Welcome to Eel Pro Official Website！
For busy white-collar workers in big cities, eating eel rice has become a healthy and fashionable choice. Mr Yu, a post-90s Consumer in Beijing, said: "Eel has good meat quality. After roasting, it is burnt on the outside and tender on the inside. We young people like it very much."
In fact, more than 60 percent of Japan's uangi kabayaki comes from China. Due to the impact of the epidemic and other factors, eels originally exported to Japan are "swimming back" to enter the domestic market, promoting the development of Chinese eels.
Eel exports in China have shifted to domestic sales in the past two years, and the domestic catering market has a special liking for eel, CCTV reported. Zhang Junbao, founder of Beijing Yingweidao Eel Bistro, said, "More than 95 percent of the dishes in heaven Food are eel, and the restaurant consumes 700 kilograms of eel every month."
Meituan data shows that more than 10 million Chinese eat eel at least once a month, with consumers in Beijing and Shanghai becoming the most frequent consumers of eel, and "eel fried rice" becoming a hit. In addition, eel hot pot, eel barbecue, eel dumplings and other Chinese practices are innovative, deeply stirring Chinese taste buds.
With the development of the domestic aquaculture industry and the improvement of the supply chain system, eel has changed from "an expensive ingredient that ordinary people do not want to eat" to a popular dish among Chinese people.
According to Meituan, more than 500,000 "eel enthusiasts" eat eel at least three times a month, an increase of more than 75 percent from 2020. Eel dishes are seeing explosive growth in China, with more than 60,000 eel-related dishes in 2021, up 66 percent from 2019.
The number of eel-related restaurants has increased by more than 14% for two consecutive years. In 2021, eel takeout orders on Meituan platform increased by over 37% compared with 2020, and the total number of eel dishes orders under 50 yuan increased by 30% compared with 2020.
As eel consumption has become more localized, the cooking style of eel in China has become closer to "Chinese food." Adapted to Chinese tastes, eel hot pot, eel barbecue, eel braised pork rice, and eel clay pot rice spring up one after another.
In addition, the epidemic has also spawned new changes in Chinese dining habits. Due to food safety concerns, consumers have less preference for raw and cold food and more enthusiasm for cooked eel products.
Restaurant brand Jiuponizakaya has reinvented domestic eel dishes, mixing them with avocados and pineapples and wrapping them in wheat skins for an innovative cantonese dish that is popular among diners. Restaurant brand Xiao Sushi also said in an interview to explore Chinese cooking techniques such as eel dumplings.
It is reported that the eel ingredients purchased by Jiubenizakaya and Sakurweidao Eel Bistro are all purchased by Kuai lu, meituan's catering supply chain platform.
Supply chain helps "Chinese Eel rise" : the fastest 72 hours from the factory to the table
Statistics show that China is the world's top eel breeder and exporter. Domestic eels are mainly produced in Guangdong, Fujian and other places. Hu Jianfei, head of Dongyuan Food, an eel processing company in Putian city, Fujian province, said: "Due to the epidemic, our company's annual sales of eels exported to Japan dropped from 3,000 tons to 700 tons. Now, our eels are mainly sold domestically."
Cui He, president of the China Fisheries Circulation and Processing Association, said, Japan used to be a country with high consumption of eels in China. The epidemic has made domestic eels' exported for domestic sale '. From producing areas to factories and then to consumers' tables, eel circulation and consumption links in China are becoming more mature and developing towards large-scale industrialization."
The change of consumer demand drives the change of eel upstream industry structure, spawning high-quality eel breeding and processing enterprises, and the construction of eel supply chain becomes increasingly mature.
A responsible person in charge of the purchase of Meituan Kuayu said, "We insight into the consumption trend through the platform data, build upstream high-quality supply resources, and put forward demands from the aspects of food material standardization and safety, so as to help catering businesses match more standard and reliable eel products, and speed up the distribution efficiency of category." Currently, with the help of the catering supply chain platform, domestic eels can be transported from the factory to the table in as little as 72 hours.
The person in charge also introduced that after gathering the eel procurement needs of catering businesses, the upstream should be organized to produce and process eel on demand, improve the efficiency of upstream and downstream industries, promote the planning and efficiency of the upstream industry with the consumption side demand, shorten the circulation process, reduce the procurement costs of catering businesses, and enable consumers to eat eel rice with lower prices.
Zhang Jiaolin, executive director of the Fujian Eel Industry Association, said: "Domestic eel consumption accounts for 60-70 per cent of total production, more than foreign countries. If this trend continues, eels could change from being export-oriented to not being sold enough and not being eaten enough [in China]."
From flying to Japan to eat puyaki eel to eating Chinese eel at a cheaper price in Korea, the "noble" value of eel is being broken.
The rapid development of transportation and mobile Internet, coupled with the upgrading of the supply chain of China's catering industry, has transformed eel from a "luxury" to an affordable one. The eel's name is no longer strongly associated with Japanese culture, but young Chinese are helping to propel the rise of the National eel
