The cheese market in China has been growing in a relatively flat pace compared to few years ago, due to the fall in global dairy prices. Low imported price has gained more room for brands to invest in awareness building and run promotions to push trials and consumption in order to compete for shares in the China market, which is beneficial for the category in the long run. Most local dairy giants are having a hard time in the cheese category while French companies are gaining more shares.

Thanks to the growing popularity of baking, the retail cream cheese and grated cheese might experience relatively faster growth in the near future. In the block cheese segment, brands should develop more innovative products focusing on nutrition for adult consumers, as products for kids are reaching maturity.

This report covers total hard/extra hard, semi-hard, soft, spreadable/processed cheese. It excludes cottage cheese, fromage frais/quark/curd/paneer and cheese dips.

Market size and forecast in this report are based on both retail and non-retail sales.

Cheese sold at non-retail channels refers to cheese products sold to HoReCa, which is catering and institutions that serve cheese such as hotels, restaurants and cafés, and cheese products sold to the food industry, where cheese is supplied as ingredient to food manufacturers and processors to be made into other products.

Retail market size (by both volume and value) includes sales of all wrapped cheese – as well as that wrapped at in-store delis which have a bar-code, through all retail channels.