---
title: "The \"Overlooked\" Canned Food: In Critical Moments, Industrialized Food Can \"Save Lives\""
description: "Since March, Shanghai has been at the epicenter of a new wave of Omicron outbreaks, with 25 million people facing varying degrees of material shortages. While residents have resorted to creative measures like community group buying and hydroponic vegetable cultivation, the article argues that canned food, often misunderstood as unhealthy and unpreserved, is actually a reliable and nutritious option for emergency preparedness, backed by historical and global examples."
author: "湃动研究院"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-05-10"
language: "en"
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# The "Overlooked" Canned Food: In Critical Moments, Industrialized Food Can "Save Lives"

> Since March, Shanghai has been at the epicenter of a new wave of Omicron outbreaks, with 25 million people facing varying degrees of material shortages. While residents have resorted to creative measures like community group buying and hydroponic vegetable cultivation, the article argues that canned food, often misunderstood as unhealthy and unpreserved, is actually a reliable and nutritious option for emergency preparedness, backed by historical and global examples.

Since March, Shanghai has been at the epicenter of a new wave of Omicron outbreaks.
25 million people have fallen into varying degrees of material shortages, and Shanghai residents who can't grab vegetables have started to find creative ways to make light of their situation. For example, some use drones to remotely feed their cats; some use fascia guns to snatch groceries on food-buying apps; some are learning how to grow vegetables hydroponically; some are learning from cooking bloggers how to make three meals out of one dish; some thank "my group leader, my group" in group chats every day...
On one hand, the topic of community group buying is heating up again; on the other, hydroponic vegetable cultivation is seen as a life-saving trick. Both point to a common issue: Chinese dietary habits are inseparable from leafy greens, meat, eggs, and poultry, and they must be fresh.
However, some have raised the opposite opinion: most people's logic for stocking up on food is wrong.
At this time, stocking up should prioritize long shelf life, which means it can be stored for a long time without a refrigerator; secondly, high calories to stave off hunger; thirdly, convenience for immediate consumption; and finally, taste. Even those who have studied abroad for years discuss: Europeans and Americans go to the supermarket once or twice a week to buy groceries and stock up, and their cabinets often contain a dozen boxes of pasta, canned beans, and canned meat. Even if they were locked down for three weeks now, they could survive.
Canned food is the hardcore survival food recommended first in doomsday survival guides.
However, canned food has not been popular in China for a long time; at most, it's incorporated into recipes to make a dish like stir-fried lettuce with fermented black bean and dace. "Additives, preservatives, not fresh, not healthy" are the original sins of canned food, and also people's misunderstandings about it.
******Misunderstood Canned Food: Are Industrialized Foods Not Fresh?**
Let's first look at the definition of canned food. According to the definition in the "National Food Safety Standard - Canned Food" (GB7098-2015), canned food refers to sterile canned food processed from fruits, vegetables, edible fungi, livestock and poultry meat, aquatic animals, etc., through pre-treatment, canning, sealing, heat sterilization, and other processes.
In fact, almost all common foods on the market today, from luncheon meat to tuna; from chickpeas to tomatoes; from bamboo shoots to bran dough, can be found in cans. In real consumption scenarios, canned food is always misunderstood—people think it's not fresh and not healthy. **But in fact, they are much healthier than you think.**
First, the standardized production and preservation technology of canned food are already quite mature. The production of canned food mainly involves six steps: raw material pre-treatment → canning and pre-sealing → exhausting → sealing → sterilization → cooling. Processed canned food can generally be stored at room temperature for more than 12 months.
This preservation capability mainly relies on the three key steps of "exhausting, sealing, and sterilization." They can maximize the killing of microorganisms that cause food to rot and spoil. "Canned food uses heat sterilization and sealing processes to achieve commercial sterility and vacuum preservation, ensuring the color, aroma, and taste of the food," said the chairman of the China Canned Food Industry Association in an interview.
That is to say, **the preservation of canned food does not require the addition of preservatives at all. Even if there are any, they are very, very few.**
"No nutrition" is another reason why most consumers reject canned food.
