China’s food landscape in 2025: strategy, speed and impermanence (and musical lollipops)

This month the New Zealand China Council jumped at the chance to partner with our good friends at the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono to co-host a stakeholder event focused on China’s ever-changing food sector.

Our guide on a whistle-stop tour of the China food scene in 2025 was Christiana Zhu, a kiwi alt dairy entrepreneur based in Shanghai back home for a visit. Christiana is founder of Marvelous Foods.

A panel of NZ-based experts also shared their own experiences and views:  Mark Tanner, a New Zealand China Council member who heads China market strategy consultancy China Skinny; Cleo Gilmour, co-founder of LILO Desserts, KPMG sustainability advisor and also a member of our Council; and James Robertson, Chief of Staff at Fonterra, who has just returned from three years in Shanghai as his company’s trade strategy manager for Asia.   Fonterra’s Chair Peter McBride is a New Zealand China Council member.

Distilling (or maybe fermenting?) all the food sector facts, trends and strategies shared by our speakers is no easy feat.  Here is our summary of the themes that emerged for us:

Cashless convenience is king:   Modern China is a country of mobile phone order-ins, robot room service in hotels, beggars displaying QR codes, and 400 million delivery parcels a day (5000 per second) carried by 12 million delivery drivers.  Delivered anywhere in the vast Chinese market within 48 hours, everything is just a click of a smart phone screen away, ordered by savvy shoppers who use social media apps as sources of information and recommendations.

Food is an emotion:  Faced with so much choice and information, Chinese consumers make their purchasing decisions based on a lot more than how good a product tastes.  Emotional attachment to brand stories and provenance, cute animation, packaging and other product features all play a role.  Traceability is a story-telling tool, not just a compliance requirement.

China speed is a thing:  Some in our audience hadn’t heard of it, but for others ‘China Speed’ is a feature of their lives and business.  Chinese brands can develop a new idea into the market in as little as three days – 12 months of product development, as we might see in New Zealand, is glacially slow by comparison.

Impermanence by design:  Linked to the above point, products hitting China’s market may not stay around for long, and that’s on purpose:  They hit with a splash, and just as quickly disappear from view as the Next Big Thing takes over.  Flexibility is a tool of survival.  Those lollipops that play music in your ears when you suck them may not exist forever, and that’s OK.

Compete, or collaborate?  So how can New Zealand producers and brands keep up?  And do we have to?  Fonterra operates a chain of application centres in China to work with chefs and food producers on its latest food service and ingredients offering.  The company is innovative and nimble, but it realises that Chinese producers are faster still – perhaps it’s better to be the shovel in the gold rush, helping local consumer brands conquer the market.  (And the shovel can still be an advanced model, adding value to NZ milk.)

Give it a crack, kiwis!  New Zealand creativity and innovation can still generate success in the China market.  We don’t have to chase every trend.  A strong brand story resonating with a niche sub-market in China can still be effective.  But to do this, New Zealand exporters need to know their target consumer group very well – even if that’s a WeChat group, to start with.

Good for me vs good for the planet:  While New Zealand consumers increasingly purchase environmentally-friendly products, the main attraction of sustainably-produced food in China is still its healthy impacts on individuals and their families, rather than on the planet.  It’s a good example of needing to understand how Chinese consumers think.

Alt dairy – another example of understanding local thinking:  In New Zealand consumers see plant-based dairy products as a competing alternative to milk from animals.  China doesn’t – soy milk has been a staple for millennia, and now dairy consumption is increasing.  This is not a tension or a binary choice, both products are on offer (just as kiwis eat apples and also oranges).

Others are also wearing green:  An advertisement for Irish dairy products looks just like ours.  How can New Zealand differentiate itself in the Chinese market – is clean and green still enough?  What should our Unique Selling Points be?

‘Strategic stamina’ is also evident in China:  Finally, China speed and impermanence by design don’t mean Chinese companies lack direction or focus.  Both the government and business are also adept setting up and pursuing long-term goals. China’s city streets are increasingly quiet because its auto-makers backed a new direction – new energy vehicle (NEV) monthly sales in China surpassed combustion engine vehicles for the first time in July 2024, and continue to grow. So travel fast, but keep your eye on the road and the horizon?

Our thanks to our inspiring speakers, and to all those who attended the event:  we look forward to seeing you at the next one.