Agriculture & Food

In recent days, canned yellow peach has been sold out in many supermarkets and online stores are also very popular. According to the data of Tmall, on the day of "Double 12", canned yellow peach topped the list of trends and hot spots of Tmall, with a hot search value of 7.385 million. On the same day, Baidu Hot Search · Big Data on Epidemic Prevention and Control released by Baidu showed that the search for canned yellow peach has soared 612% in the last seven days. Data from the JD platform also shows that in the last month, the turnover of canned yellow peach in the JD supermarket increased by 245% over the same period last year.

The popularity of yellow peach cans also led to the rapid growth of the overall sales of canned products. The insiders believe that this trend is expected to create new development opportunities and bring new prospects for canned food which was once neglected.

Grasp the opportunity of "turning red" to achieve higher quality development

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the supply chain and the continuous progress of the logistics fresh-keeping technology, fresh food has gradually become the first choice of many family tables, and canned food is increasingly ignored by consumers.

According to the observation report of Huacheng import and export data, China's canned food output has continued to decline since reaching a peak of 13.95 million tons in 2016. According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from 2019 to 2021, the cumulative output of China's large-scale canning enterprises will be 9.191 million tons, 8.635 million tons and 8.317 million tons respectively, showing a downward trend year by year. In the first half of 2022, the cumulative output will be 3.325 million tons, down 8.7% year on year.

In this context, the recent "turning red" of yellow peach cans has also created a new opportunity for canned products to return to the table. Liu Youqian, the president of the China Canning Industry Association, said in an interview with the International Business Daily that the recent boom in canned food sales seemed unexpected, but in fact it was the inevitable result of the deepening of domestic consumers' awareness and demand for nutritious and healthy food with emergency security attributes in the post epidemic era, which would also play a positive role in promoting the canned food industry to actively participate in the domestic cycle and expand the domestic consumption market share.

"In order to seize the opportunity of" turning red ", the canned food industry will continue to promote the" Three Year Special Action for Building Industry Brands "under the guidance of the Outline of the Fourteenth Five Year Plan for the Development of China's Canned Food Industry, adhere to emancipating the mind, enabling science and technology, continue to make efforts in process innovation, product innovation, standard innovation, energy conservation and carbon reduction, etc., break through industry development bottlenecks, improve industry supply capacity, and achieve high quality Sustainable development. " Liu Youqian said.

In Liu Youqian's opinion, in order to achieve the above goals, the canned food industry needs to accelerate the pace of industrial restructuring and transformation, reduce ineffective and low-end supply, expand effective and high-end supply, comply with the demand side reform, improve the quality of canned food supply, enhance the adaptability of the canned food supply structure to changes in demand, and strengthen the brand effect, so as to achieve double growth in the quantity and quality of the industry development.

Tell a good brand story and continue to develop overseas markets

Although canned food has been ignored in the domestic market before, it has long been favored by overseas consumers. According to the Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report, the per capita consumption of canned food in the United States is up to 90 kg, that in Western Europe is 50 kg, and that in Japan is more than 23 kg.

According to the Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report, canned food has also become an important export commodity in China under the huge demand of overseas markets. According to the statistics of China Canning Industry Association, from 1950 to 2019, China's canned food industry produced about 190 million tons of canned food, 34% of which was used for export and earned more than 80 billion dollars in foreign exchange. In the 1980s, when export materials were extremely limited, the total export volume of canned food industry even once accounted for 10% of the national material export volume.

Nowadays, China's canned food industry is still a regular guest on foreign tables. According to the observation report on the import and export data of Huacheng, China exported 1.8955 million tons of canned products in the first 10 months of this year, with an export volume of 3.677 billion US dollars. Compared with the same period in 2021, the export volume increased by 16.9% and the export volume increased by 45.7%.

Facing the broad international market, how should Chinese canned food enterprises catch up? Liu Youqian believes that the canned food industry should further make great efforts to study the international market, gather industry forces to make concerted efforts, and dynamically track and study the cultural customs, values and social norms of different markets, as well as their economic situation, access and regulatory requirements, so as to better tell the brand story of Chinese canned food.

As for how to tell the brand story of Chinese canned food, Liu Youqian further said that canned food export enterprises should build brand content in various forms, including multilingual product manuals, FAQs, user guides, keyword databases and open official websites, to meet the needs of buyers and consumers in various countries for accurate search and matching. "Many practices have proved that the richer the brand content provided in the local language, the more focused the local market is, and the better the interaction effect with local consumers will be. Conforming to the trend of digital development and striving to show themselves to the world in different ways is the only way for the market to better understand and accept Chinese canned food brands and achieve Chinese canned food brands," said Liu Youqian, Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.