Dairy manufacturers want to conquer Chinese kitchens

In the Chinese commercial kitchens, hardly any dairy products, such as cheese, cream and butter, are used at the moment. Dairy manufacturers FrieslandCampina and Fonterra want to change that. Both companies aim to work with dairy products more often in Chinese kitchens.

Both FrieslandCampina and Fonterra have started organizing training courses for Chinese chefs in Shanghai. At $150 billion a year, the Chinese food market is one of the largest in the world. The country only has the United States and Japan ahead of it. Not only that makes the Chinese market attractive for the dairy manufacturers. The fact that the Chinese population is increasingly living according to Western culture also appeals to the manufacturers.

Due to the influence of England on Hong Kong, dairy products have been used there for years. Over five percent of all products used in the catering industry there consist of dairy products. If FrieslandCampina can match this, it will generate billions for the company. 'We see that the middle classes in China in particular have grown enormously. We also see that they increasingly want to adapt to the Western lifestyle,' says Batthew Pang, vice president of Foodservice in China at FrieslandCampina.

Fonterra hopes that the training courses will give Chinese chefs more confidence in cooking with dairy products. According to the company, the cooks then choose to use dairy products more quickly. Fonterra has already sold more than 31 liters of milk to Foodservice China in the quarter to 2016 October 271. That is a growth of 36 percent compared to a year earlier.

Another drawback is that several studies show that a large part of the Chinese population is unable to absorb lactose. At FrieslandCampina they don't see that as a problem. According to Pang, this problem decreases when people come into contact with milk products from an early age.

At Fonterra, they don't see those results in the figures either. The company still sells more than ten percent of its producers to caterers and restaurants in China. The sale of mozzarella also increased by more than 65 percent last year. In the meantime, China has become one of Fonterra's largest export countries.  

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