China Feed Production Outpaces Meat Output

China's animal feed production was a record 252.76 million metric tons (mmt) in 2020, up 9.5 percent from the previous year, according to data reported by the country's feed industry association. 

Statistics indicate China's feed production has been growing much faster than its production of meat and eggs. Feed output rose 24 mmt, while meat and egg output edged up by 1.5 mmt. The ratio of feed output to combined meat and egg output was 2.28, up from less than 2.1 the last two years and 1.5 in 2010.  

Sources: China Feed Industry Association; China National Bureau of Statistics.

About half of feed was produced for poultry: 91.8 mmt for meat poultry and 33.5 mmt for layers in 2020. Hog feed output totaled 89.2 mmt, while aquaculture feed totaled 21.9 mmt, feed for cattle and sheep totaled 13.2 mmt, another 2.9 mmt of feed was produced for other miscellaneous animals, and less than 963,000 mt of pet food was produced in 2020. 

Source: China Feed Industry Association.

Swine feed led the growth in feed output. Swine feed production rose 12.6 mmt in 2020, while feed for meat poultry went up 7.2 mmt, and feed for laying hens went up 2.4 mmt. Pork output was down 1.4 mmt in 2020. The National Bureau of Statistics said the inventory of swine went up 31 percent, but most of the growth occurred in the second half of the year. Poultry meat output rose only 1.2 mmt, implying a highly inefficient marginal feed conversion of 6:1, about three times usual poultry feed conversions. The implied feed conversion for layers was 1.5. 

Source: Calculations using data from China Feed Industry Association and National Bureau of Statistics.

Swine feed output bounced back from its 21-mmt drop in 2019 during the peak of China's African swine fever epidemic. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's pork output peaked at 58.2 mmt in 2014 and dropped to 41 mmt in 2020. Swine feed output rose from 87.2 mmt in 2014 to a peak of 98 mmt in 2017 and was still below the peak at 89.2 mmt in 2020. 

Source: China Feed Industry Association and National Bureau of Statistics.

Monthly swine feed output doubled from about 6 mmt per month in April-June 2020 to 12 mmt in December. The data indicate that poultry (meat and egg combined) feed dipped below swine feed output in December. 

Source: China Feed Industry Association.

The accuracy of these data is unknown. They are based on reports filed by large feed mills with the association. They likely exclude many on-farm mills. The report did not reveal ingredients used in feed. The China Feed Industry Association estimate falls between two other estimates of China's feed output for last year. All indicate robust growth of varying magnitude. The Alltech global feed industry survey estimated China's feed output at 240 mmt, with 5-percent growth in 2020. The National Bureau of Statistics reported cumulative feed industry output of 294 mmt by December 2020, up 12 percent from the previous December.

Data source	2020 China feed output (MMT)	change
Alltech global survey	240	+5%
Feed Industry Association	253	+9%
Statistics Bureau	294	+12%

Land Transfer Regulations Point to Troubles Scaling Up Farms

In January 2020, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs published new regulations on the transfer of rural land operation rights that take effect March 1. The regulations are the latest in a series of decrees and notices attempting to meld socialism and capitalism in the Chinese countryside by creating a market for rights to use land while retaining an opaque form of collective ownership of the land. A close reading of the regulations and the problems they are aimed at suggests that the farm scaling-up process is not going smoothly. This "reform" piles on more layers of audits and approvals to address the worries of Chinese leaders obsessed with "risks" to "food security" and rural stability.  

Chinese officials are alarmed by the phenomenon of abandoned weed-covered plots of rural land. A Peoples Daily explanation of the regulations leads off with headings "Enliven [land] use rights" and "More effectively and rationally utilize land resources." This blog previously has reported on the abandonment of farmland.

A videoconference on utilization of abandoned land held by the Ministry of Ag last month warned provincial officials that "we must resolutely curb the abandonment of cultivated land" to maintain national food security. Local officials were ordered to assess their local land-abandonment situation and draw up plans to ensure that cropland in their province/prefecture/county/town/village is fully utilized. The land utilization campaign is not unrelated to the land transfer initiative. The first task given officials in the videoconference was to "standardize/regulate" (规范) land transfer systems (other measures included subsidies to motivate farmers, spending on land improvements and infrastructure, better agricultural services, and propaganda). 

