China’s food retailers are growing at a staggering speed, thanks to its rapid urbanization, increasing number of middle class consumers, improving food and beverage infrastructure, coupled with the immense expansion of both domestic and international food retailers in the country.
According to the market report from Ken Research, the food retail market in China represented 67% of the country’s overall retail sales in 2015. It is expected that China’s grocery and food retail market will achieve steady growth over the next few years. The food and grocery retailing market in China is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 11.17%, to reach an estimated value of RMB 25,982 billion by 2020. Several major international and domestic food retailers are currently dominating the market.
Here’s a list of top 10 largest food retailers in China:
China Resources Vanguard (华润万佳)
China resources Vanguard is one of the top and largest supermarket groups in China. Now China Resources Vanguard owns over 5,000 outlets under multiple brands including Vanguard, Tesco China, Suguo, Vivo, Ole’, Legou Express, Vango, BLT, Voi_la!, Lenonardo, Huanleshong, Zhongyi, Huarun Tang. Its annual sales turn over reached 104 billion yuan ($16.5 billion) in 2014. In June 2015, China Resources Vanguard launched its online food and grocery shopping platform EWJ.com.
RT-Mart (大润发)
Established in Taiwan, RT-Mart is now one of the leading food retailers in China, operating over 320 hypermarkets in mainland China. In 2011, RT-Mart merged with French supermarket brand Auchan and later re-launched a new food retail company named Gaoxin Retail. Currently, 68% of RT-Mart food retailing businesses are in third and fourth tier cities. RT-Mart also launched its own online platform aiming at international food and beverage retails.
Wal-Mart (沃尔玛)
The American retail giant Wal-Mart entered China market in 1996 and now owns over 440 stores and 20 distribution centres across 166 cities in China, the company also plans to open 115 new outlets within three years. With its new focus on E-commerce food retail, Walmart and China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue JD.com, announced a strategic alliance to better serve consumers across China through their advanced e-commerce and retail business.
Lianhua (联华)
Lianhua is one of the largest food retailers in East China, currently runs over 4,330 supermarkets and convenience stores mainly in the east region of China. Since 2013, Lianhua has established its own online retail platform “Lianhua Yigou”, providing food grocery and home delivery service mainly in Shanghai area.
Carrefour (家乐福)
The France based supermarket group Carrefour, which is also the world’s second largest international food retailer after Wal-Mart, opened its first supermarket store in China two decade ago, and now runs over 240 stores across 73 major cities in China.
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Yonghui (永辉)
Yonghui currently owns over 500 supermarkets in 144 cities. Yonghui is also one of the leading food retailers for Online-to-Offline (O2O) commercial business. In January 2014, Yonghui launched its e-commerce platform “YH Wei store”, providing food and retail and home delivery service in Fuzhou. In 2015, Yonghui sold 10% of its stock share to JD.com for 4.3billion yuan.
Nonggongshang (农工商)
Nonggongshang was founded in 1994. Now it operates over 2,500 big and small outlets under brand names Nonggongshang supermarket, Haode convenience stores, and Kedi convenience stores mainly in Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu region. Nonggongshang’s total annual sales is around 20 billion yuan ($4.67billion).
Bubugao (步步高集团)
Bubugao operates over 452 retail outlets mostly in Hunan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, and Sichuan. Its annual sales has surpassed 31 billion yuan ($4.62 billion) since 2014. Bubugao is also a public-listed company in Shenzhen Security Exchange. In December 2013, Bubugao launched its e-commerce platform Yunhou.com, selling all kinds of grocery products including imported food.
Haihang Commercial (海航集团)
Haihang Commercial owns over 500 retail stores under several brands, including Jiadeli, Minsheng, Jiarunduo, Goubaole, Baoshang Meijiajia, Minshengjiale with over 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) sales annually.
Wu-mart (物美)
Founded in 1994, Wu-Mart operates over 700 outlets in the formats of hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores and department stores. Wu-Mart is targeting at of middle to lower- end consumers mainly in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Ningxia, Shanghai and Zhejiang.
These are the top 10 largest food retailers in China.
