See our top 10 most read China stories of 2020, featuring palm oil, supply chain disruptions and e-commerce boom.
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See our top 10 most read China stories of 2020, featuring palm oil, supply chain disruptions and e-commerce boom.
Four major dairy industry associations in China had formed a set of guidelines for dairy and dairy product consumption for local residents in the hope of strengthening the public's immune health amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak.
Dubbed the ‘Milk and milk-related products consumption guidelines for Chinese residents’, the guidelines were formulated jointly by the National Association of Health Industry and Enterprise Management, Chinese Nutrition Society, Dairy Association of China, and China Dairy Industry Association.
Government bodies and private companies were also involved in the crafting of these guidelines, namely the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Nutrition and Health, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Mengniu.
“With epidemic prevention, control and treatment at a critical stage in the country currently, science has shown that a balanced diet can help to improve nutritional health, enhance immune resistance and provide important nutritional support to combat diseases,” said the associations via a formal statement.
Palm oil demand and consumption in the Chinese food sector was expected to see significant growth next year as the government clamped down on the use of genetically modified (GM) products, especially common in the soybean area.
Data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) revealed that China imported an additional 438,747 MT of palm oil from Malaysia to reach 1.85mn MT in total between January to August 2020, representing a rise of 31.1%.
According to experts, one of the main drivers here was an estimated rise in demand for palm oil within China’s food sector.
‘China’s consumption of palm oil is expected to rise by around 3.5% next year, and within this the food sector is going to be a major contributor,” Beijing Heyirong Group and commodities trade expert Zhou Shiyong told the audience at an MPOC webinar on the palm oil market in China.
Food and beverage authorities and industries worldwide were taking steps to prevent spreading or ‘importing’ the coronavirus into their countries, with some taking a more aggressive approach than others.
The coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, was first identified in Wuhan, China where most of the victims so far have been located. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a global health emergency last month.
In response to the crisis, authorities in several countries have acted to ban the import of food items from China. One of these was Indonesia, which started with the ban of live animal imports from the country and is set to release a list of other banned food items soon.
“We will obviously stop live animals imports from China and are still considering banning other products,” Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said in a media briefing after a government meeting about the virus.
According to one expert in January, sales of live animals at wet markets across China should be banned in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19, the heart of an outbreak of viral pneumonia centred on Wuhan in China, was likely to have originated from snakes bought from a wet market and eaten.
After comparing the genetic information of the virus with information already available on other viruses, scientists had found the disease appears to have formed from a combination of a coronavirus found in bats, and another coronavirus originating from snakes.
This unique mix of proteins changed the shape of the receptors that allow the virus to bind onto and infect cells. Researchers said this recombination may have allowed cross-species transmission from snakes to humans.
China’s appetite for durians had been on the rise over the past few years, and its status as the top export destination for major durian-producing countries worldwide such as Malaysia and Thailand was unlikely to waiver any time soon.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, the country imported some US$963mn or 358,000 tons of durian in the first half of 2019, more than doubling both in value and volume from 2018.
The majority of durian imports so far have been from Thailand, but after Malaysia secured an export deal in August 2018 for whole frozen durians, the tides look to be slowly but surely turning in its favour, particularly when concerning China’s favourite durian variant, the famed Musang King which could reach over US$100 per fruit in the country.
China’s incessant demand for durian had not only driven prices up, but also led to real estate experts predicting that durian plantations would invoke a boost in local agricultural land value in the coming year.
Tensions between Australia and China were running high over barley tariffs and beef bans, but this nothing new nor solely due to ‘punishing behaviour’ over COVID-19, according to several trade consulting experts.
Rumours had run rife in the industry about how Australia’s call for an international investigation into the origins of COVID-19 resulted in retaliatory responses by China, most notably by slapping an 80% tariff on barley imports as well as banning meat imports from four of Australia’s largest meat processors.
This was viewed as ‘comebacks’ and ‘trade retaliation’, but trade consultants in Australia had argued that this might not be the case.
“Given the current political climate, it is easy to say one party felt attacked and took action [to retaliate] but in fact, if you take a closer look at it, COVID-19 is unlikely to be the sole reason or main motivating factor behind such major trade moves, there are definitely other driving forces behind it,” trade policy consultancy ITS Global Director and international trade expert Jon Berry told FoodNavigator-Asia.
In April, the Chinese government pushed for a ‘return to normalcy’ for what it deems ‘low-risk’ COVID-19-affected areas within the country, but faced multiple challenges in the form of public anxiety over food security and relaxed control measures.
China’s Wuhan was the first epicentre of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and as of April 8, the country as a whole had recorded over 81,000 cases and 3,333 deaths. Its strict control measures implemented since January had helped it to fall behind the United States and European countries such as Spain and Italy.
But in the past few weeks, food supply and security had surfaced as a pressing new concern within the country, especially with multiple countries such as Vietnam and India stopping food exports.
In addition, documents that were purportedly leaked on social media from a high-level committee meeting at Linxia prefecture revealed orders for special arrangements to be made to ‘ensure food security’ locally.
Beverage giant Coca-Cola experienced some delays in its artificial sweetener supply chain from China as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
This affected production of its diet and no-sugar drinks, which include brands like Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Aquarius, and Minute Maid.
While the company did not reveal which sweeteners were affected, its 10-K annual report filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, revealed sucralose as a ‘critical raw material’ sourced from China.
The company purchases non-nutritive sweeteners, such as sucralose from suppliers in the United States and China. Other non-nutritive sweeteners used in its business include aspartame, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, cyclamate and steviol glycosides.
China’s online purchasing patterns throughout the country’s COVID-19 lockdown revealed a shift towards food products for home-cooking, a pattern that was expected to continue even beyond current restrictions.
China was the world’s first epicentre of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the first to essentially be moving into ‘recovery’ mode as it emerges from a nationwide quarantine, so consumer response here could very well also be a first example of how purchasing patterns may change post-pandemic.
According to consumer insights analysts, one of the main changes expected to emerge was a shift towards higher purchases of foods for at-home cooking via e-commerce (e.g. fresh vegetable, meat, uncooked noodles), as opposed to convenience and speed which were largely dominant before this.
This was likely because most restaurants and other food service chains had to close during the quarantine, cutting them off from food delivery services and driving them towards preparing meals at home instead.
China online commerce giant Alibaba predicted that the retail sector in China would see a boom in digitisation as well as a rise in healthy food options moving forth as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
Alibaba’s grocery arm Freshippo saw a surge in demand as well as new users during the January to February period this year when the COVID-19 outbreak was at its peak in the country, and believed that the pandemic had actually catalysed the growth of the online grocery sector.
“The COVID-19 outbreak accelerated key trends driving the growth in online grocery sales,” Freshippo CEO and Alibaba Group Vice President Hou Yi told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“We believe there will be a further acceleration in the digital transformation of the retail sector, with the pandemic encouraging more people, especially the older generation, to try and experience online shopping, even for groceries.
