Unable to hold the annual international bakery exhibition (Shanghai) due to the covid-19 and the lockdown of Shanghai, the exhibition organizer Bakery China, headquartered in Beijing, staged an online festival specifically for frozen dough manufacturers today and tomorrow.
Frozen dough products have grown rapidly online, prompting Tmall, which promotes the frozen dough industry concertedly in the past five years or so with favourable policies and fees toward incumbent brands setting up stores, to give the festival’s first presentation.
He Feng, who is in charge of bakery business in Tmall, said that in the past three years frozen dough products on Tmall grew 2.6 times faster than baking materials and implements, and 5.8 times faster than finished baked goods.
A chart shows that frozen dough expanded by some 40 per cent during 2019-2021, while baking materials and implements by around 20 per cent and finished baked goods by nearly17 per cent.
Different frozen dough for different finished baked goods have shown different growth rates. Egg tart bases and crusts are the most competed products, however, the data show no brand that has firmly grasped the consumers’ minds and hearts.
Frozen pizza bases are the next segment with many brands competing yet there is no clear market leader yet, He said.
The third market segment is frozen dough for Western baked goods such as croissants, Danish, baguettes and doughnut. This segment grows faster than egg tart bases and pizza bases, and there are not many brands in a sizable market, said He.
The researcher said that there is a smaller segment of frozen dough for Chinese-style baked goods and a much smaller segment for biscuits. He said that these two segments see no major brand entering, but enjoy great growth potential online.
He said that there is sub-segment called premixes with the baking materials and implements category, which has grown roughly on par with frozen dough. Premixes have the advantages of needing no cold-chain storage and transportation.
“Premixes has a sizeable market and fast growing, and there are already a few big brands present, but there is no dominant brand yet,” said He.
“One needs no special tools, and there is a slim chance of running into any error, it is altogether lots of fun process of making bread or cake out of premixes.”
China’s frozend dough industry largely originated in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong provinces in the early 2000s, and to date the industry is essentially distributed in the coastal regions, enjoying great potential for further growth when they need to set up production facilities in the vast inland market.
The two-day festival also had other presentations on industry trends in the morning but for the rest of the time, some manufacturers gave online demonstrations in video on WeChat, fanfaring promotions and soliciting orders. Buyers and suppliers are also converged in a WeChat group so that they can voice their needs and wants and find their partners.
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