What’s the takeaway? Chinese ordering more meals online and eating less instant noodles
Researcher says trend shows consumers are becoming more interested in nutritional value than just ‘filling their bellies’
Chinese are eating fewer instant noodles but ordering more takeaways online, mainland media report, a trend one researcher says shows consumers are becoming more interested in nutritional value than price.
Sales of instant noodles were down by one-sixth – or eight billion packets – over the three years to 2016, National Business Daily reported on Sunday, citing industry association figures.
Takeaway orders placed online have meanwhile grown eightfold since 2011.
“The fast expansion of the food delivery business has badly hit instant noodle makers,” Wang Yaohong, former deputy chief executive of Baidu Waimai, the food delivery unit of China’s biggest search engine, was quoted as saying.
Some 46.2 billion packets of instant noodles were consumed in China in 2013 – up 9 per cent from 2011 – but that figure fell 16.6 per cent to 38.5 billion packets in the three years to 2016, according to data from the World Instant Noodles Association.
The figures showed that Chinese had shifted focus to eating nutritious meals instead of just “filling their bellies”, Zhao Ping, director of global trade research at the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, told the newspaper.