COVID-19’s Effect on American Chinese Food Industry

As has already been mentioned here on the blog, many industries are struggling as a result of the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak. However, an industry that is seeing the brunt of coronavirus fear — and doesn’t have the large-scale marketing capabilities to counteract it — is the American Chinese food industry.

Due to the outbreak’s origin in Wuhan, China — and the corresponding fear of Chinese people that many have unfortunately developed — xenophobia is costing hardworking proprietors big time.

According to eater.com, “The Times reports that NYC’s three main Chinatowns — in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn — have seen business drop from 50 to 70 percent in the last two weeks. The owners of restaurants like historic Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Manhattan describe their environs as a “ghost town,” telling Grub Street that business had reached a five-year slowdown last Monday.”

Because of fears that patronizing their local Chinese restaurant may increase their vulnerability to coronavirus, customers are avoiding Chinese restaurants and Asian cuisine. While most Chinese American businesses seem to be suffering right now, the food industry is particularly struggling as old, cliché, and inaccurate stereotypes fan the flames of racist notions about Chinese food and the type of meat that is prepared at these establishments.

Eater also reported: “Steven Chen, who leads Boston’s Chinatown Business Association and owns a bakery and restaurant called Great Taste, also compares the current situation to the 2003 SARS virus outbreak in Asia. Then, as now, customers stopped coming to Boston’s Chinatown — until Boston’s mayor eventually staged a publicity tour of the neighborhood. A similar effort from public officials could help again, Chen suggests.”

While publicity tours are a possibility, that is something that elected officials must choose to do — and an initiative like that is surely not high on the priority list in areas with active coronavirus cases to address. Thus, Chinese American businesses will continue to struggle for the foreseeable future, with no insight as to how long this fear will last.

Coachella, Stagecoach, SXSW, and other big events and money makers will survive long after COVID-19 is under control. But what about the everyday, average American businesses that may permanently flounder due to these fears — and no large-scale marketing facilities to combat said fear?