Foreign bakery wchains are meeting a rising demand.

Growing up, Cherie Zhang tended to eat dim sum for breakfast . Today, Ms. Zhang, 30, who lives in Shanghai, regularly gives her 2-year-old son bread or cake instead.

Baked goods are not a staple of a traditional Chinese diet, but they have been quickly catching on among China’s urban middle class over the last 10 years.

The retail value of baked goods sold in China has risen to 7.8 billion renminbi, or $1.2 billion, this year, from 3.7 billion renminbi in 2000, according to data from Euromonitor International, a market researcher.

“Young Chinese city dwellers influenced by Western culture increasingly favor bread as a morning staple over traditional breakfast foods” like rice porridge, said Anastasia Alieva, a food analyst at Euromonitor.

Per-capita consumption of bakery products in China stood at four kilograms in 2009, nearly double what it was 10 years earlier. This compares with 36.4 kilograms per capita in Britain and 25.4 kilograms per capita in the United States, but the upward trend is in place.

The rising demand, mainly in China’s big cities, has offered great business opportunities for foreign bakery chains, many of which have quickly expanded, gaining ground on large Chinese bakery companies like Christine and Holiland. The South Korean chain Paris Baguette now has 37 stores in China, and the Taiwanese chain 85degreesC Bakery Cafe has about 145.

Leading the foreign pack is Bread- Talk, a Singapore chain, which opened its first outlet in China in 2003 and now has 170 shops spread mainly across the wealthier coastal cities.

Frankie Quek, chief executive of BreadTalk’s operations in China, said that the company had plans to expand that number to 500 over the next three years.

BreadTalk quickly established a good reputation and captured imaginations with its unusual baked goods like green tea, pork floss (dried Chinese meat that has a light and fluffy texture ) or curry.

It is staying ahead of its competition by keeping its recipes and designs varied, Mr. Quek said. “We’ve tried to create a lot of talking points among the media, from product to design and our open kitchen,” he said. “We also do fashion shows with our buns as hairpieces.”

Mr. Quek sees good growth opportunities in the cake market in China, noting that the Chinese are increasingly buying them for special occasions like birthdays.

Ms. Zhang said she shops at Bread- Talk two or three times a month. She said it was even catching on with her husband, who preferred bread with sausage, ham or a strong cheese flavor for breakfast.


By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP