Body Anxiety Driving China’s Latest Diet Trend: Light Food
Here is an effective way for you to find out what kind of food is currently trending among Chinese white collars or young people. Simply go to the B1 level of popular shopping malls or office buildings, which is typically the level with the fast food restaurants and other food and drink vendors, and see what the newest offerings are. Nowadays if you go, you will discover the latest diet trend in China, “light food” or 轻食.
Over the past several years, “light food” has become very popular among young people in China. A search for light food on Xiaohongshu brings up over 190K results. A light food diet is essentially just healthy eating – low salt, low sugar, low oil meals with a focus on protein and vegetables.
A Growing Business
While some people will make their own meals, many people who want to eat light are busy and would rather order takeout. According to Qichacha Database, there are now around 10k light food companies in China. Based on the light food consumption report published by Meituan (美团) in 2019 (轻食消费卡大数据报告), the amount of light food orders increased 98% compared with the same time in 2018, and the number of light food retailers on Meituan grew 58%. Euromonitor Consulting expects that by 2022, the scale of Chinese light food market will reach 12M RMB.
Why is this diet trend so popular in China?
In China, there is a phrase referring to having light food or salad, which is “eating grass”. The phrase contains sympathy and self-irony. Despite the fact that having “grass” is not a pleasant thing in most people’s minds, they are still willing to pay for it. Because behind this is people’s growing anxiety towards their bodies.
Read more about appearance anxiety here: Appearance Anxiety Driving Chinese Consumers to Take Loans to Pay for Cosmetic Procedures
A report published on May 11, which is Obesity Prevention Day, showed that 54.3% of Chinese women feel they are too fat. And while many women want to lose weight there is also a growing number of skinny people that are pursuing a curvier body type.
Body related hot topics on social media also increase people’s body anxiety. For example, at one time, there was a challenge where people were crazy enough to see if they can reach around their back and touch their belly buttons. There was also a test to see if the width of your waist can fit into A4 paper. Those who can do these “challenges” post their evidence on social media which gives other pressure and body anxiety, and many people start choosing to go on a diet and eat light food after seeing these images.
Who is embracing the diet trend in China?
According to the report published by Meituan, among light food consumers, 62% of them are post-90s, and 26% of them are post-80s. Female consumers take up 70%.
That’s the statistics back in 2019. I haven’t found the latest light food consumer demographic reports, but based on my personal observation, consumers in those top tier cities are more open to light food. They embrace it as a way to guide them to a healthy lifestyle. City dwellers show great commitment to having light food, regardless of young or old.
On the other hand, in lower tier cities, most light food consumers are people who work out frequently. Their expectation for having such food is very pure: lose and control weight. The majority of them are young people, because for the older generation in lower tier cities, they can’t accept having such food while paying higher prices.
Why light food is expensive?
Light food is often very simple, yet the price for a portion of light food is typically three times the price of a hamburger.
It should be cheap theoretically for these reasons:
- The industry has lower threshold to enter. For people without any light food management background or even dining background, they can still enter the industry with simple training. Besides, a light food restaurant requires simple processes to go through to receive a business license.
- Lower input cost. There are two options to open a light food restaurant. One is by opening your own store and the other is to open a franchisee store. The franchisee fee is between 80k to 180k RMB, which is way lower than opening a hotpot franchisee store or a milk tea franchisee store. It costs no more than 200k RMB to open a light food restaurant in first tier cities.
- Light food is easy to cook. This food is light because they are either steamed food or boiled food. A chief only needs to select ingredients, cook simply, place them nicely on a bowl or a plate, and pour sauces on it.
So why light food is not affordable to everyone?
- High requirement for ingredients. Since light food is not cooked with complicated processes, and little to no oil, it maintains the original flavor of its ingredients. If the food is not fresh, it can be easily distinguished. How to maintain the freshness of ingredients? An effective way is to have those food transported by cold chains, and this adds extra cost.
- High commission rate taken by takeaway platforms. The average commission rate taken by Eleme (饿了么) is 20% for light food retailers. The platform usually charges its retailers 15-20%, so you know light food retailers’ rate rank high on the platform. On Meituan, the rate is as high as 23%. High commission rate leaves small profits for retailers and they can only raise prices of their products to make up the gap.
- Vendors are investing more to attract new consumers and maintain old ones. As we mentioned before, the number of light food retailers is increasing sharply in China. This means more competition. To differentiate their stores from others, retailers are investing more on the ingredients, the packaging and the quality of their service. All of these add to the price that consumers pay for in the end.
- Vendors know consumers will pay a premium. Consumers want this specific type of food and they will pay more to get it rather than eating another type of food that is cheaper.
Light food is a trend. It has history in China and it is being accepted as a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, plant-based meat might not. As it is very new and many people still don’t like paying a large amount of money for this not-tasty fake meat.
Traditional restaurants are joining the industry
Many traditional restaurants spot this trend and they are adding light food as an option for consumers. For example, Pizza Hut opened a light food restaurant in Beijing. McDonald’s launched its Ciabatta collection featuring light food in February 2021. At the moment, only Shanghai and Ningbo (宁波) offer these menu items, since McDonald wants to see how consumers react to its light food in these two cities first.
Chinese traditional noodle restaurant Xibei Youmian (西北莜面) opened its first yogurt dining restaurant in the CBD of Beijing in 2019. Its target consumers are young people including white collars. Founder of Xibei, Jia Guolong (贾国龙), said this was their experiment and testing of the light food market. But in early 2021, the Beijing store closed down. It appears consumers couldn’t accept the high price of its yogurt, which was 3-4 times higher than the usual price on the market.
Though light food is known for having a higher price than regular food, brands also need to figure out the acceptable price range for consumers.
Read more: 中国女孩的身材焦虑，养活了这门40000亿的“昂贵生意”
