Bel Group has acquired a 70% stake in cheese producer Shandong Junjun Cheese Co., together with licences and authorizations to function the Chinese language firm’s manufacturing unit.
Based mostly in Northeastern China, Shandong Junjun Cheese was based in 2017 and has achieved annual development of greater than 100% since 2018. The corporate produces a big portfolio of cheese, although it’s in the beginning a co-manufacturer with monetary, industrial and R&D capabilities.
For Bel, which beforehand had no manufacturing facility within the nation and all of its merchandise have been developed and manufactured overseas, the acquisition of an current Chinese language co-manufacturer ‘makes good sense’ as it can enable the Group to fulfil native circumstances and speed up its product’s time-to-market.
“Bel wants to have the ability to shortly innovate and adapt to market developments and Chinese language client preferences,” a gaggle spokesperson instructed DairyReporter. “Thus, allying ourselves with an area participant with robust monetary, industrial, and R&D capabilities completely aligns with our development technique. We are going to work with companions to optimize using the portfolio of merchandise and types supplied by each Bel and Junjun on the Chinese language market.”
As a part of the settlement, Shandong Junjun Cheese will assist deploy Bel merchandise in China via native R&D and manufacturing amenities. The corporate’s management workforce can also be set to play ‘a important position’ within the three way partnership.
Cécile Béliot, Bel Group CEO, commented: “With the acquisition of a majority stake in Shandong Junjun Cheese, we’re pursuing our development technique by increasing our product portfolio and strengthening our manufacturing footprint. Our will to speed up in new territories is on the coronary heart of our development technique, in addition to our re-balancing across the dairy, fruit, and plant-based segments of wholesome snacking.
“We have now chosen Shandong Junjun Cheese, an organization with large industrial capabilities and innovation potential. This may allow us to extend our scale on the Chinese language market and compete for management. We warmly welcome the greater than 300 Shandong Junjun Cheese workers to the Bel Group and stay up for efficiently growing our place collectively.”
Zhao Lu, Shandong Junjun Cheese founder, added: “Partnering with Bel instantly appealed to us as a win-win method, with a tradition near ours and powerful synergies. With over 150 years of expertise in Cheese, Bel will allow the additional improvement of Shandong Junjun Cheese by strengthening R&D and manufacturing capabilities. In the meantime, our firm will assist speed up the deployment of Bel branded merchandise in China via its state-of-the-art R&D and manufacturing amenities, supported by a robust workforce of specialists and entrepreneurs.”
An untapped market
Dairy merchandise aren’t historically related to the Chinese language weight-reduction plan, however demand for cheese within the nation has been rising in recent times. In accordance with GlobalData analysis, China’s cheese market is about to develop at an annual price of greater than 8% throughout 2020-2025, with processed cheese being the fastest-growing section, and supermarkets – the primary distribution channel.
Statista in the meantime has projected that consumption will develop at a tempo that might far outstrip provide in 2026, reaching practically 670,000 metric tons, with Chinese language manufacturing offering round 322,000 metric tons.
“Cheese is the popular snacking class of over 50% of Chinese language customers in 2021, with a robust concentrate on processed cheese,” Bel’s spokesperson defined. “The important thing to opening the market additional rests in our capability to supply improvements tailored to Chinese language customers’ style and preferences, whereas exploring but untapped developments. Due to this fact, Bel’s technique focuses on exploring new flavors and codecs for all snacking events – leveraging each Junjun’s native R&D and innovation capabilities and Bel’s world experience in providing wholesome snacking events in a portion format.”
