Hongyu Ren (Erin), Fellow China, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board
Cheese seldom shows in traditional Chinese cuisines, and for a lot of Chinese customers, the salty cheese flavor is hard to accept (Bord Bia). However in recent years, the Chinese cheese market increase fast, with an average speed 13.2% for the last five years (Euromonitor), and the estimated average growth rate is 8.9% by value, for the next 5 years (Euromonitor).
Cheese is a popular concept in China, but not very clear. When searching the key word “cheese” in Baidu Index (Similar to Google Index), the highest related topic is “What’s cheese”. Cheese can be easily connected with pizza, bakery, bubble tea, burgers and kids’ snacks. The Chinese dairy companies Mengniu and Yili use kid snacks as their first step to enter into cheese market and a Chinese dairy company called Milkground, who is focused on the kid snacks, saw market share increase from 1.6% in 2015 to 4.8% in 2019, because of their cheese stick product (Euromonitor).
This image is the star product from Milkground, called “妙可蓝多” (Miao ke lan duo) in Chinese. The cheese stick is the only product they have in the kids snack sector, with a sweet and fruit flavor, it’s easily accepted by Chinese consumers.
Cheese is something new to Chinese customers. Considering concerns about health and food safety, there are high demands for imported protein food in China. What’s more, Ireland’s natural image and dairy strengths are positives in Chinese customer’s mind (Bord Bia). But different from other protein food, like meat, Chinese are not familiar with cheese. For Irish cheese companies, innovation to make cheese connect with Chinese common life will create more opportunities.
References:
Euromonitor (2019), “Cheese in China”, Euromonitor International September 2019
Bord Bia (2019), “Exploring the opportunity for Irish Cheese in China”