One of Beijing’s leading pizza chains is heavily promoting its new “lobster pizza” with a special price this week to pull in punters.
Big Pizza has cut the price of the pizza from CNY 118 (USD 17.82, EUR 15.04) to CNY 79 (USD 11.93, EUR 10.07) per six-inch pizza. However, staff at a Big Pizza outlet explained when Seafoodsource visited the chain’s packed store in the Shijiazhuang district on Monday evening this week that while the pizza is described in marketing material as containing lobster, it actually is topped with crayfish.
Nonetheless, the promotion shows how Western-style food is being localized to China’s tastes for seafood, particularly as China’s crayfish season takes off. Pizza chains like Big Pizza have expanded rapidly in Chinese cities in the past five years, appealing to the mass market with buffets of salads and pizzas that are popular with families.
Other chains competing for a share of the space include Pizza Hut and Origus Pizza Buffet, known locally as Hao Lun Ge in Chinese, which last year restyled its stores in Beijing to add a large seafood buffet.
