Opportunities abound for seafood importers dealing in China

Seafood is set to become the staple protein in China, with the typical Chinese citizen expected to consume 42.6 kg, or almost 94 lbs., of seafood by 2022.

On a broader scale, according to SeafoodSource research, the country as a whole will be eating 63 million tons of seafood in five years, an increase of 26 percent over current figures, with 14 percent of that tonnage attributed to imported seafood. As such, China’s marketplaces offer abundant opportunity for seafood importers, explained a keynote panel of financial and market analysts during the National Fisheries Institute’s 2017 Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC), held last week in San Francisco, California.

“Imported seafood culture is now spreading to western China, which used to be considered more remote and less prosperous than east coast, and that will only serve to further push demand and prices higher,” said SeafoodSource Executive Editor Cliff White during a presentation on e-commerce in China.

“The Chinese consumers have the willingness, ability and opportunity to buy seafood, especially imported seafood, more than ever before. This will only increase,” added a fellow analyst present on the GSMC panel.

Not only does China have a “stronger focus on imported seafood” when compared to other key markets such as the U.S. – it’s also home to the “most advanced online market, further opening opportunities for marketing seafood,” explained the panel.

Consumers in China, whether online or out in the marketplace, are looking for specific types of seafood goods, the session speakers confirmed. Chinese consumers want “convenience, variety, quality and safety,” with a special emphasis on the latter.

“In interviews with specialists in e-commerce in China, I have heard over and over again comments like those made by Eric Li, Vice President of e-commerce at Yiguo, at Seafood Expo North America last year,” said White.

According to Li, “There have been a lot of scandals in the past decade with milk, antibiotics, chemicals in food…people believe an online supplier can provide better quality in terms of safety.”

“Fortunately…the U.S. has a reputation in China for safe and wholesome food production,” White said.

Importers to China should also note the trends in income spend heading into the next decade. “Income in China is still growing at 8 percent p.a., which is higher than nearly any other country in the world, and will serve to up food expenditures in the country by over USD 500 billion (EUR 464 billion) by 2025,” one panelist speculated.

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