Dining out, the missing food consumption in China

ABSTRACT

Food security concern in China is also the world’s concern. Studies on food consumption in the past, however, often neglected the increasing food consumed away from home (FAFH). Drawn on a survey data recently conducted in nine cities by a week-long diary method, we found that FAFH in urban China accounts for a significant proportion of total food consumption, although its share varies by food category. With substantial expected income growth, overall FAFH consumption will likely continue to rise, but would be negatively affected by the rapid societal aging process, both in dining out probability and per capita consumption level. The main findings of this study have implications for food processing and service industries as well as for studies in food-related environmental issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Food away from home
• food security
• income
• aging population
• China

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D12
• Q18

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chinese Universities Scientific Fund [grant number 2014RC01]; Project of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Education of China [grant number 15YJA790080]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71273009]; and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program [grant number 09093019].