The land regulations taking effect next month are focused on mechanisms to transfer land use rights to commercial enterprises, "family farms," cooperatives, and trusts through rentals, long-term leases and reassignments--without selling the ownership of the land. Propaganda articles explain the necessity of the strategy by giving examples of poor villages where weed-covered plots of wasteland were consolidated and rented out to large-scale farmers to grow wheat and medicinal crops, with profits paid out to villagers as dividends and wages.

Several years ago, a Red Flag essay putting Xi Jinping's stamp of approval on the land policy explained that agriculture had become stuck in the "mud" of fragmented, scattered plots of land. The essay explained that the first phase of rural land reform was to dismantle communes and contract land to village households in the 1970s and '80s. Now, with rural people flocking back and forth "like migratory birds" between city and countryside and with villages hollowed out and emptied, the second phase is to re-consolidate the farmland to achieve "modern" agriculture while maintaining collective ownership as the "bottom line"--which means making villagers nominal shareholders in scaled-up farming ventures and hiring them as laborers. 

The main thrust of the new land transfer regulations is to step up scrutiny of land transfer projects to weed out projects that go bust and to prevent investors from shifting farmland to nonagricultural ventures. Peoples Daily explained that, "...some commercial investors moved in a non-grain direction, and some renters changed the land's agricultural use after [acquiring the land]." In 2018, Chinese news media uncovered the widespread construction of vacation homes, tea houses, and hotels inside greenhouses to circumvent bans on using farmland for such ventures.

The villager-shareholder-dividend model breaks down when there are no profits. Peoples Daily fretted that declining relative profitability of grain production caused some business ventures to collapse, and businessmen broke land rental contracts and "ran away"--presumably leaving behind unpaid rent, worthless shares...and seething villagers. This blog previously discussed the link between failures of scaled-up farms and falling grain prices.

The major emphasis of the new regulations is enforcement of Xi Jinping's decrees calling for strict bans on conversion of farmland to nonagricultural use (非农化) or conversion to production of nongrain crops (非粮化). Peoples Daily explained that the new regulations proscribe: "Building kilns, tombs, or houses on cultivated land; digging sand, quarrying, mining, or taking soil without authorization; and use of 'permanent basic agricultural land' for fruit trees or fish ponds." Interestingly, the explanation of regulations does not mention building pig farms on farmland, probably because restoring pork production capacity is another major government priority for 2021. In fact, local authorities were ordered to make land available for building pig farms as part of the campaign to restore pork supplies.

The new regulations require rural governments to establish commissions and organizations to scrutinize viability and legality of proposed land transfer projects, track their progress, and audit them to ensure they are not changing the use of land and ensure they pay out funds as promised. Local authorities are encouraged to set up rural land exchanges or rural property rights markets, issue standardized land transfer contracts, offer legal advisory services, and set up record-keeping and auditing systems. Local governments are advised to set up "risk funds" and monetary guarantees that compensate villagers when projects fail. Regulators call for insurance companies to offer services and insurance products that indemnify village collectives hit by failed projects.

A Q&A on the new regulations issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs asked whether the new regulations may act as a barrier that discourages business operators from pursuing land transactions. The response dodged the question, explaining that the regulations are not intended to limit land transactions. The regulations will surely discourage formation of businesses by adding layers of cost to the start-up of new farming operations. Arranging land transfers already demands onerous negotiations with county, town and village officials and agreement of villagers to consolidate hundreds of small plots of land.

In addition to the burden on businesses, every local government will have to set up teams to audit, supervise and keep records on land transfer projects. How will such auditing teams be staffed? Persons with accounting and financial skills are scarce in the countryside and lack of such personnel is one of the chief bottlenecks for China's farmer cooperatives. These committees and record systems will be set up in a flurry of activity and then quickly fall into dormancy and atrophy. 

China Swine: Build Back Faster, Not Better

While propaganda trumpets a  "faster than expected" rebound in China's swine sector, disease and productivity problems raise concerns about the health of the industry. A surge of live swine imports in the fourth quarter of 2020 suggests that the restoration of the breeding system is still in its early stages. 

China's agriculture ministry web site posted an interview with a pork industry analyst assuring consumers that plenty of pork would be available for the spring festival holiday. The analyst recited statistics about inventories recovering to over 90 percent of their level in 2017, rising pork output since last October, and falling prices. Provincial and local governments also publicized reports about increases in production. Releases of government pork reserves were also publicized ahead of the holiday. Chinese officials appear to be concerned about a surge in food prices that accounted for most of the increase in the January CPI.

