Dingdong Maicai saw its sales of seafood rise 80 percent year-over-year during the country’s recent October holiday.
The Chinese online retailer’s top-selling products were clams, sea bass (also known as perch), and small shrimp, a Dingdong spokesperson told SeafoodSource. The shift away from previous holiday favorites such as salmon and North American lobster, which are longtime staples of Chinese holiday dining, are a sign that dining trends are changing in China in favor of domestic seafood.
Dingdong also reported a 320 percent year-over-year rise in sales of pre-prepared hot-pots during the national holiday. Hot-pot has long been a favored form of communal dining in China, particularly during the colder months of the year.
A report from the country’s restaurant industry association is predicting major growth for seafood consumption in a more consolidated catering industry in the coming decade. The China Restaurants Association predicted the domestic market will evolve from its current highly fragmented status – the top ten seafood restaurant brands hold three percent of the overall market share – to one of greater concentration of operators, offering online and offline products to a largely urban middle class.
The report valued the market at CNY 463 billion (USD 69.4 billion, EUR 60.1 billion) in 2020 but projects an average annual growth in sales of 10 percent in the coming decade. While noting that per-capita seafood consumption dropped during the pandemic, the report said catering seafood sales will grow as more consumers take up regular eating of seafood. Currently, only 42 percent of China’s population consumes seafood regularly, the report noted.
Seafood-themed convenience dining chains are experiencing “tremendous growth” among consumers born in the 1980s and 1990s, China Restaurants Association Chao Ming said in the introduction to the report.
“China’s seafood catering growth potential is really big,” he said.
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