China’s vegetable oil food demand forecast to fall 4.1% to 34.7M tonnes in 2025/26

oil consumption forecast, the USDA’s 26 September China: Oilseeds and Products Update said. The latest forecast would be 1.9% lower than the 2024/25 estimate of 35.36M tonnes. According to National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) data, the country’s GDP growth rate was 5.3% in the first half of 2025. Food service revenue in the first half of 2025 reached CNY2.75 trillion (US$387bn), up 4.3% year-on-year. However, the monthly growth rate slowed to 0.9% in June. Tighter government rules for official dining were expected to impact the hotel, restaurant and institutional (HRI) sector, reducing vegetable oil consumption. China’s population had also declined over the past three years. According to China’s Population Report 2024, the population fell for the third consecutive year, with a net decline of 1.39M from 2023, although around 9.54M babies were born in 2024 in China, up 5.7% from the previous year. This was the first time in nearly 10 years that there had been an increase in ...