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Hungry? What about a Salmon Doughnut or a Pork Burger?

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MSNBC featured a news article about a new menu item in China --- salmon doughnut. Once failed in the early 2000s, Dunkin’s Donuts now teams up with a Taiwanese franchise partner and re-opens several stores in Canton (Guangzhou), China.

Doughnuts have always been Americans’ favorite snack. Since the 90s, other Americans’ fast-food giants like McDonald’s and KFC, have already become popular eateries in China. When Dunkin’ Donuts followed McDonald’s and KFC, who would imagine Dunkin’s would fail and end up leaving the market of a 1.3 billion potential consumers?

Compared to Dunkin’s Donuts, McDonald’s did something more than just bringing American food to China. From the very beginning, McDonald’s has attempted to “blend” the Chinese custom and culture into the “Americanized menu.” The restaurant even tried rice burger. Some “renovated” items remain to serve the Chinese market. Today, consumers can order pork burger at a McDonald’s Hong Kong location because many Chinese consume pork and chicken more often than beef (you may check out McDonald’s menu at its HK homepage http://www.mcdonalds.com.hk/english/). Another great example is Pizza Hut Hong Kong (http://www.pizzahut.com.hk/en/home.html). In addition to the “Asianized menu items,” there is actually a host in Pizza Hut. The atmosphere is quite different from the ones in the U.S. With their localized attempts, both of these American chains have been doing excellent business in China.

I am not sure how good a salmon doughnut tastes, but I know Chinese are welcome to new ideas and are willing to try something new from time to time. I hope this “localized” Duncan’s Donut will succeed in China. “Think globally, act locally” can probably best describe this case. What are your opinions?

References:
MSNBC.com: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok02262010
Picture (A Pizza Hut Restaurant in HK) was copied from: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok02262010P
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Comments

  1. Linchi KwokApril 27, 2010 at 6:09 AM

    Dunkin's Donuts Returns to Russia

    WSJ.com - http://on.wsj.com/9GaV2C

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robin ChingJanuary 11, 2013 at 7:54 PM

    When I was in Tokyo in 2009, I was astounded to see a very long line going to Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme was on the downside in the U.S. because of the health reason.
    If bringing more Americanized fast food restaurants to China, will these Chinese people gain obesity and health problem like heart disease, diabetes, etc. in the next 10 years?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Linchi KwokJanuary 11, 2013 at 8:24 PM

      People indeed are gaining weights. There are so many options for food in Asia. More people have obesity and health issues related to diets as well, but the situation is not as bad as what is like the U.S. yet.

      Delete

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