在中國瘦身的奧利奧 A parable of Oreos and ovens
Three scant years ago, Shanghai celebrated the 100th birthday of one of history’s most famous junk foods — the Oreo biscuit — with fireworks on the Bund and multi-storey neon adverts projected on to skyscrapers. But now China has put Oreo on a diet.
3年多以前，上海慶祝了史上最著名的垃圾食品之一——奧利奧(Oreo)問世100週年紀念日——外灘上燃放了焰火，摩天大樓上投射了幾層樓高的奧利奧霓虹燈廣告。但現在，中國讓奧利奧“節食減肥”。
This is a country where, within living memory, millions starved to death. People will, to this day, tell you how they ate roots or shoots or even dirt to stay alive. Little wonder the Chinese market was a pushover for the ubiquitous black-and-white sandwich cookie.
在這個國家，人們仍然記得曾經有數百萬人餓死的經歷。直至今天，還有人會告訴你，他們是如何靠吃草根樹芽，甚至泥土活下來。也難怪這種隨處可見的黑白夾心餅乾輕而易舉地征服了中國市場。
Foreign treats were seen as healthier than local snacks, because they were imported from places that did not have such a vigorous tradition of poisoning residents with tainted ingredients, as was the fad in China. When I moved here in 2008, it took a while to get used to the notion that McDonald’s was a healthy option, purely because it was less likely to be toxic. Here, when mainlanders tell you something is “healthy”, they often mean that it won’t be immediately fatal.
過去，人們認為外國美食比本土小吃更健康，因為它們是從別處進口而來的，那些地方並沒有這種風氣——用受到污染的原料毒害居民。2008年搬到這裏的時候，我花了一段時間才適應那種認為麥當勞(McDonald’s)是一種健康飲食選擇的觀念，純粹是因為麥當勞不那麼可能有毒。在這裏，當有內地人告訴你什麼東西是“健康”的，他們的意思通常是指這種東西不會立即致命。
But in the past few years, China has begun to discover that heavy metals are not the only things to avoid in snack foods. There is that small matter of fat and sugar, too. Last week, Chinese media carried stories saying that Mondelez, the maker of Oreo, was shutting down some Shanghai production because people were going right off biscuits. The US company waffled a bit about “optimising our supply chain” and shifting production elsewhere, but the company had made clear in the past that Oreo was in trouble in China. Figures from Euromonitor show that, since the sound and light of its centenary celebration, the biscuit has lost one-third of its market share in China, from nearly 9 per cent of the market in 2012 to 6 per cent now.
但過去幾年，中國人開始發現，重金屬並不是唯一需要在零食裏避免的東西。還有一些小問題：糖和脂肪。最近中國媒體報道，因為人們正在喪失對餅乾的興趣，奧利奧的製造商億滋(Mondelez)關了上海一些生產線。這家美國公司扯了一通諸如“優化我們的供應鏈”和轉移到別處生產的言論，但這家公司過去就曾明確表示，奧利奧在中國遇到了困難。歐睿(Euromonitor)的數據表明，在慶祝100週年的聲光魅影以後，奧利奧餅乾的中國市場份額縮小了三分之一，從2012年的近9%下降至現在的6%。
So that is how Oreo ended up watching its waistline: Mondelez introduced a new “Oreo Thin”, just to woo Chinese consumers, and it did so well that they last month announced that Americans will be able to opt for the skinnier cousin too. All because of a revolution in eating habits that took decades in the west — and only a handful of years in China.
因此，這就是奧利奧如何最終注意到自己的“腰圍”的：億滋推出了一款“奧利奧巧輕脆”(Oreo Thin)，專為迎合中國的消費者，而且這款餅乾賣的相當不錯，因此億滋上個月宣佈，美國人也將可以選擇更為纖細的同款餅乾。這一切都是因為一場已經在西方進行了數十年的飲食習慣革命——在中國這場革命才經歷了寥寥數年。
That’s not Oreo’s only problem: many of the world’s most successful brands made it to China early and had a long run almost unrivalled, but are losing their first-mover advantage. (KFC has that problem too, compounded by a spot of bad publicity on the food quality front.)