But in fact, during storage and transportation, the nutritional loss of canned food is less than that of fresh food.
For example, canned food manufacturing basically follows the principle of "rapid on-site processing," **and canned food manufacturers also tend to build factories near raw material origins and produce seasonally to reduce costs.** Through mature preservation technology, the nutrients in canned food suffer less loss compared to the route of fresh ingredients from picking, transportation, sales, and then to the consumer's refrigerator.
**This has also led to another interesting phenomenon: except for Shanghai Maling and Beidaihe military canned food, almost all canned food brands are products of "living off the land and sea."**
For example, Guangdong Ganzhu and Yingqianjin produce canned dace with fermented black beans; Yunnan Dehe produces canned Yunnan ham and mushroom cans; Xinjiang produces canned tomatoes and grapes, and Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai produce seafood cans, etc.
**There is no canned food consumption habit in China, so as a type of industrialized food, canned food products are like flowers blooming inside the wall but fragrant outside.**
 *maps of world website released the "Top Ten Countries in Global Canned Food Consumption" in 2017
According to statistics from the China Canned Food Industry Association, from 1950 to 2019, China's cumulative canned food production was about 190 million tons, of which 34% was exported, earning over $80 billion in foreign exchange. In 2021 alone, China exported nearly 2 million tons of canned food, supplying a quarter of the world's canned food, with exports exceeding 20.7 billion yuan.
China is truly the world's largest producer of canned food, but we don't eat much canned food. **The daily diet of Chinese people mainly relies on the orderly operation of a huge logistics cold chain, fresh food e-commerce, and comprehensive vegetable basket markets.**
**Until a pandemic suddenly struck.**
The transportation system came to a halt, supermarkets closed, and food delivery services ceased, making fresh produce that requires frequent purchasing a luxury during special times.
In contrast, canned food: it's durable, easy to cook, even ready to eat straight from the can, and very filling. Cheap, large quantities, and storable canned food can provide carbohydrates and protein, while vegetable nutrition can be supplemented with supplements. This is the hardcore survival principle, though it may lack some "life atmosphere."
But if you want to "save lives," canned food is a good choice.
******From Historical Battlefields to Supermarket Shelves:**** Canned Food Enters Daily Consumption**
**Saying canned food "saves lives" is more of a general reference, meaning industrially processed food that can be stored at room temperature for a long time. The birth of such food was directly related to the external environment.**
In 1789, Napoleon led the French army on campaigns across Europe. At that time, military rations were generally durable dry bread, biscuits, and salted meat. Relatively fresh food raised for the front lines, such as fresh meat and potatoes, often rotted and spoiled in large quantities before reaching the soldiers' stomachs. In 1800, Napoleon announced a reward of 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a method for long-term food preservation.
Four years later, food merchant Nicolas Appert successfully developed a new food preservation technology. He later received Napoleon's reward and used the prize money to open the world's first canned food processing factory, providing food for the military.
The same story happened in the United States. World War II not only created Coca-Cola but also Hormel's SPAM luncheon meat.
No refrigeration needed, ready to eat straight from the can, and highly satiating, SPAM quickly gained favor with military procurement and soldiers' taste buds, becoming a designated military ration. Thus, canned luncheon meat spread with the war machine from the Japanese archipelago to the European continent. According to statistics, the U.S. military consumed about 150 million pounds of luncheon meat during the war.
The same was true in China. The Korean War catalyzed a surge in China's canned food production. By the end of the Korean War in 1953, China's canned food production had increased more than 15 times compared to the early days of the founding of the People's Republic.