Under the radar, other reports were less effusive about the state of the swine industry.

A Futures Daily report said that the sow inventory had fallen in January for the first time in 13 months and warned that the swine industry is still under threat from African swine fever. Futures Daily said sows are being retired faster than usual due to ASF outbreaks and their low productivity. Their short productive period means that a larger number of sows have to maintained and fed to achieve a particular level of hog slaughter, raising costs, lowering productivity, and keeping pork supplies tight.

An early February weekly report from Shandong Province's animal husbandry station agreed that piglet prices are high due to a shortage of "parent generation" sows. The report said scarcity is raising the price of the limited supply of high-quality piglets available. The higher price for piglets means higher production costs for finished hogs. 

China's pig breeding system was decimated by the ASF epidemic in 2019, according to another report posted in early February. Many core breeding farms stopped reporting data to the national genetic improvement program, and others only reported sporadically during the height of the epidemic. According to the report, the retention of low-quality commercial-generation sows rebuilt the herd rapidly and maximized economic returns, but it set back the national breeding program by abandoning the cycle of breeding commercial swine from purebred grandparents and parent generation propagation herds. Breeding farms started getting back to business as usual in 2020.

The breeding disruption undermines one of the strategic objectives set for China's agriculture this year: weaning the Chinese swine industry from its reliance on imported breeding stock. 21st Century Business Herald reported that 80 percent of China's pork relies on a steady of flow of an average of 2,100 imported purebred stock each year. The basic breeding stock has to be constantly replenished because genetics degrade from generation to generation. The report said 20,000 breeding pigs were imported in 2020, ten times the usual number. 

Customs data show that imports of live swine resumed last year after being shut down during the ASF pandemic from mid-2018 through 2019. Data also show that most of last year's live pig imports came in the fourth quarter. Thus, breeding farms have ramped up their restocking in the last three months, and it will take most of 2021 to re-establish the normal pattern of core breeding farms supplying parent generation stock to multiplier farms which, in turn, supply high-quality piglets for commercial fattening.

A report in Beijing Commercial News points to problems facing the Chinese swine industry that have become acute with this year's especially cold "La Nina" winter. Chinese agricultural officials banned antibiotics in feed last year, which slowed weight gain and also made pigs more vulnerable to diarrhea and respiratory diseases during this year's cold weather, according to a farmer in Jiangxi Province interviewed by the paper. Farmers are investing in heating systems for pig barns. A veterinarian calculates that slower weight gain from the antibiotic ban reduces pig farmers' profits by 50-60 yuan per pig. Farmers are also experiencing higher costs from record-high corn prices and an increase in soybean meal prices. 

The Shandong animal husbandry station also warns the industry to be on guard against resurgence of ASF and piglet diarrhea as threats to the rebuilding of the swine herd.

A new ASF threat was revealed by New Hope-Liuhe, one of China's largest feed suppliers and pig/poultry producers. The company acknowledged that 1000 of its sows had been infected with ASF. Some of the company's contracting finishing farmers also had infections in their herds. The ASF strain had one or two deleted genes that matched the strain used in a vaccine developed at a veterinary research institute in Harbin. The virus detected in New Hope's herd is definitely man-made, one official said. The Harbin vaccine is still in trials and has not been approved for commercial use. The infections were believed to be the result of injections with an illegally sold pirated vaccine replicated from published research materials. The infections in New Hope's herd were not as lethal as the naturally-occurring ASF virus, but the attenuated virus can have chronic effects such as reduced litter size. The infected animals were culled to prevent the virus from spreading. 

As usual, China is only reporting a small fraction of its ASF outbreaks. China's agricultural ministry reported one ASF outbreak in January and one more in February. Meanwhile its officials have banned all German pork over outbreaks in wild boar there and are demanding detailed information about the German infections.

China's Corn Vacuum: That '70s Show Rerun?

If feels like the 1970s. A shadowy foreign government buyer is purchasing vast quantities of grain, boosting prices, and inspiring talk of a commodity super-cycle. 

