Access Asia has published this updated edition of Catering China to cover the rapidly growing fast food, family restaurants and QSR sectors.
Fast food, quick service restaurants (QSR) and organised catering in China is not a new creation. Noodle and jiaozi (dumpling) stalls and restaurants are a traditional part of Chinese culture. In the late 1990s, urban China, dining out is increasingly popular with consumers. It has become a big business for western restaurant chains and local entrepreneurs. For professional urban couples, eating out provides a welcome break from daily home cooking. Children and teenagers enjoy nights out over the weekend when dining out is often mixed with window-shopping and entertainment as well as a way of finding private space. Increasingly, urban Chinese are sampling new foreign cuisine’s. The big names have all mostly arrived in China – McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut. Fast food restaurants are a flourishing business opportunity and a rapidly normal part of urban life. The western chains must compete for custom with the traditional Chinese fast food restaurants offering dishes such as noodles, dumplings, steamed bread and congee. An interesting development is the rise of companies such as Can Can chicken, a local operator emulating western competitors by devoting greater attention to service and decor. Chinese-style fast food restaurants only really emerged after Western fast-food companies such as KFC and McDonald’s entered China in 1987. Since then, the Chinese fast food sector has learned Western advanced management techniques and developed rapidly.