**In extreme environments like war, the characteristics of "easy storage + ready to eat" made canned food highly sought after. In peacetime, for canned food to reach mass consumption, it still relied on the food industry centered on "technology."**
 *Tetra Pak packaging is used in almost all canned milk. Sweden's Tetra Pak company sells 167 billion packaging boxes annually; provides 75.6 billion liters of liquid food globally; with annual net income of 10.4 billion euros
As a microcosm of technology, besides aluminum and iron cans, there is also Tetra Pak. With it, milk is processed under specific high temperature and pressure (UHT) stirring, then filled into Tetra Pak containers for long-term room temperature storage. This process not only kills most harmful bacteria in raw milk but also breaks down fat particles in milk to 100 times smaller, reducing the rate of milk separation while maintaining the nutrition and taste of the milk.
Therefore, UHT milk in Tetra Pak packaging helped the general working class achieve milk freedom—without needing a refrigerator. And the Swedish company Tetra Pak, which created this technology, also changed the way people around the world drink milk.
The power of technology is also reflected in economies of scale. By processing fresh milk from different sources into industrial products with unified fat and protein content standards, the price of "fresh" milk has been greatly reduced, meeting the needs of ordinary consumers.
Such things happen with all foods that can be standardized, and they integrate into daily consumption through food industrialization.
More importantly, the case of providing industrialized products to the general public through standardized production is not limited to food; it is also common in clothing, appliances, and automobile manufacturing. In the words of sociologists, this is "the internal mechanism by which industrialization benefits the ordinary working class and then creates class harmony."
**Thus, food industry technology has profoundly changed our social life.**
Northeast China, which doesn't have abundant fruit supply, can eat canned yellow peaches; inland areas that don't produce seafood can eat canned fish. With population mobility and economic development, Cantonese people who went to Southeast Asia for business promoted the easy-to-store canned dace with fermented black beans, enriching Southeast Asian cuisine; Sichuan, as a major labor-exporting province, spread Lao Gan Ma (a type of chili sauce canned food) across the country and even the world.
Similar comparisons include "instant noodle brands" and "migrant worker economy," as well as "fast food brands" for "urban office workers." Compared to foods that are highly dependent on manual processing like "cooked to order," these are "consumption downgrade" products, fully reflecting the cost advantages of industrialized economies of scale, able to provide the basic food needs of the lowest-income earners at the lowest prices—cheap, not bad-tasting, and convenient and accessible.
In the early days of reform and opening up, China still regarded canned food as a precious food, even a good gift. But today, with developed logistics and efficient production, **if conditions permit, most Chinese people would still choose to eat "fresh" food.**
According to the "China Canned Food Industry Production and Sales Demand and Investment Forecast Analysis Report," the per capita annual consumption in China is only 1 kilogram, while the per capita annual consumption of canned food in the United States is about 90 kilograms, and in Western Europe about 50 kilograms. In comparison, processed food accounts for about 90% of the total value of food consumption in developed countries, while in China this proportion is only 25%. There is huge room for market growth.
But talking about the big picture seems meaningless; Chinese people's impression of canned food won't change overnight.
******Benchmarking Overseas to Look at China's Canned Food Market:**** Worth Hundreds of Billions, Yet Difficult to Break Through**
According to research reports, the canned food market is large and fragmented.
Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics on 665 canned food enterprises above designated size show that in 2021, China's canned food industry produced a cumulative 8.3171 million tons, with the industry's main business revenue reaching 117.347 billion yuan. Among them, Fujian Province's canned food production reached 2.9917 million tons, accounting for 36% of the national total, ranking first. However, the categories of canned food products rarely see innovation and are relatively single, mainly meat, fish, and fruit.
Currently, the industry's profitability is on a continuous decline, with even China's top ten canned food brands facing varying degrees of weakness.
Data source: Canned Food Industry Association
The production side of the entire industry is relatively dependent on origin areas. Because it's connected to agriculture, the canned food industry is closely related to the "three rural" economy. Local governments attach great importance to the development of local canned food industries, and many canned food enterprises have become leading agricultural industrialization enterprises at the local or national level, also becoming major local taxpayers.
Data shows that from 1950 to 2019, China's cumulative canned food production was about 190 million tons, of which 34% was exported, earning over $80 billion in foreign exchange, also providing nearby employment opportunities for a large number of farmers aged 50 to 60 and a few young and middle-aged laborers remaining in rural areas.
