Fermentation has been an organic part of Chinese food processing since the Chinese starting recording their history in writing. All the ways one can change the flavour, texture and preservability of raw foods with microorganisms all boil down to the enzymes secreted by the bacteria and moulds. While identifying and producing single enzymes did not start in China, most applications found an eager market there. If you can brew more beer from the same volume of raw materials, than by all means do so. No considerations like Reinheitsgebote in China.

Apart from the use of enzymes in innovative production processes, enzymes can also be employed to turn offal from the food processing industry into valuable ingredients. And again, because of the mere size of the country, the domestic food and beverage industry produces an awful lot of offal each single day.

The road from the first attempts of producing indigenous single enzymes in China took off slowly in the early 1980s, but within a decade, the first exports of Chinese made industrial enzymes took place. Today, multinationals in this industry have to compete with a growing number of local manufacturers, whose R&D efforts generate more and more proprietary enzymes for specific applications. China produced approximately 750,000 mt of enzymes in the first half of 2018; up 8% compared to the same period of 2017.

The graph shows the growth of the Chinese enzymes industry according to a recent analysis by Mcinsey.

I have mentioned some enzyme applications in earlier posts, like the production of steamed bread (mantou). In this post, I will provide an overall summary the most important application areas of food enzymes in China.

Brewing

Adjunct cooking

Rice is relatively cheap in China, while most of the barley has to be imported. Virtually all Chinese brewers therefore use rice as adjunct, which calls for a thermostable alpha-amylase to properly liquefy the rice, before mixing it with mashed barley. 30% is the typical ratio of rice to malt, but with a really thermostable enzyme, you can increase up to 50%. Multinational suppliers still rule in this market, but the number of local producers of this enzyme is increasing.

Mashing

Unlike the liquefaction of the rice, enzymes, single beta-glucanases or compound products, are not obligatory in the mash tun. Compound enzymes as provided by the main multinationals are used in China, but not by all brewers. The larger the plant the more added value can be generated from using such products. Domestic enzyme producers are slowly gaining ground in this market as well.

Other

Adding papain for clarification and glucose oxidase for keeping beer fresh longer are very common in Chinese breweries. Both enzymes are produced in high quantity and quality domestically.

Spirits (baijiu)

As a traditional Chinese product, data for this industry are scarce and unreliable. Enzymes are reportedly widely used in the saccharification of the raw materials, but I assume that it will be mainly domestic generic enzymes, the cheaper the better.

Rice wine

Some rice wine producers use glucoamylase to improve the saccharification of the fermentation broth. Thermostable alpha-amylase, cellulase and neutral protease are also used, the latter for improving the flavour. In view of the positive publications, it can be expected that the use of enzymes will increase in this application, possibly to 100%. The reason for the slower adoption is probably that this is an indigenous Chinese application, which has escaped the radar of the multinationals. As this is a traditional Chinese product, this is mainly a segment for domestic enzymes.

Wine

Part of the wineries use enzymes, but figures indicating penetration and who are the main suppliers are lacking. Based on Chinese practice, we may assume that the smaller wineries will be more willing to use enzymes, in particular for clarification, than the larger ones that are preoccupied with creating an image of being (able to compare with) classic wine makers. All international suppliers are investing in marketing their enzymes for this application, but I have not found indications for serious use in practice.

Fruit juice

Apple

China is good for almost half of the global apple production. The country is therefore also the producer of apple juice concentrate (AJC). All apple juice concentrate (AJC) in China is processed with enzymes. 100% for clarification and probably also close to 100% for maceration. Domestic production of pectinases started later that those for starch processing as used in brewing, but quantity and quality are improving. The Chinese fruit processing industry is huge and therefore forms a lucrative market for pectinases.

Apples sometimes contain so much starch, that you need to add a little amylase to avoid problems during clarification and concentration.

Some companies use special enzymes to clean the ultrafilter.

