Consumers shop for fruit at a supermarket in Shijiazhuang, North China's Hebei Province on Friday. Photo: VCG

Huang Xin, a lawyer in Beijing, lives an affordable life that she has fought for for years. 

Living in a 140-square-meter house near the central business district in Beijing, she orders organic vegetables twice per week, prefers fresh fruits, and is thinking about buying an autonomous cooking machine to save time.

"I care about daily meals very much and would like to spend more money on healthy dining," she told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Huang is an example of the rising consumption power in China. Alongside the development of the economy and the consumption upgrading, the proportion of food and beverages in the retail sector continues to rise.

In 2018, China's catering industry revenue exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan ($597.78 billion), becoming the world's second-largest catering market, according to data from the China Cuisine Association.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total sales revenue of the Chinese catering industry from January to August this year was 2.88 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.4 percent. It is one of the fastest growing industries in the national economy.

The catering industry is now making more innovations in a bid to woo more customers.

McDonald's China said recently that it has established a promotional alliance with Disney for a seven-year Happy Meal partnership through to 2025, in the hope of tapping further into the growing kids market in China.

Phyllis Cheung, CEO of McDonald's China, makes speech at a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of the global launch of Happy Meal in October in Shanghai in October. Photo: Courtesy of McDonald's China

Beginning in 2019, the partnership will cover several movies each year and the design of McDonald's Happy Meal toys will revolve around popular characters from the films. The first batch of toys will be available in Happy Meals at all McDonald's restaurants across China from November 13.

Phyllis Cheung, CEO of McDonald's China, said they will first start with the movie sector but that more cooperation could take place in the future.

China is McDonald's second-largest global market after the US, and its Chinese branches numbered more than 3,200 by the end of September this year, with at least one new restaurant opening every day. Last year, it opened 423 stores in China and "the number of this year could be higher," Cheung said. 

In May, Starbucks began to roll out the company's Mobile Order & Pay experience, Starbucks Now, in 300 select stores in Beijing and Shanghai. It plans to introduce this feature across China over the next year.

Starbucks Now allows customers to place an order in advance of their visit and pick up their items at the store. The new feature is exclusively available to members of the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program through the Starbucks China mobile app. 

This feature allows Starbucks to serve their customers more efficiently, using digital technology to address their needs for convenience and speed.

Catering companies are cooperating with the animation industry to cultivate a greater potential market and increase added value on products, Zhao Jingqiao, a scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Thanks to the country's support for the cultural and entertainment industries, experiential consumption upgrades, the "Internet +" empowerment of the cultural industry chain, cultural and entertainment companies are emerging in business scale and model, a report released by consulting firm A.T. Kearney showed. 

Innovation has never been limited to the work of a certain department or a certain link. For a consumer-goods company, to achieve sustainable success in innovation, to become a successful and innovative company, you must have comprehensive competitiveness in consumer insight, product development, business promotion and other aspects. Only through this can companies continue to innovate and succeed, the report revealed.