The 1970s Russian "grain robbery" kicked off a bout of food price inflation that became a nagging problem throughout that decade. This time the "robber" is China's state-owned grain buyer, COFCO, buying up corn millions of tons at a time. Everyone knows the "robber" is in the house, but it's not clear whether he'll be satisfied with taking the candlesticks or grab the silverware as well.

The aggressive Chinese corn purchases caught USDA off guard. USDA's February WASDE report estimates that China will import 24 million metric tons of corn in 2020/21, up from 17.5 mmt estimated last month.  Back in October, USDA estimated that imports would be 7 mmt. 

Source: USDA Production, Supply and Distribution data.

The purchases also caught China's Ministry of Agriculture off guard. The Ministry's monthly "CASDE" report also predicted China's corn imports would be 7 mmt until they grudgingly lifted their estimate to 10 mmt in January. (It was left at 10 mmt in its February report issued today.) Last April, China's ag ministry predicted that China's corn imports would gradually rise over the decade to just under 6.5 mmt in 2029. 

In another reminder of the '70s, we're seeing significant rises in prices. China's corn imports are prompted by a steady rise in corn prices underway since early 2020. The average spot price reported by China's National Bureau of Statistics in late January 2021 was 60 percent higher than a year earlier. 

Corn futures prices on China's Dalian exchange converted to dollars per bushel have been at least double the Chicago futures price throughout the past year. The Chinese price rose 46 percent from July 2020 to February 2021, and the Chicago price rose about 58 percent over the same period. The Chinese price in dollars got an extra boost by a 9-percent appreciation of the Chinese currency against the dollar. The Chinese CASDE report commented that China's corn imports have boosted international prices, raising the cost of importing corn to China. 

Chinese price converted to dollars per bushel using the official daily exchange rate.

USDA watches foreign markets closely to prevent surprises like the 1970s "grain robbery," but there is no reliable data to watch in China. The rebuilding of China's swine herd--hyped to reassure Chinese consumers--is one factor boosting demand for corn. China's Ministry of Agriculture CASDE report attributes the tight corn market to the faster than expected swine recovery, large poultry inventories, and corn hoarding by processors and traders. The Ministry is covering up reports of a resurgence of African swine fever and other diseases and a breakdown in the breeding chain that results in poor quality sows that must be culled and replaced early due to low productivity. If the sector has really been in recovery for a year, why are hog prices, piglet prices and pork imports still as high as they were a year ago?

There are indications that the imported corn is refilling warehouses as well as pig bellies. In April 2020, a rumor was circulated in Chinese news media that authorities were contemplating purchases of 20 mmt of corn, 10 mmt of soybeans, and unspecified volumes of cotton, sugar and vegetable oil to replenish depleted reserves. The information appeared in state-run Futures Daily--identified in the title as a "rumor"--and was reported on many other sites. Reuters reported that three unnamed informants had told them about the import deliberations. According to the reports, officials were considering restocking commodity reserves to quell food security worries during the pandemic, fulfill the targets in the Phase One agreement, to take advantage of low prices in international markets, and to prevent prices from rising in the latter half of the year. It was noted that economic planners turned to the international market since China does not have enough of its own corn to refill reserves. 

The National Grain and Oils Information Center's lead analyst said private companies have been stocking up on corn to ensure they have enough feed on hand in case supplies are interrupted if the covid pandemic gets out of control again and necessitates shutting down roads and logistics. He cites a shrinking volume of new-crop corn still in farmers' hands, surging prices overseas and a devalued U.S. dollar contributing to high Chinese corn prices. At the same time, the analyst cited substitution of wheat, rice, and sorghum for corn and experiments with zero-corn feed rations as industry players cope with high corn prices.  

From May to September 2020 Chinese authorities held weekly auctions of domestic reserves that reportedly sold more than 55 mmt of corn. Authorities supplemented the corn auctions with sales of wheat and rice reserves as corn substitutes for feed mills and distilleries throughout 2020. The pace of domestic corn procurement is much faster than last year, according to data from the Chinese grain administration. Yet Chinese corn prices continue to rise.

What seems to be indisputable is that China's corn reserves fell to a low point in 2020. The 2020 auctions reportedly were the last of a 4-year campaign to jettison a massive stockpile of corn that had peaked at nearly a year's supply. In 2015--the last year of a disastrous price support program--it was reported that 125 mmt of corn was purchased by the program. That suggests that the government's warehouses bought up almost the entire corn crop in the northeast provinces where the program operated--an implausible amount. An educated guess: a massive check-up of grain reserves conducted in 2019 may have discovered the warehouses were already nearly empty, and the 2020 "auctions" may have been an accounting transaction to take phantom reserve numbers off the books. 