奧利奧面臨的不僅僅是上述問題。許多世界最成功的品牌早早來到中國，在很長的一段時間裏幾乎無可匹敵，但這些品牌正在失去它們的先發優勢。（肯德基(KFC)也有這個問題，食品質量方面的若干負面新聞使其境況更加糟糕。）
Meanwhile, mainlanders have developed one of the most fickle palates on earth: Americans may want the same cookie Mum gave them with their milk after school; but Chinese want something new every day. Local companies are often nimbler than multinationals at introducing green tea or purple sweet potato alternatives to traditional flavours.
同時，中國內地人還有地球上最多變的口味。美國人可能想吃媽媽以前在他們放學後給他們配着牛奶吃的餅乾；而中國人每天都想吃點新鮮的。在推出綠茶、紫薯等非傳統口味的新品方面，本土企業往往比跨國企業更靈敏。
And cookie companies are facing competition from an even more unlikely source: home bakers. When I moved here, ovens were rare in normal homes: I figured that was why mine didn’t work too well. But now many a Chinese bride insists on having one. Sales of the countertop ovens preferred on the mainland have more than quadrupled since I started wielding a flour sifter on Chinese shores, and a 318-piece everything-you-could-ever-need baking set can be had on Alibaba’s Taobao for only 137 devalued renminbi.
而且，餅乾公司還遇到了一個看起來更不可能的競爭對手：家庭烘焙機器。當我剛搬到這裏時，烤箱在一般家庭很少見：我覺得這就是為什麼我那台烤箱不太好用的原因。但現在，很多中國新娘都堅持配一台烤箱。自我開始在中國海濱搖晃麪粉篩以來，在中國內地很有人氣的枱面烤箱的銷量已經增長三倍多，現在，全套318件的烘焙工具套裝在阿里巴巴(Alibaba)旗下的淘寶(Taobao)上只要（已經貶值的）137元人民幣就可以買到。
For, given that the vast majority of Chinese under 30 have never known an hour of hunger in their lives, let alone survived on roots and shoots, just filling the tummy is no longer the point. They cook for fun — and for health reasons, says Qian Zhaoli, a 27-year-old marketing manager in Shanghai. She’s started baking her own rusks because her first child is teething. “I wanted her to have the healthiest ones, without any additives,” she says, adding that shop-bought rusks have such a long shelf life, and “who knows how many artificial colours and preservatives they contain?” Plus, western-style baking is far easier than cooking any of China’s complicated cuisines, she says, noting that in Shanghai most cooking is done by men.
因為，考慮到中國30歲以下的人多數沒有嘗過捱餓一個小時的滋味，更不必説靠草根樹芽活下來了，只填飽肚子不再是重點。他們下廚是為了樂趣，也是因為更加健康——上海27歲的營銷經理錢朝麗（音譯）如此表示。因為她的第一個孩子開始長牙，她開始自己烘焙磨牙餅乾。“我希望她吃到最健康的，沒有任何添加劑的，”她補充説，市場上賣的磨牙餅乾保質期那麼長，“誰知道它們含有多少人工色素和防腐劑？”此外，她表示，西式烘焙比烹製複雜的中式菜餚要簡單得多，並指出在上海下廚的大多是男人。
This is not just a tale of Oreos and ovens. It is a parable for a new type of Chinese consumption: more finicky, more fickle — potentially less profitable. Anyone selling almost anything here should watch it closely. May the best rolling pin win.
這不僅僅是奧利奧和烤箱的故事。這是一則中國新式消費的寓言：更挑剔、更多變——獲利空間可能也更小。在中國，賣幾乎任何東西的任何人都應該密切留意這一點。希望最好的擀麪杖能夠勝出吧。
