The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a surge in sales of processed seafood and in-home dining in China, but the Chinese market remains a difficult one for heavily processed products due to ingrained consumer perceptions, according to new Euromonitor International research.
“Many consumers have been concerned about the low seafood content of processed seafood products, which are widely perceived to consist largely of flour," the Europmonitor report said.
However, many of China’s top seafood product-makers have taken note of the complaint and are seeking to address it, the report noted.
"Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, manufacturers were already working to address this issue, introducing premium products with a higher seafood content to grocery channels,” Euromonitor found.
Among those premium products is the upmarket 1903 range distributed by leading frozen seafood player Fujian Haixin Food Co Ltd, which features frozen crayfish products. Haixin grew its sales by 10 percent in 2020 to CNY1.45 billion (USD 217 million, EUR 188 million).
Separately, Fujian Anjoy Foods grew sales of its fish balls and other processed seafood snacks by 40 percent in 2020 to CNY 2.83 billion (USD 424 million, EUR 367 million), and is building a large processing park in the key aquaculture and fisheries province of Shandong with the capacity to produce 200,000 metric tons of processed seafood product per year for the convenience retail and hotpot markets.
The COVID crisis was a marketing opportunity for convenience-focused Anjoy, whose branded fishballs, made from squid, cod, and crayfish meat, sell offline and online across China. The firm saw earnings rise 17 percent in the first quarter of 2020 – which coincided with China’s severe COVID-19 lockdown - to CNY 1.2 billion (USD 168 million, EUR 156 million) in Q1 2021, while its profits rose 35 percent to CNY 88 million (USD 12.32 million, EUR 11.44 million).
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