China’s seafood market is “progressively recovering, especially in first-tier cities like Beijing [and] Shanghai,” according to the CEO of a Chinese seafood marketing consultancy.
“Demand has been high during the recent May Day holiday, especially for black cod, crab, pollock, and flounder,” Robin Wang, CEO of SMH International, told SeafoodSource.
Wang’s company is a seafood-focused marketing agency with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong serving clients including the Alaskan Seafood Marketing Institute.
“Flounder is proving popular on online platforms, and also there’s undersupply [for flounder] at offline retail stores,” Wang said. “Lots of pollock was imported for processing and re-export in the past, but now more and more products have been retained in the Chinese market for domestic consumption.”
Fast food restaurants are proving a growing market for Alaskan pollock as well as among online consumers, Wang said.
“In addition to retail business, Alaskan pollock is getting favored among foodservice, especially fast-food restaurants. Of course, Russian pollock is available on the local market as well,” he said.
Wang pointed to the fact that Shanghai Disneyland recently announced its reopening in mid- to late-May as a sign that the Chinese economy is progressing back to normality.
“While gatherings such as banquets and weddings are still restrained, but as the pandemic is seemingly under control in China, we expect large gatherings to be allowed soon and restrictions relaxed,” Wang said. “Nonetheless, we expect that it will still take some time to get back to the pre-pandemic level.”
Alaskan pollock producers have been looking to create a domestic market for their produce in China, in much the same way as the Chinese offices of Norwegian Seafood Council has been promoting “Arctic cod” in consumer-facing market places.
Industry body Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) in January organized a tour for industry representatives of retail outlets in China, a trip sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. The trip also focused on distributors and the potential of further tapping demand in the quick service and hot pot restaurant market for whitefish inputs.
Photo courtesy of Momo2050/Shutterstock
