Crab foot stick is a kind of “tall” surimi product in foreign countries, which tastes very good. However, after the introduction of the domestic market, a large number of low-end crab sticks flooded the market and became “short and poor”, and some enterprises and practitioners lost confidence in them.
Recently, Fujian Anjing Food Co., Ltd., as the leading enterprise in the hot pot industry, launched a series of products of Marzun in a high-profile manner, including a hand shredded imitation snow crab.
It is worth mentioning that Shandong Fanfu Food Co., Ltd. proposed to be a “high-end crab foot stick quality advocate” last year to let industry people pay attention to crab foot stick products again.
In the domestic market, Crab Foot Stick will return to the high-end. Do you think so?
Background
Low-end products flooded the market, and the crab foot stick market has been abused
Crab foot stick, also known as crab stick, simulated crab meat, and crab flavor fish cake, is a traditional product of surimi that simulates the texture and flavor of Alaska snow crab leg meat. The meat is strong and flexible, and has a salty and slightly sweet flavor of delicious seafood, which has a strong simulation effect.
Crab foot stick is a new imitation product made by Japan in 1972, which is made from pollock surimi. It is very popular in the international market.
In 1995, Shandong Changhua Food Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Changhua”), located in Rizhao City, took the lead in introducing the most advanced crab foot stick processing equipment and processing technology from Japan at that time, with great success. In the same year, its products were sold to Russia, the United States, the European Union, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, starting the production of marine bionic food in Rizhao.
Driven by Changhua, domestic hot pot enterprises have started to produce crab foot sticks, especially Rizhao. According to insiders, there are nearly 100 such enterprises in Rizhao City, which has become the largest marine bionic food base in China. However, the market is far from as easy as expected.
“Crab stick is an overused product, and few enterprises will focus on it. In recent years, there are fewer and fewer enterprises producing crab stick, and some enterprises simply do not make it.” An upstream supplier of the hot pot material industry reported that the production of crab stick in Rizhao is also getting smaller and smaller.
Lou Hua, sales director of Shandong Fuchunyuan Food Technology Co., Ltd., introduced the situation of the industry: there is still a quantity of low-end crab foot sticks, but the profit is getting lower and lower.
Shandong Fanfu Food Co., Ltd. counts the sales data of the whole year from April to January of the next year. Meng Qingbin, its general manager, shared the latest set of accurate data: compared with 2015, the sales volume of crab foot sticks increased by 11% in 2016, and the total sales volume increased by 21%. During this period, the price has been adjusted twice. Although the growth is good, it is undeniable that crab foot sticks belong to the company’s relatively low-level products.
“Crab foot stick is basically made of starch and essence, and consumers gradually know it.” Sun Wanliang, a dealer in Baoding, Hebei, told reporters that the sales of crab foot stick have declined a lot in recent years, and he rarely sells this product now.
Explore the cause
Complex process and expensive equipment
At present, all walks of life are upgrading their products and consumption. Why is there still a large number of low-end crab sticks in the hot pot industry?
According to Zhang Youhua, a salesperson of crab foot stick equipment, a set of crab foot stick production equipment costs several million yuan, and the production cost is high, but the enterprise profit cannot keep up with it. So now there are fewer and fewer manufacturers producing crab foot stick. But he felt that the crab foot stick product itself was no problem. “If the manufacturer pays attention to quality and produces high-quality products, I believe there will be a market”.
According to Cai Senyuan, a hot pot product R&D engineer from Taiwan, the production process of crab foot stick is: freezing fish paste → chopping and mixing → shaping → baking → steam heating → cooling → shredding and bunching → coloring, packaging and cutting → cooking → cooling → packaging → finished product. The production process is very complex and the rate of defective products is high.
“The original product of crab foot stick looks like crab meat at first glance, but it tastes no different from fish cake. It is just an imitation product with color and crab flavor. Later, Japan first appeared a filament-shaped highly simulated crab foot stick product, which is on par with real crab meat in terms of flavor and taste.” Cai Senyuan said.
According to the different forms of products, Cai Senyuan roughly divided the evolution process of crab foot sticks into four stages. The first stage is from the fibrous shape beginning in 1972 to the stick shape, mixed broken shape and scallop-like shape in 1974; In the second stage, Cai Senyuan said, “Most of the crab foot sticks produced in China are in the shape of sticks. The production equipment and technology used in the third and fourth stages mentioned above still depend on Japan.”
According to Huang Hongsheng, a researcher of hot pot ingredients, there are three reasons for the bad market of crab foot sticks: first, high requirements for production technology; Second, there are many defective products in the production process; Third, the forming equipment of crab foot sticks is very expensive. If it is imported from Japan, it will cost at least 3 million yuan, and the output is not high.
