With Chinese New Year around the corner, there are signs of increasing demand for oysters. While volumes in the marketplace are up there is meanwhile a greater segmentation in the market, with rising interest in lower-priced products among local consumers trading up to packaged and value-added produce such as oysters. This, say industry players, will expand overall long-term demand for oysters in China, both domestic and imported.
Vendors at the massive Jingshen seafood wholesale market in Beijing are reporting a surge of imported and domestic oyster volumes into the marketplace in anticipation of rising demand up to Chinese New Year. French and U.S. oysters are offered at CNY 25 (USD 4; EUR 3.37) and CNY 40 (USD 6.43; EUR 5.39) each, respectively, explains market vendor Zhu Guanghui, who also sells local oysters sell for just CNY 5 each.
Meanwhile, there’s evidence of segmentation in the market with an increasing variety of convenience and packaged shellfish products targeting younger and affluent customers trading up from domestic oysters. Top of the pile is Yue Sheng Co., which is selling French oysters from Brittany under the Ostre Or brand (marked as an “extreme delicacy”) from its base in Shenzhen. Suppliers include Helie & Fils in France and prices average CNY 30 (USD 4.82; EUR 4) per piece at the firm’s 18 shops in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
The firm has lately done a marketing campaign on the nutritional benefits of oysters, explained Yang Siyi, a marketing manager at the firm’s dispatch centre in Lohu, on the outskirts of Shenzhen. He sees oyster sales (volume) growing by 10 percent to 20 percent year on year in 2015.
Some importers and retailers see a major opportunity in local consumers trading up from local oysters but note that the cooked nature of traditional Chinese oyster preparations means there’s much education to be done. Among the other local distributors targeting mid-market customers online and at its stores is Tian Tian Hai Xian: The Beijing-based firm is selling Guangdong-harvested oysters at CNY 68 (USD 10.93; EUR 9.17) for 10 pieces in company stores and online.
“We are now educating our customers how to eat oysters in the French way,” explained company sales executive Li Shanshan. “Before that everyone was de-shelling them and then baking them. Raw oysters are becoming a replacement for things like turtle as consumers get more knowledge.”
That’s the strategy being pursued by another firm selling local oysters: Wan Jiu Xian Cheng Co. is marketing oysters from southern Guangxi province at RMB 18/250g piece with instructions “milk of the oceans” sold fresh at “ordinary people’s prices” notes the firm, which claims its prices are 40 percent lower than those of supermarkets.
Company salesman Zhang Hui explained that to be successful local oyster vendors need to price at a more premium rate: local wet markets are charging on average CNY 60 (USD 9.64; EUR 8.09) per kilogram for beef and lamb whereas oysters are being sold at CNY 10 (USD 1.60; EUR 1.35) per kg which is cheaper than pork (CNY 23/kg) or chicken (CNY 14/kg)
While the country remains itself a massive shellfish producer, Chinese mollusk production (local annual oyster output averages 4 million metric tons and 40 percent of overall mollusk output) is being challenged by high densities and coastal development in prosperous southern provinces of Fujian and Guangdong as well as in more northerly Liaoning: on Dayaowan Bay rafts line the water as far as the eye can see but this is deceptive, says Zhang Guofan, professor at the Institute of Oceanology at the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) who points out that mortality rates rose and raft numbers dropped due to an “increase in suspended matter in the water and over-density of oyster production.”
As with most premium seafood product there’s also a health element in the marketing: Local brand Wo Fan in Xiamen markets its packaged, dried oysters as a health food for babies, mothers and as a “gas station” for men with prostate problems.
“Rich men like this oyster product, we just need to emphasize this [health attribute] more in marketing of oysters,” explained sales executive Jing Qianqian, reached by telephone.
China remains a growing market for other shellfish due to increasingly easier access from this year to key inland cities. Some 11 new ports (some of them, like Zhengzhou, one of the most populous cities) are allowed to conduct Chinese customs and sanitary clearance whereas previously all seafood imports came through a handful of large coastal cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin.
Canadian scallops are fetching CNY 116.67 (USD 18.75; EUR 15.72) per 500g or CNY 2.80 (USD 45 cents) per 12g under the Bei Ji Bei brand which packages and ships from Beijing and Tianjin. Separately, the Shen Xian firm (which also distributes under the Sension brand name) is retailing Japanese scallops at CNY 78 (USD 12.53; EUR 10.50) per 300g. The firm, which also sells New Zealand green shell mussels at CNY 66.80 (USD 10.73; EUR 8.99) per kilogram is keen to grow its customers base in lower-tiered cities, explained marketing executive Jing Nan, “but it will be a lot more affordable to do so if we can get the goods flown in rather than taking it by truck from a port.”
