Catering to domestic tastes a winning move for Bel Group in China
Bel Group, a dairy producer from France, has made significant progress in expanding its operations in China over the years. The company is committed to promoting its localization strategy with a focus on innovation and expanding production to better integrate into the Chinese dairy market.
According to Jean-Christophe Coubat, senior vice-president of Bel Group, the company established its presence in China in 2007 by importing products. Starting in 2017, the group reoriented its strategy toward creating products tailored to the preferences of Chinese consumers, in order to better meet the growing local demand.
According to Coubat, the cheese and dairy market in China is characterized as “underdeveloped but growing, premium, highly dynamic and filled with numerous innovations”. However, unlike other established markets worldwide, China’s cheese market is primarily dominated by sweet cheese products, which are mainly targeted toward children. In contrast, in most other markets, cheese is typically utilized for more savory applications.
“Bel is aiming to become a notable player in the cheese market with breakthrough innovations and is committed to bringing signature products to China, even if it is not easy to develop nor part of a current trend,” Coubat said.
In recent years, Coubat has dedicated significant efforts to developing new products in order to achieve the company’s objectives in China. One of its innovative products, Kiri Petit Sweets, a bite-size cheese snack that uses a cube format invented by Bel in 1960, has proven to be a success and has garnered widespread recognition among consumers.
In addition to introducing new products, Bel has placed emphasis on local production, aiming to cater to the taste preferences of Chinese consumers and to address demand. In 2022, the company acquired a 70 percent stake in Shandong Junjun Cheese as part of its efforts to expand local production capacity.
So far, the family-owned French company with more than 150 years of history and a widespread global production and distribution network, has emerged as a notable supplier of cheese snacks in China and introduced a variety of well-known cheese brands including Kiri, The Laughing Cow, Babybel and yogurt and fruits brand Pom’ Potes to local consumers. It also purchased a minority stake in Laojin Mofang, a fast-growing Chinese healthy snack producer, in 2023.
“Bel’s advancements in China — such as expanding its e-commerce presence, leveraging local insights to develop Kiri Petit Sweets and supporting the recognition of Kiribranded products in the food service sector — serve as valuable insights for its global operations,” Coubat said.
In the coming years, Bel will continue to expand its investments, introduce its French expertise, uphold stringent standards and utilize local research and development resources to foster the high-quality advancement of China’s cheese and dairy sector. It will ensure that every Bel-made product fits with its century-old brand image, according to Coubat.
“China has become a strategic market for Bel Group. Today we cannot have a strategy in a large global company without China playing a major role in it,” Coubat said. “China is important to Bel, not only because there are 1.4 billion people, but also because it has a stable political environment. It is a country that has demonstrated significant and regular economic development for more than 40 years and it is also a country that is greatly increasing its consumption of dairy products. So, from a geographical point of view, it is a unique territory where we have great development opportunities,” Coubat said.
Bel will continue to promote its localized production to serve a fastgrowing and changing market.
“The association of Bel’s knowhow with local production capabilities is very important because, traditionally, markets like France have quite slow product development. But in China, everything moves very quickly. Localization will help us accelerate our innovation and initiative locally, to keep pace with the Chinese market,” Coubat said.