China's 'Cheeseman' Is No Longer Alone
Products from televisions to bras to furniture are streaming out of China these days, but Samir Kumar is cashing in on one item that's not: cheese.
Mr. Kumar, who heads the Hong Kong office of a small Australian food-distribution company, has quietly nurtured a thriving business importing cheese to a country better known as an export powerhouse -- and where few people can tell Cheddar from Camembert.
When Mr. Kumar's company, closely held Frontier Foods Ltd., first moved into China a few years ago, naysayers told him he was crazy. Chinese can't digest cheese and don't like the taste, they said, and China's food-distribution system wasn't set up for a product with a short shelf life that had to be chilled and delivered by refrigerated trucks.
"Pretty much everyone told us, don't do it," recalls 34-year-old Mr. Kumar, sometimes called "The Cheeseman" because of his devotion to the dairy cause. A native of India who moved to Hong Kong in 1994, Mr. Kumar's office refrigerator is stocked with piles of cheese -- slices, blocks and even canned varieties that look vaguely like cat food.
Now, Mr. Kumar's gamble is paying off. The rapid spread of Western-style supermarkets and fast-food chains such as McDonald's and Pizza Hut are giving increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers an unprecedented taste for cheese -- even if it's only a bland, processed-cheese slice slapped on a hamburger.
Frontier today generates 70% of its sales from China, up from nothing seven years ago. Mr. Kumar says Frontier's revenue roughly doubled last year, mostly on the success of its China business strategy, which targets the country's growing middle class. In the process, Frontier has become one of China's biggest cheese suppliers, even as giants like Kraft Foods International, part of Altria Group, have pulled out of dairy joint-ventures here.
China's cheese market is still tiny, with estimated annual retail sales this year of about $31 million, says market researcher Access Asia Ltd. in Shanghai. And most of the cheese sold to Chinese is in the form of slices, not fancier varieties with visible mold and rinds. (Frontier does ship finer cheeses like Brie to China, but Mr. Kumar says they're "niche products" for the rare yuppie or expatriate buyer.) But there's plenty of room to grow; Chinese cheese sales have jumped more than 130% since 1996, Access Asia says. "Obviously, Chinese are eating cheese," Mr. Kumar says.
His cheese-selling break came in 1996, when he cold-called a manager at the brand-new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. branch in the city of Shenzhen and persuaded him to stock Frontier's cheeses. Mr. Kumar attended business school in the U.S., "so I knew what Wal-Mart was" he says. Since then, Frontier also has set up a network of local distributors and persuaded them to chill cheese in refrigerators, rather than freeze it, or allow it to go mushy at room temperature.
This year, Frontier also won a contract to supply cheese for new breakfast sandwiches at Yum Brands Inc.'s KFC outlets. The Louisville, Ky., chicken chain has more than 900 Chinese outlets. Yum also runs more than 120 Pizza Hut restaurants in China, although they buy their cheese from New Zealand's Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd.
Frontier is "doing quite well," says Stephen Wu, who works in purchasing for Capital Lide Foods (Beijing) Co., which places Frontier's cheeses in Chinese supermarkets. Frontier's biggest imported brand is processed Bega Cheese, from Australia; it also ships processed Bega slices to a big Chinese dairy, Shanghai Bright, which then sells the product under its own name. "Our business with [Shanghai Bright] is literally exploding," says Maurice Van Ryn, Bega's chief executive.
Indeed, at Beijing's huge Carrefour supermarket recently, the dairy case was overflowing with bright orange-and-yellow packs of Shanghai Bright cheese slices on special for 13.90 yuan, or about $1.68. Young mother Zhang Ling, 25 years old, tossed a pack into her shopping cart, explaining that it's often easier to give her 15-month old son a slice of cheese than powdered milk.
Frontier's deal with Shanghai Bright shows how foreign companies can win a lucrative slice of the Chinese cheese market, Mr. Kumar says. Other companies also are nibbling at the market: Fonterra's New Zealand Milk Products unit sells Chinese dairies raw ingredients to help them make cheese, and France's Bongrain SA, which has set up a plant in Tianjin, outside Beijing, to process cheese.
