Why the Cheese market in Shanghai can lead the way

In Shanghai, people enjoy experiencing new products and discovering new tastes from imported products. For foreign companies, educating and changing consumer tastes represents a real challenge. That’s why firms such as Bongrain Food preferred other strategies to enter into the Chinese market by adapting to the market and introducing tailored products according to Chinese tastes. Thus their products have already seen 50 new varieties. In Shanghai, the most famous cheese brands are cheese snacks for children such as Stick Cheese, Kiddy Cheese and Small Triangle Cheese. Those may represent the beginning of the Chinese adaptation to the taste of cheese; especially by going through new Chinese youth.

According to Euromonitor, cheese is being added to school lunch menus in many primary schools in Shanghai.

In the nearly past, Cheese was strictly considered as a luxury food. But with the rise of consumer awareness of the nutritious benefits of the product due to exposure to western culture and style in large international cities such as Shanghai, parents have started to buy cheese snacks for their children. Typical families believe that the presence of calcium in cheese will support vital functions in the growth of children.

Another sign of the increasing popularity of the cheese market in Shanghai is the recent apparition of traditional cheese makers in the streets. La Parisienne and La Formaggeria, for example, offer both a decent array of cheese right in the center of Shanghai. A wide range of cheese can be found on the Internet and deliver high-quality cheese in China quickly.

Also, there is an increasing amount of tasting events held in Shanghai and will get more Chinese consumers to try cheese for the first.

A variety of cheese-related foods sparks the wave of “cheese lover”

Western-style cuisine began to enter into the Chinese market a decade ago, and now it has been widely accepted by Chinese people, no matter the burgers from McDonalds or KFC, or pizza from Pizza Hut, or creative popular dishes all having options for cheese flavors. But still, Cheese’s development in China is at an early stage with low per capita consumption and novelty driving sales.

1. Cheese has emerged thick and fast in many recipes

Nowadays, Chinese netizens are favor of sharing everything about their daily lives through social media, such as LRB, short for Little Red Book, a social network for Chinese users. If we search (Cheese)on LRB, more than 220,000 posts are shown in the results, teaching you how to cook “Tomato cheese rice”, “Cheesecake”  or other dishes receipts of each include cheese.

[Source: Little Red Book]

Besides, culinary evolutions towards westernization have taken place in China. Fonterra, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, initiated one campaign to train Chinese chefs in 2015, in order to grab great potential growth in foodservice which is considered to be a promising market for the dairy industry. Dutch dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina NV opened a training kitchen in Shanghai in 2017, joining Fonterra in teaching Chinese cooks how to use milk-based products and incorporate them into popular dishes. The company aims to help chefs become more confident working with dairy ingredients and, ultimately, to incorporate more into their recipes, and according to Bloomberg, it is working.

2. Cheese milk cap becomes ridiculously popular amongst the young generation

With the rise of Wanghong drinks，for example, HEYTEA and Lelecha among famous cheese tea brands, young milky tea lovers are obsessed with the type of tea with cheese on the top. According to HEYTEA’s official website, this type of topping is made of salty cheese imported from New Zealand. Cheese tea lovers are willing to queue up for several hours only to order one cup of drinks.

[Source: HEYTEA]

3. Cheese snacks are gaining more popularity in Shanghai

Cheese snacks in retail performed well in 2018, and most of them are processed cheese which is trendy at the moment.

How to select proper cheeses for kids?

• 4 critical contents: protein, fat, calcium, sodium;

• Cheese is the concentration of milk, ready for kids supplementing protein and calcium;

• Cheese can be categorized into “natural cheese” and “processed cheese”, most kids cheeses are processed one. In terms of nutrition, these two types of cheese are almost the same.

Similar to kids cheeses, normal cheese snacks are majorly processed and have a variety of shapes, including stick, mini cup portion, cube, ball, triangle, bar shape and so forth. Considering user-friendly, convenience-in-use and easy-to-carry is a crucial factor for snacking consumption. On the other hand, innovative appearance is leading consumer trends. It’s very likely that in the near future, traditional original flavor cheese snacks can hardly meet the varied demands of sophisticated Chinese consumers. Compared to slight taste improvement by foreign brands, some Chinese brands provide very unique offerings, such as potato, date, peanut, and pizza flavor.

Shanghai given its unique attributes about open to new things and large disposable income of citizens, is expected to lead the cheese evolution in China. Lactose intolerance, according to studies, can be less of a problem if people begin to have cheese and milk in a younger age. It is reasonable to believe that exponential cheese consumption is expected to grow continuously in the foreseeable future.

source: DAXUE consulting