No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
China Eats—Innovation, E-Commerce and Food Safety at the Hangzhou Food Forum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
Since 2000, the driving force behind China's booming food industries has shifted from state planning to consumer demand. This shift has powered the growing importance of food branding, as consumers rely increasingly on known brands in the search for safe and wholesome food. While earlier eras of food branding strongly favored multinationals like Coca Cola and Nestlé, Chinese brands appear to be gradually regaining the trust of consumers, who increasingly rely on online ecosystems that seamlessly combine ecommerce, e-payment and home delivery into a self-contained purchasing environment. The 2019 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum suggests that future trends may include increasing reliance on data informatics, a domestic shift to focus on free spending GenZ consumers, and branded export of China's unique strength in logistics.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 2019
References
Notes
1 See here.
2 See here.
3 The National Bureau of Statistics of China produces monthly reports on the total retail sales of consumer Goods Data from the NBS are used by all levels of government and are generally felt to be reliable. Before 2015, statistics for food, edible oils, beverages and tobacco combined into a single category. See here See here See here See here See here See here See here
4 On dragonhead enterprises, see Qian Forrest Zhang and John Andrew Donaldson. “The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness and Collective Land Rights.” The China Journal (2008) 60: 25-47, and Thomas David DuBois and Alisha Gao, Big Meat: The rise and impact of mega-farming in China's beef, sheep and dairy industries [source]. DuBois is currently examining dragon head enterprises in local dairy development.
5 Twenty years of the China Statistical Yearbook (中国统计年鉴) are available online here. China Statistical Yearbook 2013: 11-2 Per Capita Annual Income and Engel's Coefficient of Urban and Rural Households; China Statistical Yearbook 2018: 6-6 Per Capita Income and Consumption Expenditure of Urban Households
6 China Statistical Yearbook 2013, 11-8 Per Capita Annual Purchases of Major Commodities of Urban Households. The drop in fresh vegetable consumption may derive from rising consumption of cooked meals, or decreased consumption of low value vegetables such as cabbage.
7 On safety perceptions in dairy, see Thomas David DuBois, “Borden and Nestlé in East Asia, 1870-1929: Branding and retail strategy in the condensed milk trade” forthcoming in Business History.
8 Teresa da Silva Lopes. Global Brands: The Growth of Multinationals in the Alcoholic Drinks Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Jones, G. (1994). Brands and Marketing. In Geoffrey G. Jones, G., & Nicholas J. Morgan, (Eds.). Adding value: brands and marketing in food and drink. London: Routledge. Wilkins, M. (1994). When and why brand names in food and drink? In Jones & Morgan, Adding value. Eva Fernandez, Unsuccessful responses to quality uncertainty: Brands in Spain's sherry industry, 1920-1990, Business History, 52:1, 100-119.
9 On the marketing of Jinhua cured ham, see Chung-Hao (Pio) Kuo, Pigs, Pork, and Ham: From Farm to Table in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, forthcoming. An earlier tradition of scholarship emphasized the unique social value of brands in late Imperial China. Gary Hamilton and C. Lai (1989), “Consumerism Without Capitalism: Consumption and Brand Names in Late Imperial China,” in The Social Economy of Consumption: Monographs in Economic Anthropology, 6, Henry Rutz and Benjamin Orlove, eds. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 253-79.
10 William C. Kirby. (1995). China Unincorporated: Company Law and Business Enterprise in Twentieth- Century China. The Journal of Asian Studies, 54:1, 43-63.
11 On the effect of branding on product differentiation, see John Mercer, (2010). A mark of distinction: Branding and trade mark law in the UK from the 1860s. Business History, 52: 1, 17-42.
12 Kazuko Furuta, K. (2017). Imitation, Counterfeiting, and the Market in Early Twentieth Century Japan and China: Intra-Asian Trade in Modern Small Sundry Goods. In Kazuko Furuta & Linda Grove, (Eds.) Imitation, Counterfeiting and the Quality of Goods in Modern Asian History. Singapore: Springer. Karl Gerth, (2003). China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Frank Dikotter. Things Modern: Material Culture and Everyday Life in China. London: Hurst, 2006.
13 See here
14 Data available here
15 On the importance of COO, see Chung Koo Kim, Jay Young Chung, (1997). Brand popularity, country image and market share: An empirical study. Journal of International Business Studies, 28, 361-386. Francesca Checchinato, Marta Disegna & Tiziano Vescovi (2013): Does country of origin affect brand associations? The case of Italian brands in China, Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science (2013); Felicity Barnes, & David M. Higgins. (2017). Brand image, cultural association and marketing: ‘New Zealand’ butter and lamb exports to Britain, c. 1920–1938, Business History.
16 Changbai Xiu, K.K. Klein, “Melamine in milk products in China: Examining the factors that led to deliberate use of the contaminant? Food Policy 35 (2010) 463–470.
17 See here
18 See here
19 For the effect of an earlier retail revolution, see Fernando Collantes, (2016) Food chains and the retailing revolution: supermarkets, dairy processors and consumers in Spain (1960 to the present). Business History, 58: 7, 1055–1076
20 List of 139 organic farms available here.
21 See here
22 See here
23 See here
24 See here
25 See here
26 See here