Chinese seafood processor and importer Dalian Rich Enterprise Group Co. has found a new hit in the domestic retail market with its convenience range targeted at home consumption.
The new salad range of vacuum-packed mackerel, salmon, and tilapia fish products – each weighing 60 grams – is selling well at Chinese retail, Dalian Rich Sales Executive Sara Shi, said. The salmon pack is retailing at CNY 19.80 (USD 3.0, EUR 2.76), while the mackerel pack retails at RMB 16.80 (USD 2.50, EUR 2.34).
“Our plant is the only one with the technology to process this kind of product,” Shi said, adding that the range sells in big city outlets of convenience chains Family Mart, Lawson, and Seven-Eleven.
“It is a frozen to fresh product, we process it to frozen, then stores sell it fresh, it is ready to eat, there is no need to thaw [the fish],” Shi said. Dalian Rich will export the series to Southeast Asia later this month, she added.
The company’s range of seafood dumplings and its value-added salmon range exported to North America are selling well, Shi said. However, inflation and COVID-related lockdown costs continue to pressure processors like Dalian Rich. Prices have increased because of the higher costs of seafood, flour, oil, and vegetables.
“Domestic delivery costs have increased also,” said Shi. “Processing at our plant is going well, it’s just that the COVID control policy has increased our management costs a lot. [We have] isolated workers for removing the packing of imported raw material. We do the COVID testing for all workers every day.”
Meanwhile, the cost of importing raw materials – such as “demurrage, plug [for charging refrigerated containers], yard, centralized warehouse handling cost, etcetera” – is still high, Shi said.
Dalian Rich is located in one of China’s largest ports and seafood processing hubs, which was also impacted last year by restrictions on movement due to COVID-19 outbreaks and related testing of inbound cargo.
Photo courtesy of Dalian Rich
