McNuggetisation is coming for the Chinese diet

Tighter wallets and lifestyle changes among the young are affecting food consumption choices in China.

- David Fickling

The story of the modern Chinese diet is one of scarcity, boom and bust. Many of the older generation still have memories of desperate penury under Mao Zedong, when history’s greatest famine left tens of millions dead and tens of millions more surviving on tree bark, leaves and vermin.

Those born in the 1970s and 1980s have a more triumphant tale to tell. In 1990, the first McDonald's restaurant opened in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. At about the same time, China became the world’s biggest consumer of meat, buoyed by rising incomes and the efficiency unleashed by allowing private enterprise into farming.

By 2020, the country was consuming half of the world’s pork and a third of all seafood, while Kweichow Moutai - whose baijiu firewater is synonymous with conspicuous consumption at banquets — overtook Coca-Cola to become the world’s biggest beverage company.

A new phase is emerging. With spending stagnating and a more health-conscious, atomised younger generation choosing food delivery over banquet halls, diners are trading down.

In market cap terms, Coca-Cola has been back on top all year. Analysts expect Kweichow Moutai’s profit growth to hit its slowest pace since 2015.

China’s appetites appear to be changing too. McNuggetisation - the moment America hit in the 1980s, when meat ceased to be aspirational, and became sort of cheap and trashy instead - is on its way.