Analysts at Goldman Sachs have made a sharp U-turn on China’s appetite for cheese — and the snacking habits of its children — in the latest reassessment of the way the country’s consumer tastes are changing.
At the centre of Goldman’s volte face is a stock recommendation on Shanghai-listed Milkground, China’s leader in the competitive culinary realm of the cheese lollipop — a delight that combines cheese with sweet flavours such as chocolate and banana, is aimed at the under-12s and claims to have solid nutritional value.
In June 2022, Goldman initiated analyst coverage on Milkground with a resounding “buy” recommendation, a punchy 12-month price target and a 40-page thesis on the lucrative trajectory for per capita cheese consumption in the world’s second-biggest economy. Children’s snacking was expected to be the pre-eminent driver of “multiyear cheese market growth”.