The number of Chinese consumers ordering Australian chilled red meat products through online stores is predicted to grow by 16 percent annually until 2020, according to Meat and Livestock Australia.
MLA is Australia's public authority which provides research for the country's red meat industry which includes beef, lamb, and goat meat. The agency's 2018 Global Consumer Tracker research found that Chinese consumers, who are a significant driver of Australia's exports, are among the most frequent buyers of beef and lamb through online retailers.
The research, which was intended to look into the purchasing activities of the Chinese, found that the market is more likely to purchase meat that beef through e-retailers. The study concluded that this behavior may have resulted from the difficulty of finding quality sheep meat products than beef in China.
The MLA survey also found that Chinese consumers are more likely to buy chilled meat products and the frozen ones were most likely to land as their second option. Pork, chicken, and seafood came at the least of their priority when buying meat products online. MLA said this is because these products are readily available in local products.
While most Chinese consumers still tend to buy red meat from their local supermarkets, MLA found that when ordering online, Chinese prefer products coming from Australia. With this insight, MLA believed red meat suppliers from Australia should target the tier one cities in China where the highest concentrations of more affluent consumers are residing.
The MLA research noted that e-commerce in China was used to be dominated by products like electronics and apparel. The e-retail, in general, also used to be flocked by consumers hoping for bargains and coupons, and those customers who want to compare prices from various brands before purchasing.
Consumers, however, evolved from someone looking for a bargain to someone looking for quality. The e-commerce sphere, however, is evolving at present as more fresh produce are being available online.
Indeed, early this month, the Alibaba Group signed a memorandum of understanding with JBS, a Brazilian company producing factory processed beef, chicken, and pork. The deal was now pegged as "the biggest meat trade deal ever" between China and Brazil. The MOU could be worth up to $1.5 billion over three years. The partnership was signed between JBS and Alibaba's Win Chain platform.
The same Alibaba unit signed a similar partnership with Danish Crown which is Europes largest pork producer. The company also offers processed beef. The partnership involved having Danish Crown deliver, on a weekly basis, 250 tons of Danish pork in China for five years. The agreement is worth about $300 million.
