One of China’s fastest-growing grilled fish restaurant chains has opened its first store in the nation’s capital of Beijing.
Kaojiang Spicy Grilled Fish recently opened a new outlet in the Joy City malls in Beijing’s Chaoyang district. Founded in 2013, Kaojiang has 70 outlets nationwide and serves full, grilled, lower-priced fish, such as pangasius, perch, and tilapia.
Headquartered in the city of Chengdu in the province of Sichuan, Kaojiang also serves spicy dishes popular from that region of China.
Though similar restaurants like Tai Er have had to cut back expansion plans due to dampened consumer sentiment, Kaojiang has approached expansion at a more modest pace, capitalizing slowly on a growing grilled, low-priced fish market in China.
“In consideration of the changes in the external environment, looking ahead, the group will adopt a more prudent restaurant network expansion strategy and adjust its expansion target for 2024,” Jiumaojiu Holdings, which owns Tai Er, said.
Though growth for companies in the space has been slow, partly because competition is heavy, Chinese market research company 36Kr has valued the grilled fish market overall in China at CNY 154.6 billion (USD 21.6 billion, EUR 20 billion), growing by 10.7 percent year over year between 2022 and 2023.
Other firms attempting to capitalize on the trend include Shenzhen Gantang Mingshan Catering, which owns Chinese grilled fish chain Tanyu. The firm said it aimed to secure a listing on the Hong Kong exchange this year, but has not done so yet.
Grilled fish restaurant chains are an important market for Chinese seafood processors like Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic and Guangdong Evergreen Group, both of which are named in the 36Kr report as key suppliers to the industry. Producers of cheap whitefish abroad, including pangasius-farming firms in Vietnam, have also targeted the market for growth.
