Then & Now | Dear dairy: why is cheese in Hong Kong so expensive, especially when prices elsewhere have fallen?
- With much of the population repulsed by milk, dairy products have long been considered luxury items
- For decades, tinned or foil-wrapped processed cheese was all that was available
One aspect of Hong Kong life newcomers immediately remark upon is the inflated price of certain perishable foods, even taking into account the sometimes vast distances between the point of production and local retailers. Cheese is one commodity that is needlessly expensive in our supermarkets, even though prices elsewhere have fallen dramatically in recent years.
From Hong Kong’s earliest urban beginnings, local milk production was limited, as the population who consumed it – mostly Europeans, Indians and local Portuguese – was relatively small. Most Chinese wouldn’t touch the stuff. The thought of drinking the milk of any animal filled them with revulsion, while fermented milk products, such as yogurt and cheese, were regarded with nauseated disgust. Among older, less Westernised generations, this aversion to dairy products remains strong, in particular for strong-smelling cheeses.
Consumption of dairy products was regarded by many as the primary cause for why, in their view, Europeans and Indians stank. Some maintain – and articulate – these racist opinions today. As ever, overseas travel and higher education opportunities helped broaden some people’s horizons.
Dairy cattle were imported from Australia from the 1880s, as modern dairy facilities were built in Hong Kong and sanitary conditions steadily improved. Milk was a prime vector for tuberculosis, then a major killer: until the 1930s, most “cream” on the top of locally produced milk was actually pasteurised pus.