“We are in tier-three cities already while most of our competitors are in tier one only,” he told a briefing on its food service operations.
It planned to be in 100 Chinese cities by 2020 and 150 by 2023.
“The opportunity is in converting bakeries from non-dairy to dairy products,” he said.
“We’re going in there and talking about the great taste as well as how it will add to their profits.”
Bakery is the largest food service channel in Asia with Fonterra forecasting its sales will grow to $1 billion a year by 2020.
Dairy products could be used in three categories of Asian bakery items – buns and rolls filled and topped with cheese, pastries and croissants and cream cakes and desserts iced with cream.
“Cheesecakes are now becoming part of their offering too,” he said.
Fonterra products developed with chefs in mind, such as bakery butter, cream cheese and whipping cream could make up 35% of the cost of the products but their use was why consumers walked through the door as their inclusion gave the bakeries a point of difference by delivering flavour, mouth feel and texture.
In the second of Fonterra’s three global channels for food service products, Italian kitchen, 30% growth each year was expected until 2020.
“Cream-based sauces are growing faster than other sauces,” Little said.
While it was the largest food service channel in the United States, Australia and Brazil it was the fastest growing western-style dining concept in Asia.
Cream-based pasta dishes were the fastest growing pasta category with cream making up 45% of the ingredient cost. Fonterra’s extra yield cooking cream was the leading culinary cream in that market sector because of its stability, coating quality, consistent texture and robustness as well as its yield and time-saving properties.
Fonterra also had the leading shredded mozzarella for the Italian kitchen segment with pizza being the world’s most popular food and its cheese topping making up 40% of the ingredient costs.
It had superior stretch and presentation and consistent quality and performance allowing yield improvement and waste reduction giving greater efficiency and time saving.
Little said the cheese, made from fresh milk at Clandeboye in just six hours, was at optimum maturity.
“It delivers a precise mozzarella experience every time,” he said.
It had the same blistering, stretch and stickiness every time with its binding properties always holding every other topping on the pizza together.
“Fonterra needs to be the expert in these businesses because it’s selling solutions,” he said.
“It needs to know what the consumer wants and the economics so there’s lower wastage and less preparation time.
“And every new plant we put in we take the technology further.”
The third global food service channel, quick service restaurants, included big names like Dominos Pizza, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway and Chinese fast food outlet, Yum. Latest statistics showed that with the growth of the middle class 40% of the urban-dwelling Chinese ate in a Western fast food outlet once a week.
