Where Do You Shop? Food Purchasing Habits for Tier 1, 2, 3 Cities

Chinese youth living with their parents generally avoid food shopping since their parents taken upon themselves to do it. On the other hand, youth living away from home have no choice but to occasionally stroll the aisles of their local market. Recently, I‘ve been talking with few working young-adults from tier 1 to 3 cities in order to better understand their purchasing habits.

Tier 1
Zoe is a 23 year old Shanghai-based photographer. She spends approximately RMB1200-1500 per month on food: 15% percent on meat, 50% on vegetables, 20% on fruit and 15% on snack. She normally does her shopping at Carrefour and her neighborhood fresh market, where she prioritizes fresh and healthy ingredients. She cooks once or twice during the week, but most of time she orders food. During the weekends, her and her friends treat themselves to restaurants.

Tier 2
Lihui, 26 year old, works in Changsha as a Project Manager. Her choice for food purchasing are also hyper-markets like Wal-mart and nearby wet-markets. Her monthly spending on food is 500 to 800 rmb including 15% percent meat, 50% vegetables, 25% fruits and 10% snacks. Natural, nutritious and fresh are her principles for food purchasing. She mostly cook at home during work days but at weekends she meets her friends and eat together.

Tier 3
Lilian Lin, 25 years old, she teaches at a middle school in Zhuzhou, Hunan province. Because she gets free lunch at school and she mainly shops at fresh markets, her cost on food is 200 to 300 rmb which mainly on vegetables and fruits. Fresh is the priority for food purchasing. She mostly cook for herself instead of eating outside with friends. At weekends, she goes back home and eats with her parents.

As one would assume, we see a pretty dramatic difference in budgets between tier one, two and three cities. People from lower tier cities are more inclined to cook for themselves, whereas youth in cities like Shanghai and Beijing prefer a quick, yet more expensive solution.