China's taste for salmon boosts air shipments

China's burgeoning middle class is eating more Western food and drinking more imported wine than ever, boosting shippers of salmon from Norway and Beaujolais Nouveau from France.

Finnair, Finland's biggest airline, could double shipments of salmon to China and Japan to 600 tonnes a week by 2020, from 300 tonnes currently, said Juha Jarvinen, managing director at the cargo division. The fish are trucked in from Norway, which does not have direct flights with Japan or China, and flown to Asia, he said.

China is consuming more Western food and produce as the country's per capita income is poised to double by 2020. The growing middle class is eating more KFC, McDonald's burgers, and snapping up everything from Beaujolais to Dutch flowers.

"Demand for European goods is growing in Asia and for some categories fast air cargo is the only viable option," said Mikko Ervasti, an analyst at Evli Bank in Helsinki. China "is where they have volume growth and inflation, so it is definitely important for Finnair's operations and finances".

In absolute terms, China already has the world's largest middle class, defined by the World Bank as consuming between US$10 and US$100 a day.

About 11 per cent of China's population falls in that category, which still lags well behind Brazil and South Korea at similar stages of economic development.