Other fruits

Enzymes are used as well, but no reliable data are available. The general trend that Chinese processors will prefer to use enzymes, provided they are cost efficient, applies very strongly in this industry.

Bakery/Cereals:

Bread, baked and steamed

Growing demand for bread and other baked goods is presenting the local baking industries with major challenges. Enzyme design for bakery products plays an important role in overcoming these. However, the fluctuating raw material situation demands individual solutions and prompt responses from the enzyme producers.

Most to all bread in China is produced with enzymes. However, this is realised in the form of compound flour/bread improvers. These will typically include fungal alpha-amylase and sometimes xylanase, glucose oxidase and lipase, roughly in that order of frequency.

After China prohibited the use of chemical whiteners like benzoyl peroxide, industrial producers of steamed bread are coping with the problem that their product is often not as white as the customers (have learned to) accept. Lipase, or more precisely: lipoxygenase, can reduce the betacarotene in flour and thus produce whiter steamed bread. Fungal amylase and xylanase are said to produce steamed bread with a smoother surface, which gives a shiny impression.

An interesting development is taking place in this industry in China. A number of domestic enzyme producers have sprung up specialising in enzymes of the bakery industry, offering products specially formulated for a particular type of biscuit, cake, bread or traditional Chinese baking product, like steamed bread. These products can be best described as formulated enzymes, something in between single enzymes and the traditional flour improvers. This is an interesting development and a potential threat for the traditional suppliers of flour improvers, once the Chinese producers dare to bring those products to the international market.

Flour (wheat) and flour-based products

As introduced in my earlier post on flour and flour improvers or those on traditional Chinese foods like dumplings, some Chinese flour companies have developed specially formulated flours for dumplings, fried dough sticks (youtiao) or steamed bread (mantou). However, these companies hardly ever add pure enzymes, but compound flour improvers as well. The workers in this sector are not really trained to handle enzymes, while adding a standard pack of flour improver to a standard bag of flour does not require any education. The top companies like Guchuan (Beijing) will have proper R&D departments that may experiment with single enzymes, but only in small quantities.

Biscuits

The most typical enzyme application in this industry is protease (papain) for the production of crispy biscuits. Domestic enzymes do that trick very well. Some companies have developed specially formed enzyme products for a broad range of biscuits, cookies and wafers.

noodles

Lipase is the typical enzyme for noodles, or better: flour improvers for noodles. Xylanase, glucose oxidase and transglutaminase are occasionally used.

Traditional pastry

Many flour manufacturer produce specialty flours for cake and traditional pastry, but only very few domestic producers of baking enzymes have so far developed special products for this category. The flagship product among the traditional pastries is still the moon cake. One domestic enzyme producer is supplying a ‘moon cake crust improver’, consisting of compound enzymes and emulsifiers, so again more an improver than an enzyme product.

Dairy

Cheese

As mentioned in my earlier post about this topic, cheese production in China is still in its infancy and most of it is processed imported cheese. However, there definitely is an emerging market for rennet and as it is a new thing in China, that market can be expected to be interested in microbial rennet rather than the natural product.

Some domestic companies offer bromelain for cheese making, but these are generic bromelains and not specially formulated products for that application. Multinationals are mentioning it in their marketing in China, but it is not likely that they are putting in much effort.

Hydrolised milk

Only a few manufactures: Yili (Inner Mongolia), Sanyuan (Beijing), New Hope (Sichuan), Bright (Shanghai) and only limited quantities. Yili seems to be the largest in this category, marketing its product to the elderly. This is still mainly a market for international suppliers, but domestic lactases have also appeared.

enz-DairyEnzymeTank

Enzymatic hydrolysis tank in a dairy company.

Oil extraction

During a recent industry meeting, it was reported that the enzymatic extraction of tea seed oil in China had already moved on from trial to regular production.

Savoury products and flavours

HVP/HAP, nucleotides, soy derivatives (incl. soy sauce), fish sauce, etc.

These are again mainly traditional Chinese seasoning products. As most of these typically include a fermentation step, they are highly interesting for introducing enzymes to make the production more efficient or cleaner, turn out better tasting and healthier products. Examples mentioned in earlier posts are: protease in the production of fermented beancurd (furu), fermented flour paste (jiang), and old soup (lao tang).

Although these are all bulk applications and therefore interesting for enzyme suppliers, the penetration of enzymes in each product group is still not very well documented. I will add more information to this post, whenever reliable data become available.

Fat hydrolosis

Maidele Food is a major producer of cow fat for the growing Chinese hot pot business. In particular the Chongqing hot pot, famous (notorious) for its spicy broth, cow fat is an important ingredient. The company has received an innovation award from Sichuan province in 2022 for its enzymatic process for increasing the aroma of cow fat for hot pot.

Meat

HAP

Hydrolysing meat with protease produces raw material for a wide range of meat-flavoured seasoning products. Considerable R&D is taking place in China to improve processes for teh production of HAP from a broad range of animal-derived raw material.

Stock

Proteases are regularly used to maximise the extraction of flavour from meat in the production of stock, like the ‘old soup (laotang)‘ introduced in an earlier post.

Tenderisation

Papain is the typical enzyme for this application, followed by bromelein. For both, China is now the main production region.

Reusing offall

With such a huge slaughtering industry, China is bound to be the world’s largest producer of meat offall. Treatment of it with proteases can produce a broad range of flavouring products.

Transglutaminase

TG is the fastest growing enzyme in the Chinese food industry. Applied in meat, it can help improving the structure  of meat, which i.a. makes it easier to cut thin slices of meat.

Aquatic products

HAP

Same as for meat. Some Chinese researchers are studying the synthesis of meat flavour by enzymatic hydrolysis (trypsin) of squid skin followed by maillard reaction. The skins are offal of squid processing.

Fish sauce

The traditional production process of fish sauce is very long. It can be speeded up considerably by hydrolyzing  (part of the raw materials with proteases).

Removing scales

A combination of collagenase and pepsin can decrease the damage to the fish during mechanical removing of scales.

Deoderisation

The flesh of some fish has a considerable urea content, which causes an unpleasant odour. Soy bean powder contains urease and treating fish meat with urease can remove enough of the urea to neutralise the odour.

Preservation

A number of enzymes can help the preservation of meat, in particular lysozyme, transglutaminase, lipase triglyceride hydrolase. Considerable R&D activity is taking place in China in this respect.

Food ingredients

Fructo Oligosaccharide (FOS)

The Chinese authorities have approved the use of β-fructofuranosidase to produce FOS from sugar in January 2018.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

Considerable R&D is also going on in China to develop enzymatic process for TCM. An example mentioned in an earlier post is enzymatic hydrolysis to produce sea cucumber powder.

New applications awaiting approval

The China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment has listed the following enzymes to be assessed for use in food.

Enzyme production strain origin gene application
Polygalacturonase aspergillus niger aspergillus niger fruit juice extraction
Maltotetrahydrolase bacillus licheniformis pseudomonas stutzeri baking
Alpha-glucosidae Trichoderma reesei aspergillus niger cereal processing
Carboxypeptidase aspergillus niger aspergillus niger meat processing
Lipase aspergillus niger fusarium culmorum baking

Relevant parties need to react before Sept. 9, 2019.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Sour is the new sweet in China – young Chinese food scientists play with vinegar

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Vinegar, i.e. the Chinese cereals-based vinegar, has been an important ingredient in Chinese cuisine for ages. A famous application is vinegar-based dipping for dumplings.

Vinegar is a growth product in China, although only 30% of the output is branded vinegar with the remaining 70% workshop-style factories. China has produced 4.61 mln mt of vinegar in 2022; up 3.83%.