Talking about some current problems in the crab foot stick industry, an employee of an enterprise in the north told a case that his company’s crab foot stick sold for less than 10000 yuan per ton, but it was processed by an enterprise in the south. The same product could be sold for more than 10000 yuan per ton by this enterprise in the south. It shows that there are brand and operation factors in the crab foot stick market, and that the crab foot stick products are valuable and promising.
New changes
High-end crab foot stick is coming
Recently, Fujian Anjing Food Co., Ltd., as the leading enterprise in the hot pot industry, launched a series of products of Marzun in a high-profile manner, including a hand shredded imitation snow crab. It is worth mentioning that Shandong Fanfu Food Co., Ltd. proposed to be a “high-end crab foot stick quality advocate” last year to let industry people pay attention to crab foot stick products again.
It is understood that in the series of the Zun of Anjing Maru, the single portion of the hand-striped imitation snow crab product is 5 pieces, totaling 100g, and the price of JD.com is 11.8 yuan. On the back of the product package, it can be seen that the content of surimi in the main raw material column is ≥ 55%. There are such introductions about the edible methods: cold dishes, cold dishes, mixed salads, rolls of sushi, soup, fried noodles, baked dishes, side dishes, etc.
“The Crab Feet Stick products are relatively low-end and have a single channel. They are basically sold in the Spicy Hot Pot channel. In fact, Crab Feet Stick is suitable for Chinese and Western catering, family and hotel channels. Compared with other hot pot ingredients that can only go through a single channel, it is a more abundant and diversified category.” Meng Qingbin introduced that at present, the company’s Crab Feet Stick products account for a large share in the entire industry, but relatively low-end, the next step will be in product segmentation, market segmentation Channel segmentation and other aspects.
The crab foot stick originated in Japan. In order to fully understand the sales situation of the crab foot stick, the reporter interviewed Quanxing Group, which has been engaged in the Japanese food industry for 21 years. The crab foot stick they represent is of high quality. The sales volume of the crab foot stick accounts for about 2% of the company’s total sales. At the just past annual meeting, Quanxing Group calculated that the total sales of the company in 2016 was more than 300 million yuan, that is to say, the sales volume of crab foot sticks was about 6 million yuan.
Chai Yilin, head of Quanxing Japanese Food Zhengzhou, said: “The company has crab foot sticks of 60 yuan per kilogram and crab foot sticks of 90 yuan per kilogram, which are mainly sold to Japanese food stores and high-end hot pot stores. They can be frozen and ready to eat, boiled hot pot, and made into sandwiches, sushi, salads, etc.”
Prospect
The market acceptance of high-end crab foot sticks is high. The key is how to operate
In the domestic market, Crab Foot Stick will return to the high-end. Do you think so?
Cai Senyuan is optimistic about the development of high-end surimi products, including high-end crab foot sticks. He believed that the future development direction of surimi products must be health and quality, and suggested that the domestic surimi industry practitioners should take “quantity” first, while also taking into account the “quality” of products.
In addition, considering that most of the crab foot sticks currently produced in China are rod-shaped products, the production equipment and technology of crab foot sticks in the third and fourth stages mentioned above still depend on Japan, Cai Senyuan said, “We hope that the domestic surimi product equipment manufacturers can cooperate with the surimi product manufacturers to develop high-end surimi products, such as bamboo wheel, sushi fish cake, surimi cake, and even innovative products, such as Tongluoshao fish cake, doughnut fish cake, Makaron fish cake combined with pastries, etc., through technology transfer and equipment development, so that domestic consumers can also enjoy delicious surimi products with excellent protein.”
Chai Yilin said that high-end crab foot sticks have customers, but the volume is not very large, and there are great differences between Japanese market regions. With the Yangtze River as the boundary, the reception degree of the Yangtze River is high in the south, and relatively poor in the north. The Zhengzhou office was not established for a long time, but he obviously felt that the number of Japanese food stores increased rapidly, including the demand for high-end food in the cities around Zhengzhou.
“For example, a hot pot shop in Xi’an ordered 5 tons of crab foot sticks last time. The customer price of this hot pot shop is not too high, about 60 yuan per person, which shows that everyone is acceptable to high-end crab foot sticks, and the key depends on how the manufacturer and dealer operate.” Chai Yilin said.
Meng Qingbin also vaguely felt that some enterprises in the south now gradually began to attach importance to the single product of crab foot stick. For example, the normal temperature crab foot stick launched by Haixin and the frozen hand tear imitation snow crab produced by Anjing are also a kind of attempt and wait-and-see. From these new products, we can see the big consumption space in the future. “Fanfu Company will also continue to promote the work process of team management, background technology development and related supporting facilities, and strengthen the connection with catering institutions and factory users.”
“With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, the consumption concept is changing, and more and more attention is paid to food safety and food health issues. In the long run, high-quality things will last longer.” Sun Wanliang is optimistic about the market prospects of crab foot sticks. He thinks that high-end products and new products will be new profit growth points for both manufacturers and dealers.
Post time: Feb-28-2023