JD.com, one of China’s largest e-commerce sites, has seen a jump in interest in its ready-to-cook seafood products.
A tightening of customs inspections and fears over COVID-19 being carried on imported seafood have driven up concern among Chinese consumers about buying fresh seafood, said a sales manager at JD Fresh.
And with travel restrictions still in place across China, ready-to-cook products are also popular among locked-down consumers wary of “complex cooking processes” while still hoping to eat something special for the Chinese New Year holiday on 12 February, the manager told SeafoodSource.
“For young consumers who don’t know how to cook a big and fancy meal to celebrate the annual festival, ready-to-cook products have become one of their convenient and favorite choices,” the JD.com spokesperson said.
A 400-gram pickled vegetable fish dish made with pangasius, which retails for CNY 35.80 (USD 5.37, EUR 4.65), is coming the ready-to-cook items seeing an explosion in interest on JD.com. Marketed as a “New Year Dinner” meal, it is sold frozen and is reheated to eat. Other ready-to-cook meals, including scallops with vermicelli, fish with fermented vegetables, and spicy crayfish, have also done well, he said.
Meals known as being local or regional specialties have been a particular hit, according to the JD.com spokesperson. Those include fermented fish from An’hui and the “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” traditional dish from Fujian, which saw “significant sales growth” during the 2020 Singles Day Grand Promotion on 11 November. A complex, high-end product normally the preserve of luxury seafood restaurants, the dish features ingredients like abalone, sea cucumber, ginseng, and scallops.
The movement toward local foods coincides well with a corporate initiative launched by JD.com last November, when JD Fresh formed an “industrial alliance” to promote domestic seafood with more than 200 enterprises across the value chain, as well as sustainability certifier Marine Stewardship Council.
“Going forward, this could be a new trend,” the manager said.
While online retailers had success with selling seafood in the lead-up to Chinese New Year, the holiday – traditionally the country’s peak season for seafood sales – is shaping up as a bleak one for China’s restaurant industry. Local governments around China have requested migrant workers and residents refrain from making their traditional trip home to family for the upcoming Spring Festival.
Photo courtesy of JD.com
