Aug 23, 2024
A recent food scandal in China – involving cooking oil transported in uncleaned gas tankers – has revived long-standing but recently quieted concerns about food safety among Chinese consumers. The scandal could result in a renewed hyperawareness of food traceability and quality assurance among Chinese consumers, according to one Kiwi with local knowledge of China.
Mark Tanner, China Skinny
Mark Tanner runs China Skinny, a consumers insights firm based in Shanghai, from between China and Wellington. In his firm’s first newsletter after the scandal, Tanner wrote that interest in foreign brands and products is likely to increase, with organic and natural foods continuing their climb in popularity.
He went on to note that consumers will likely pay close attention to ingredients, as well as country of origin, and that brands with traceability technology built into their products would likely benefit. Finally, he noted that, as with other food scandals, home cooking could see an increase in popularity.
All this could possibly bode well for New Zealand venison – a product pitched as restaurant quality but available at home, that is a natural superfood due to high protein and iron, underpinned by company quality assurance and government regulations.
Tanner says, “During the pandemic and previous scandals, when there was an inherent uncertainty around the safety of food, we have seen Chinese consumers and retailers placing more emphasis on traceability and other ways to assure that the food they are considering will not make them sick, or worse.”
Venison is a premium meat and is positioned as such wherever it is sold. China is no different, and that means targeting the wealthier populations in top-tier cities – such as Beijing, Shanghai and the southern tech hub of Shenzhen. These are consumers who are very online, hyper educated, and who take health, and to a lesser degree sustainability, more seriously than the general populace.
With the China Health Policy 2030 using diet as one of its pillars for improved national health, a shift away from the traditionally preferred pork to leaner meats with higher protein is a shift that has the potential to greatly impact dietary habits.
“Health is generally in the top 1-2 drivers for food choices in China, with its importance accelerating since 2020,” says Tanner. “In addition to clean ingredients, low salt, low sugar and low fat, food safety is intrinsically linked to Chinese consumers’ perception of healthy food.”
One only needs to cast an eye across some of the comments on Chinese social media platform WeChat after the aforementioned food scandal to see how consumers feel.
This is where the systems that New Zealand has in place – right the way from the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) programme to the deer industry’s own VelTrak (for velvet traceability) to the opt-in New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme (NZFAP) – can ease the minds of both regulators and consumers, not just China but in all of our overseas markets.
The Chinese economy is currently in a bit of a slump, as the entire New Zealand agriculture sector can attest. A rebalancing of the economy away from property and encouraging greater consumption is being touted as what is needed. If this comes to pass, there is considerable potential for both New Zealand venison and velvet, even more so if the quality assurance bona fides come along for the ride.
