Nobody Wants Crabs
Chinese consumers are starting to feel the economic pinch, and are cutting back on consumption of high-end food items like hairy crabs.
An autumn delicacy in Shanghainese cuisine, the cholesterol-rich crustaceans can wholesale for as much as $80 a kilogram during their October-November season, or a quarter of the average monthly salary of a new university graduate in China's largest city.
Sales of hairy crabs are down by as much as 40 percent midway through the October-November peak season compared with previous years, said Li Bing, who runs a 12-hectare crab farm at Yangcheng Lake, a 90-minute drive from Shanghai.
"Customers who used to come two or three times a week now come once a fortnight," said Li.
Crabs are not the only culinary casualty.
The Yizhi Agricultural Co. Ltd. in Shanghai, said prices of the company's caterpillar fungus have fallen to between 40,000 yuan ($5,861) and 100,000 yuan a kilogram, from as much as 160,000 yuan a year ago.
The fungus, a parasite that kills caterpillars before growing out of their desiccated shells, is found predominantly in Qinghai province and Tibet and has been used to make tonics and traditional medicines for wealthy Chinese for centuries.
Benny Shi, a sales manager at Sunrise Logistics (Shanghai) Ltd., a distributor of electronic parts, said his monthly allowance for meals with clients has been cut by 60 percent to 2,000 yuan.
"We are no longer able to take clients to high-end restaurants and order luxury food. The company's U.S. headquarters is firing people. We don't know when the lay-off wave will hit China," said Shi.
An autumn delicacy in Shanghainese cuisine, the cholesterol-rich crustaceans can wholesale for as much as $80 a kilogram during their October-November season, or a quarter of the average monthly salary of a new university graduate in China's largest city.
Sales of hairy crabs are down by as much as 40 percent midway through the October-November peak season compared with previous years, said Li Bing, who runs a 12-hectare crab farm at Yangcheng Lake, a 90-minute drive from Shanghai.
"Customers who used to come two or three times a week now come once a fortnight," said Li.
Crabs are not the only culinary casualty.
The Yizhi Agricultural Co. Ltd. in Shanghai, said prices of the company's caterpillar fungus have fallen to between 40,000 yuan ($5,861) and 100,000 yuan a kilogram, from as much as 160,000 yuan a year ago.
The fungus, a parasite that kills caterpillars before growing out of their desiccated shells, is found predominantly in Qinghai province and Tibet and has been used to make tonics and traditional medicines for wealthy Chinese for centuries.
Benny Shi, a sales manager at Sunrise Logistics (Shanghai) Ltd., a distributor of electronic parts, said his monthly allowance for meals with clients has been cut by 60 percent to 2,000 yuan.
"We are no longer able to take clients to high-end restaurants and order luxury food. The company's U.S. headquarters is firing people. We don't know when the lay-off wave will hit China," said Shi.