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization just made "a massive downward adjustment to maize inventories in China" that shaved 54 mmt from its estimate of Chinese corn inventory by revising upward its estimates of China's feed consumption as far back as 2013/14. This suddenly makes the global grain S&D look tighter. 

China's import quota for corn was always presumed to be a ceiling on imports. Last April's "rumor" of plans for 20 mmt of corn imports seemed implausible at the time since it was three times the quota. Suddenly the quota is irrelevant, as China imported 11.3 mmt in 2020--4.1 mmt over the quota. How did this happen? More quota? subsidies? tariff waivers? Nobody knows. No expansion of the quota was announced for 2021.

Here are some unsubstantiated rumors floated in news reports over the past year:

• Additional special quotas of 7 mmt were issued to feed mills to tamp down price speculation in response to news of last summer's typhoon damage to the corn crop.
• A temporary "loophole" for some processors in Shandong Province allowed them to import additional corn at low tariffs without using import quota.
• The Chinese government issued 5 mmt of additional quota to COFCO to make purchases of corn--mainly from the United States--to restock reserves. COFCO got a subsidy, but had to return funds if their profit exceeded 30 yuan per ton.

China's corn import quota stipulates that 60 percent of the quota is allocated to COFCO, making this one company the dominant importer. Over 1000 Chinese companies applied for a share of the 2021 corn import quota, but they only get dribs and drabs of the quota. All of the rumors and anecdotes about Chinese corn purchases involve COFCO. Customs data show that Beijing-based companies (almost certainly COFCO) accounted for all the increase in corn imports last year.

The USDA reporting system for foreign grain sales has brought the COFCO buying spree at least partly into the open despite COFCO's efforts to keep it in the shadows. ProFarmer's newsletter reported last week that COFCO is taking advantage of loopholes to keep its purchases out of the USDA's reporting system until the grain is actually shipped to China. However, ProFarmer's informants suggest that the system is pretty much working: everyone knows that China needs a lot of corn and COFCO does not have a big enough operation in the United States to keep all the sales out of the reporting system. 

No one knows whether the Chinese purchases are a temporary boom or a "new normal." Is corn the new soybeans, or could the corn purchases stop as abruptly as they started? China has a history of frenzied purchases that were presumed to be the tip of the iceberg but turned out to be the edge of a cliff. 

Shanghai Markets: Food from Far Away

As China's biggest city and one of its richest, Shanghai has a thriving food industry supplied mainly with products from other provinces and from overseas. Shanghai is on the leading edge of a national trend of adding food miles and degrees of separation between consumers and farms. A thriving, gradually maturing industry is growing rapidly to get tasty food to consumers. But the trend also creates safety risks and opportunities for criminal food fraud. 

An annual "white paper" by Shanghai's market supervision authority posted on the central government's web site is meant to assure Chinese consumers that authorities have food safety under control. 

The report says Shanghai is becoming a "food distribution city" as the number of local food producers plummets. In 2020, 80 percent of the food consumed in Shanghai came from outside the municipality. The ratio was up 10 percentage points from five years earlier, according to the report. 

Relatively few local farms serve Shanghai and their production has declined sharply:

• The 2.4 million metric tons of vegetables produced by 975 local cooperatives in Shanghai during 2020 was down 16 percent from 2016.
• The 56,000 metric tons of fish and shellfish products from 490 aquaculture production bases was down 47 percent
• 117 Shanghai farms slaughtered 310,000 hogs last year, just 10 percent of the 2.9 million hogs slaughtered there in the peak year of 2014 

The report said Shanghai received 9.1 million metric tons of imported food during 2020. Meat, grain, fruit and nuts were the top food imports, the report said. 

Imported food summits were held in Shanghai the last two years.

The number of local agricultural wholesale markets fell from 50 to 22 between 2014 and 2020, and the volume of products moving through the markets fell 40 percent. 

The report said more food is being marketed through e-commerce, supermarkets, and by direct-sale shops operated by production bases in other provinces. 

In 2020, Shanghai had 114,273 food retailing businesses, 59,256 wholesale food businesses, and 12,938 businesses registered to do both wholesale and retail. 

