Market update: Edible oils in China

07-Sep-2016 - Last updated on 08-Sep-2016 at 06:57 GMT

Related tags Cooking oil Vegetable fats and oils

Edible oil consumption has increased in China at a compound rate of over 15% since 2005, according to a new report on the market.

Last year, Chinese consumers got through some 34m tonnes of edible vegetable oil at a time when increasing per-capita income and significant dietary structure changes have consistently buoyed demand.

According to Research & Markets, the overall annual import value of oil crops and vegetable oil exceeded US$50bn in China last year. Of this, vegetable oil imports grew by 4% last year to 6.8m tonnes, while Chinese soybean imports reached was 81.7m tonnes—an year-on-year increase of 14.6%, valued at US$34.8bn.

Tens of thousands of processors are now operating in China, with an annual production capacity of over 200m tons. The lion’s share is occupied by the top 10 manufacturers, including Yihai Kerry, Cofco Corporation and Chinatex.

With sizeable domestic crop supplies, prices have slumped since 2012, with soybean oil, rapeseed oil and palm oil all recently having experienced their lowest prices for five years.