China’s per capita consumption of seafood has risen over the past eight years, and particularly as home consumption surged during the Covid-19 pandemic.
New data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows per capita consumption of seafood rose from 10.4 kilograms per person in 2008 to 14.2 kilograms in 2021. The gains were particularly steep over the past three years, as Chinese consumers shifted how they eat food in response to the government’s restrictive zero-Covid policy, which gave rise to what some Chinese economists have termed a “stay-at-home economy.”
The data suggests China is bucking a global trend of weaker consumer sentiment, even if the rise in seafood consumption is driven by newer trends like eating convenience-oriented products.
Consumer behavior has changed, Cui He, general secretary of the China Aquatic Products Promotion and Marketing Association (CAPPMA) told a recent conference hosted by his organization. He told attendees that “the era of extensive scale expansion has passed” and China’s seafood companies must now focus on innovation and “optimization” of resources. Cui encouraged the country’s seafood processors to adapt to new trends in the seafood sector, like ready-to-eat meals for the domestic market.
The strengthening of China’s domestic seafood consumption comes as weaker overseas demand has hurt China’s seafood exporters. In November 2022, China’s overall exports fell 8.7 percent year-on-year by value to USD 296 billion (EUR 278 billion), a much sharper contraction than expected by China-watching economists. The country’s imports declined 10.6 percent, the steepest monthly drop in more than two years.
Photo courtesy of Mark Godfrey/SeafoodSource