Shanghai's food service sector has been exploding. Shanghai had 120,635 food service businesses and cafeterias at the end of 2020. Their numbers increased by more than 10,000 last year and they have increased 3-fold since 2015. The bulk of these are 57,000 small restaurants and 18,000 hole-in-the-wall eateries, fast-food joints and drinking places. Shanghai has over 16,000 cafeterias. The number of small restaurants has declined though. All restaurant operators have ambitions to become bigger and they are expanding rapidly, the report said.

The number of licensed food processors declined from 2,210 to 1,405 between 2010 and 2020. Only 30 percent of the food producers had sales above 20 million yuan (roughly $3 million), but the proportion went up 9 percentage points last year. The report says the larger "above-scale" food producers had a 2-percent increase in sales last year, despite impacts of the pandemic.

Shanghai also tends to be on the forefront of food safety regulation in China. With so much food coming from distant sources and large numbers of retailers and restaurants, Shanghai faces challenges in ensuring the safety of food. But the report claims Shanghai is making progress in regulating food safety.

Cartoon from Shanghai's Liberation Daily checks for "pesticide residues" and "illegal additives".

Shanghai had only 3 food poisoning incidents in cafeterias during May, June, and December last year. Two were salmonella poisoning and one was a staphylococcus bacteria. One was caused by cross-contamination of food, another resulted from dirty utensils, and the source of the third was not determined. Authorities monitored diarrhea cases at 30 "sentinel hospitals" and found salmonella, campylobacter, e-coli, and vibrio parahaemolyticus. Authorities observed a surge in sales of diarrhea medications in January, July and August. 

Shanghai authorities tested nearly 147,000 food samples last year with a pass rate of 99.1 percent. They also conducted over 2 million quick tests (an increase of 48 percent from the previous year, presumably due to the covid-19 epidemic) with a pass rate of 99.7 percent. The white paper brags that Shanghai tested 10.5 samples per 1000 people, a much higher rate than in Europe or the United States. 

Shanghai reports a pass rate of 99.9 percent for testing of agricultural products. Pass rates were 99.8 percent for food sampled from processing plants and 99.25 percent for food in distribution channels. 

China's customs administration reported that Shanghai rejected 300 out of 350,800 shipments of imported food in 2020. That translates to a 99.9 percent acceptance rate for imported food. Meat and seafood accounted for more than half of Shanghai's imported food rejections last year. Rejections peaked in July, the month after war on imported frozen food was declared. Processed food from other Asian countries accounted for another chunk. Lack of documentation and labeling were cited most often, but South American shrimp were cited for "animal disease" and Australian beef was cited for various violations. More than half of the rejections were shipments from the EU and Japan, not known for their risky food.

Monitoring of domestic food supplies at fixed points around Shanghai found 100 percent pass rates for most foods. Persisting problems identified by Shanghai authorities were contamination of food by pollution in the environment and veterinary drug residues. Improper food additives were detected occasionally. Specific problems reported were detection of cadmium and antibiotic residues in freshwater shrimp and fish; antibiotic residues in fresh eggs; traces of a plant growth promoter in bean sprouts; pesticide residues on chives; a mycotoxin in flour; and restaurant utensils that tested for detergent residue and coliforms.

The Shanghai report called attention to several types of fraud, including counterfeit or inferior flavorings, chocolate, milk powder and bottled water; and watered down liquor and wine. The report  noted an uptick in cross-provincial crime as "gangs became faster, more concealed and able to evade authorities." The production and storage of food outside the city makes Shanghai vulnerable to food fraud. The report said that criminal gangs are utilizing e-commerce sites and logistics channels to perpetrate fraudulent food sales.

A poll said 86.5 percent of Shanghai residents were satisfied with the safety of food, up 2.6 percent points from 2019 and the highest satisfaction rate in 11 years, the report said. The most common problems reported to a food safety hot line were spoilage, past expiration date, foreign bodies, illegal additives, and packaging labels on meats, restaurant foods, baked goods, fruit, and dairy products. Consumers reported discomfort after eating, delivery disputes, delays in delivery, unlicensed operations, and poor smoking control in restaurants.

Shanghai is not typical, but it represents the direction China is headed. It is no longer a country of subsistence farmers, and its industry performs an amazing task by feeding 24.3 million people on a daily basis.