Cheese is notpart ofChina’straditional cuisine: Chinese consumers widely consider cheese as too smelly. Nowadays, if cheese is still a niche market in China, its consumption keeps increasing: According to Mintel,“China’s cheese market has enjoyed a rapid growth from a very small base over the previous five years”. Potential market is huge as cheese still needs to penetrate markets in second and tier cities.
Having said that, most of the cheese in China isprocessed cheese(cheesefrom the mixing, melting and emulsifying of dairy productswith addition of food additives and fats) – for example: cream cheese, sandwich cheese, pizza cheese…
The processed cheese consumption main segment is not retail but food service:cheese consumption has been increasing not only thanks to the expansion of international QSR such as McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, but also local chains serving international meals, as well as coffee chains, bakery chains,…
It is still hard and expensive to findunprocessed cheese in China – for example:mozzarella, camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Blue cheese, Gouda, Edam, Cheddar, Gruyere, Emmental, Parmesan… and the quality is not always there.
Indeed, China has quite restrictive food safety rules and most of cheese can’t be imported to China without being denatured!
It shouldnt’ be too difficult for you to find processed cheese in Beijing groceries and even supermarket, both locally produced or imported.As regarding unprocessed cheese, it is harder to find in Beijing, even the offer is wider and wider over the years!
