HoReCa & Foodservice Market - China

مقدمة

China's foodservice sector is worth on the order of USD 800–900 billion. The US Department of Agriculture put it at about USD 812 billion in 2025, up 3.2% year on year, while industry researchers place the commercial profit sector at roughly CNY 6.4 trillion — about USD 896 billion — for 2024 and forecast growth toward USD 0.9–1.1 trillion by the end of the decade. The wider food and beverage market, retail and foodservice combined, is worth some USD 1.3–1.7 trillion. China is also the world's second-largest importer of food and agricultural products, buying around USD 207 billion in 2025, with meat, fruit, aquatic products, grains and dairy each individually exceeding USD 10 billion. One structural fact shapes every entry plan: China has no single dominant broadline distributor equivalent to Sysco in the United States. Coverage is assembled from regional distributors, category specialists and import agents, which means a foreign supplier is choosing a set of partners rather than one, and the sequence in which they are approached matters. This study covers market size and structure, the distribution landscape, the access requirements and documentation for foreign suppliers, the categories with the strongest prospects, and a directory of Chinese importers and foodservice distributors.