Looking to find, feed new food consumers

Higher threshold

Further, bad impressions about Chinese food have led to a higher threshold for goods shipped from China.

"From 2008 to May this year, Japan has randomly checked 15,500 samples of our products. We have to pay 50,000 yen ($500) for each sample testing," he said.

In Japan, the sampling rate of Chinese products is fivefold compared with products from the US, according to Wang.

However, four products in every 10,000 Chinese food catalogs inspected by Japan's quality authorities failed Japanese standards last year, while the ratio for the US was six for every 10,000," Wang said, quoting information from Japan-based CGC, a chain of 220 companies and more than 3,000 stores.

The Japanese authorities will test for residues in processed foods that do not have specific provisional maximum levels for 758 chemicals used in agriculture, based on the concentration in the ingredients, according to the country's Food Sanitation Law.

Nonetheless, Japan, which accounts for 17.7 percent of China's total agricultural exports, was China's largest export market for the sector last year. Top export commodities included chicken, eels and frozen fish fillets, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

"As China's agriculture export destination is relatively concentrated to specific countries, such as Japan and South Korea, it is easy for a floating exchange rate to affect trade performance. Further, some of the countries are erecting trade barriers to protect their domestic production," said Wang Xiaoyue, a senior analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd, an agriculture and food business consulting company.

"Further transformation for these producers may still take place regarding developing diversified products, building brands and tapping into the domestic market," said Wang.

However, unlike Wang's poultry company, producers of agricultural commodities, such as garlic, are spending much more on research and development to add more value to raw materials.

In Pizhou, endeavors have been made in this area, but fresh garlic in cold storage still makes up most of the exports.

Local garlic producers may go through a tough year because of oversupply of the product and yuan appreciation.

"In China, the output of garlic increased more than 1 million tons from last year but demand from international markets has not climbed. The prospects for this year are not that optimistic," said Du.

"From January to May this year, the export of garlic totaled $100 million, a decrease compared with the same period in 2012," said Du.

Garlic prices for this year are still unclear because the peak season for acquisition and exporting is in July and August, but Du said the increased output has added to a declining price of garlic this year.

Further, the main export countries of Pizhou garlic are Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia nations.

"But India, Pakistan and other countries are imposing import quotas for garlic to protect their domestic production," said Du.

"Chinese garlic producers have made great strides and have achieved some progress. But it will be a long time before local companies developing competitive and sophisticated products can get their feet on the international stage," said Huang.