But Mr. Kumar says it's often easier to import cheese than make it in China. Economists concur. China has little local expertise in cheese-making, which requires some high-tech equipment. And it can't produce enough fresh milk to sustain a domestic cheese industry: There simply isn't enough open farmland in China for large herds of dairy cows to graze.
U.S. cheese maker Kraft already discovered some of the drawbacks of domestic cheese making. Two years ago, Kraft got out of a joint venture with a Chinese dairy supplying cheese to hundreds of McDonald's restaurants in northern China, as well as making yogurt and other products. "Strategically, it was not a fit for us," says Arjun Gupta, a Kraft vice president and its area director for greater China in Beijing. Now, all the cheese Kraft sells in Chinese stores, including Philadelphia brand cream cheese, is imported mainly from Australia or the U.S.
Mr. Gupta doubts a China cheese boom is in the offing: Many big-city supermarkets there don't stock the product and many Chinese people find cheese hard to digest. So cheese is a tough sell: According to the U.S.'s National Dairy Council, of Rosemont, Ill., Chinese consume only about one third of a pound of cheese per person a year. That compares with 30.6 pounds in the U.S. and 53 pounds in France.
Still, Mr. Kumar sees big returns. He favors Bega's more sharply flavored "vintage" cheese, somewhat like a sharp cheddar in flavor. His children nibble "Bega Stringers," cheese snacks, which are also popular in China. "Why do you think I'm putting on this weight?" he asks.
"乳酪先生"只身闯中国
这些年来中国制造的出口产品著实不少，从家具、电视机到最近刚刚受到美国进口配额限制的内衣，不一而足。然而，萨米尔?库马尔(Samir Kumar)却独辟蹊径，选择了乳酪这种进口食品。
库马尔是澳大利亚小型食品销售公司福天食品有限公司(Frontier Foods)香港办事处的负责人。由他亲手培育的进口乳酪业务正在中国市场蒸蒸日上。而在这个国家里，甚至还没有几个人能分辨得出切达干酪(Cheddar)与卡门贝干酪(Camembert)的不同口味。
几年之前这家私人公司首次涉足中国市场的时候，反对者都说他简直是失去了理智。中国人消化不了乳酪，而且也不喜欢乳酪的口味。这还不算，中国的食品销售网络也不是为乳酪这样一种极易变质、在储存和运送过程当中必须严格冷藏保鲜的食品而设计的。
库马尔说，当时几乎所有人都警告我们，别打中国市场的主意。他是如此执著献身于乳制品行业，同事和伙伴们有时亲切地称他为"乳酪先生"。这位"乳酪先生"是个印度人，在美国接受教育，于1994年移居到香港。他办公室的冰箱里摆满了各式各样的乳酪。有切片的，有成块的，甚至还有罐头乳酪。
