Foreign catering brands grab bite of Chinese market

Local inspiration

In addition to its burgers, the newly opened Shake Shack outlet in Beijing offers the Hutong Hawthorn milkshake, inspired by the traditional street snack tanghulu, and the Beijing Blush Concrete shake, which features vanilla custard blended with rose pastry made by the city's time-honored snack brand Daoxiangcun.

On Sept 10 in Tianjin, the New York cake brand Lady M opened its latest branch on the mainland, where it now has 23 outlets.

Founded in 2001, Lady M has more than 40 branches worldwide. The brand entered the mainland in Shanghai in 2017, expanding to Beijing a year later.

Each year, it launches a limited number of mooncakes to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. Demand for them is always high.

This year, the mooncakes feature in the animated musical Over the Moon, a collaboration between Netflix and Pearl Studios. The film tells the story of a bright young girl who builds a rocket ship and blasts off, hoping to meet a mythical moon goddess.

The packaging for the mooncakes features an illuminated lantern depicting scenes from the film. The lantern also contains six mooncakes in two flavors－sweet egg custard and chocolate custard.

Ken Romaniszyn, the Lady M CEO, said it is fun creating the collectible packaging for the mooncakes every Mid-Autumn Festival.

Xu Xitong, chief executive of Kotobuki Spirits (China), introduced the cheesecake brand LeTao, to China in 2018. The brand's store in the small Japanese port city of Otaru, where it was founded, is a must-visit destination for Chinese visitors.

"Our team visited LeTao in Japan many times before we finally brought its cheesecakes to China," Xu said.

The first LeTao store in China opened in the Xintiandi area of Shanghai, "a place that fuses Chinese and Western culture and is one of the city's landmarks," Xu said.

Long lines formed at the store for a month after it opened.

Xu soon opened two other stores in Shanghai before expanding to nearby cities, including Nanjing and Suzhou in Jiangsu province, and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

The first LeTao store in Beijing, at Taikoo Li, Sanlitun, was due to open on Feb 14, but the date had to be postponed to May due to the pandemic.

Xu said the cheesecakes are made in Japan and shipped to China. The pandemic has meant a longer transportation time, but supplies have not been affected.

"The summer season has passed. As our main products are frozen cheesecakes and ice cream, we will continue our expansion plans in Beijing next year," Xu said, adding that he is also planning to bring more Japanese dessert brands to China.