A traditionally important vinegar region is Shanxi province. Qingxu county in Shanxi is often referred to as the ‘vinegar capital‘ of China.

However, it was not regarded as something for direct consumption by most Chinese, who preferred their snacks and soft drinks sweet, sweeter, sweetest. Until recently, that is. The past 2 – 3 years have seen a surge in so called ‘vinegar beverages’ (cuyinliao). These are mildly acid drinks made of naturally acidified fruit juice (apple vinegar is the top product in this category) or drinks produced by mixing vinegar with other ingredients. These products are advertised as healthier choices than the traditional sugary drinks.

This product group has grown so rapidly, that China’s top vinegar producer, Hengshun, with 83.8% market share in 2018, has organised a competition for students of food science in various Chinese universities to design new types of drinks, but also foods, based on vinegar. The various products the next generation of Chinese food scientists came up with is so interesting, that I will list the top products in this post.

First prize

Apple Vinegar drink

appvinegar

As introduced above, this is not a new type of drink, but the jury still awarded it the first prize due its innovative production process. Apples are first baked to the pectin of the apples in small active molecules and increase flavour through the maillard reaction. The juice is then fermented twice.

Second prizes

Cuxian-xian (literally: Vinegar Fibre – Fibre)

cuxianxian

Arrowroot starch is fermented with Acetobacter xylinus to obtain a high fibre refreshing drink.

Hua Young fruit fibre and probiotics effervescent tablets

huayoung

These are ascribed a medicinal function: increasing appetite and relieving bowel and stomach trouble.

Water melon double vinegar

watermeltwo

This drink consists of two varieties made from the flesh and skin of water melon, hence the two colours.

Third prizes

Vinegar strawberries

vinstrawberries

These are preserved strawberries made with Hengshun vinegar and honey.

Cranberry flavoured healthy plum vinegar

cranplum

Green plums (qingmei) are fermented and flavoured with cranberries, resulting in a refreshing sweet and sour beverage.

Konjac vinegar jelly

vinjelly

Fruit jelly has been a favourite snack all over Asia for the past few years, and this product adds an innovative new member to the already extended family of fruit jellies.

Vinegar love

vinlove

Fruit juice is mixed with white vinegar and flavoured with flower petals, resulting in romantic colours.

Hengshun crispy bones

vinbones

Crispy bones are soaked in Hengshun vinegar giving the bones a sweet and sour taste. It is chewy and rich in calcium.

Most innovative prizes

Filled thousand layer vinegar

vinlayers

Crackers are filled with a combination of jam and Hengshun vinegar. It is positioned as a healthy snack.

Lactobacillus in vinegar

vinlacto

Lactobacillus is added to traditional vinegar. The strain is acid and heat resistant. It enhances the antioxidant activity of the vinegar.

Best packaging prize

Vinegar lotus eggs

vinlotus

Soft sweet lotus pod is flavour with a mixture of sardines and Hengshun vinegar and a touch of chili sauce, producing sweet & sour crispy fish balls.

Best marketing prize

Xiaoxixi (laugh hi hi) vinegar milk

vinmilk

Formulated milk drinks are already popular in China. Milk is mixed with pineapple vinegar, creating a kind of yoghurt with a unique flavour.

Not all of these products will make it to the shelves of Chinese supermarkets, but this list provides a rare glimpse into the perception of young Chinese food scientists.

Apart from this contest, vinegar-flavoured icecream has appeared in China as well in the course of 2018. This photo has been taken in Taiyuan (Shanxi).

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

China’s breakfast revolution

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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 busy49
Other reasons25
No appetite in the morning17
No need or directly eat lunch9

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

Tab1

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

Tab2

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).

Fig1

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.

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 next step in convenience was taken in 2021, when Ocak launched a sachet-size version of its breakfast cereals.

OcakBreakfastSachet

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.

Fig2

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

Table2

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.

Fig3

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.

JB-street
JB-GBL

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.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.