Singles Day data reveals big shift in online seafood sales in China

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted major shifts in Chinese seafood consumption patterns, favoring value-added products and pre-prepared meals for home consumption. And seafood companies are starting to respond by offering increasingly complex pre-prepared meal options – in effect, replicating restaurant meals.

Packaged convenience food – often referred to in Mandarin as prefabricated, became mainstream during COVID, according to Hoang Nguyen, an analyst in Beijing-based Daxue Consulting’s Shanghai office. E-commerce leader JD.com has also sought to extract higher yields from the trend by selling gift boxes of prefabricated meals, Nguyen said, including seafood products from Guolian Aquatic and Hainan-based tilapia processor Xiangtai ... 

Photo courtesy of JD.com