But there are also many pain points on the production side of the industry.
For example, "fruit farmers," as the first link in the chain, more often sell "raw materials" to fresh fruit wholesalers and e-commerce platforms, and are rarely incorporated into the large factory system to be processed into low-industrialized products like juice and jam.
Another example is vegetables. Currently, less than 10% of fruits and vegetables in China are mechanically processed. Vegetable processing products are mostly primary processed tray vegetables and bundled vegetables. There are very few manufacturers of fresh-cut vegetables and freeze-dried vegetables. Most vegetables on the market are sold fresh. Every year, more than 80 million tons of vegetables rot and are lost due to failure to process them promptly, with a total loss value of up to 80 billion yuan.
The same applies to the logistics link. After harvesting, vegetables in China are mostly transported using traditional methods. Only a few enterprises have large-scale cold storage and refrigerated transport vehicles. Most enterprises only have small-scale cold storage, and some even have no cold storage, lacking strict refrigeration measures, relying on rough consumption to meet the demand for "fresh" products.
Ultimately, consumers bear all the costs of this high-loss system.
**From the consumption side, the food processing industry where canned food belongs is opposed to "fresh food."** On the shelves of large supermarkets, it's not difficult to stock canned food, but it rarely goes down to lower-tier markets, yet lower-tier markets are where mainstream consumption lies.
Domestic daily food is still mainly fresh produce, relying on large enterprises to digitize, scale, and cold-chain the entire production chain to ensure the nation's three meals a day. However, in special times, this system is fragile, and Shanghai residents should have no objection to that.
The situation abroad is different. The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated a surge in the overseas canned food market. Nielsen data shows that in 2020, U.S. sales of canned meat, chickpeas, and tuna increased by 31.8%, 25.6%, and 24.9% year-on-year; German canned vegetable sales soared by 80%, and canned fruit also rose by 70%.
In foreign supermarkets, residents bought large quantities of canned food to stock up in response to the pandemic. U.S. Costco even launched a "doomsday survival canned food" package in response to the situation. According to its official website, this package contains 230 cans and 30 bucket-packaged foods, including dried fruits, dried vegetables, frozen raspberries, rice, beans, meat, and dairy products, enough for a family of four to eat for a whole year.
Although not necessarily anyone buys it, this is a typical example of consumption culture differences.
It will still take some time for canned food to enter the TO C mass market, but the development prospects are not necessarily bad. With the new generation and urban populations' resistance to the complexity of kitchen cooking and the rise in per capita income, **the convenience and quality and taste of canned food are not inferior to pre-prepared dishes**, and this can be referenced from the U.S. experience.
*China's first-tier cities at 1980 levels Source: U.S. National Bureau of Statistics, Zheshang Securities Research Institute
On the other hand, the TO B business of canned food seems promising. According to the chairman of the China Canned Food Industry Association, "In recent years, canned food has played a positive role in the catering industry, not only simplifying kitchen operations but also helping to reduce production costs."
For example, meat cans represented by luncheon meat, driven by the improvement in hot pot and other catering consumption, have seen year-on-year growth in production and sales; porridge products have shifted from being brewed by catering enterprises to being centrally made into cans by canned food enterprises and sold to various restaurants, saving time for restaurants; the popularity of Western food has driven an increase in sales of canned products such as mushrooms, asparagus, tomato sauce, and tuna.
In addition, consumption upgrades have also driven the demand for high-end canned foods such as bird's nest, sea cucumber, oysters, and Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Canned food enterprises can cooperate with new consumption and new retail to innovate new products to break the previous deadlock.
******Epilogue**
Strictly speaking, canned food is a way of food packaging. Ultimately, people's choices of food form, type, and price range all reflect subtle changes in the social environment.
Whether it's processed food or fresh food, the author feels that having food is good enough at this moment.
After reading this, go stock up on some canned food.
Source: PaiDong Business Review (ID: paidongshangye) Author: PaiDong Research Institute
**Are you "watching" me?**


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