功夫不负有心人。由于西方模式的超级市场和麦当劳(McDonald's)、必胜客(Pizza Hut)式的快餐店在中国遍地开花，渐趋富有的中国消费者对乳酪的消费也达到前所未有的规模。7年前，福天食品在华销售额还是空白，而目前中国市场销售额已占到总销售额的70%。库马尔说，福天食品去年的收入增长了将近一倍，而这主要应当归功于瞄准不断成长的中国中产阶级这一商业策略的成效。在这个过程当中，福天食品已发展成中国第一大乳酪供应商，虽然卡夫食品(Kraft Foods International)等国际乳业巨头已纷纷从合资乳品公司撤资。
当然，中国乳酪市场的规模还很微不足道。根据上海市场调研公司爱克亚有限公司(Access Asia)得出的调查数字，其年销售额只有区区3,000万美元左右。但是这个市场的增长潜力不可限量。爱克亚指出，乳酪销售额自1996年以来已增长了130%以上。库马尔说，中国人显然并没有拒绝食用乳酪。
说到库马尔在中国市场销售乳酪取得的重大突破，那还得追溯到1996年。当时他灵机一动，给深圳新开张的沃尔玛分店经理打了个电话，说服他购买福天食品的乳酪。现在，福天食品已经成了多家大型连锁超市的供应商，这之中包括法国的家乐福(Carrefour)、日本的吉之岛(Jusco)和中国的联华超市(Lianhua)等等。福天食品还在中国当地建起了一套分销商网络，保证乳酪冷藏保鲜。
今年年初，福天食品还拿到了一份合同--为中国的肯德基快餐店提供早餐三明治用的乳酪片。肯德基快餐店总部位于肯塔基州路易斯维尔，是百胜餐饮(Yum Brands Inc.)下属的快餐店，在中国拥有900多家分店。百胜餐饮还在中国经营著120多家必胜客餐馆。不过后者采用的乳酪却是来自新西兰一家公司，Fonterra Cooperative Group。
北京京都利德食品有限公司(Capital Lide Foods (Beijing) Co.)负责进行采购的Stephen Wu说，福天食品做得相当好。该公司是福天食品的经销商，将福天食品的乳酪提供给中国超级市场。福天食品最主要的进口产品是产自澳大利亚的必佳牌(Bega)乳酪；此外，他们还向上海光明乳业股份有限公司(Shanghai Bright Dairy & Food Co. Ltd., 600597.SH, 简称：光明乳业)供应加工好的必佳乳酪片。光明乳业而后将这些乳酪打上自己的品牌出售。
在北京一家家乐福超市，冰柜里装满了光明乳业一包一包橙黄色的乳酪片。每包售价人民币13.90元（合1.68美元）。一位名叫张玲（音译：Zhang Ling）的女士往自己的购物车上放了一包乳酪，这位年轻的妈妈解释说，给她15个月大的儿子一片乳酪比喂奶粉要方便得多。
而没一会儿前，25岁的秘书李环(音译：Li Huan)还在琢磨一包必佳牌乳酪，她不知道是不是可以用这种乳酪给她的男朋友做比萨。她的男友在旁边冒出这么一句，"必胜客是用的这个牌子吗？"
库马尔认为，虽然面临当地大型乳品公司的竞争，福天食品和光明乳业的合作表明，外资公司依然可以在中国乳酪市场上找到有利可图的商机。其他一些公司也在尝试新的办法。新西兰Fonterra Cooperative Group旗下New Zealand Milk Products就向中国的乳品公司出售原料，而法国的Bongrain则在天津设立了一家乳酪加工工厂。
但库马尔认为直接进口乳酪更加方便，尤其是考虑到中国加入世界贸易组织(World Trade Organization)之后，乳酪的进口关税也将不断下降这一点。
分析师和其他乳制品业高层人士也一致认为，中国本地的乳酪生产没有专长可言。Rabobank International驻上海分析师Sandy Chen说，中国自己生产的乳酪几乎没有，不过如果真的出现大量乳酪需求，乳酪生产可能也会发展起来。乳酪生产需要消耗大量牛奶。而中国的奶源不足。爱克亚公司日前发表报告指出，中国畜牧业几乎可以跟规模不足、生产率低下划等号。中国奶牛的平均产奶量不及美国的一半。澳大利亚一家奶牛公司上周宣布，明年将向中国出口5万头奶牛，帮助满足中国对牛奶的需求。
卡夫食品曾尝到过一些苦头。两年之前，卡夫食品从与中国乳品厂建立的合资企业撤资。合资企业曾向中国北方的数百家麦当劳餐馆提供乳酪，同时还生产酸奶及其他乳制品。 卡夫食品副总裁兼大中华区董事阿尔琼?古普塔(Arjun Gupta)表示，从战略上讲，合资企业并不适应公司的需要。现在，卡夫食品在中国销售的所有乳酪都是进口的。
根据美国全国乳制品委员会(National Dairy Council)的数据，中国每人每年消费的乳酪只有150克左右，而美国是每人每年的乳酪消费量是14公斤，法国乳酪的消费量更高达24公斤。
古普塔认为，中国正面临更大规模乳酪消费高峰的说法缺乏依据。他指出，在许多大城市的超市里，甚至还没有乳酪。此外，出售的绝大多数乳酪都是口味相对较淡，经过加工的乳酪产品。用爱克亚公司出版负责人保罗?弗伦克(Paul French)的话来说，都是所谓的"大众乳酪"。换言之，要让像高德干酪(Gouda)和罗克福尔干酪(Roquefort)这样精美的乳酪被中国市场接受，恐怕还需时日。
