Blue Frog Bar & Grill in Shanghai was an early venture of Bob Boyce, an American who now manages a highly successful restaurant brand. Provided to China Daily

Big helpings are on offer catering to western tastes in China - but service is a problem

It's a mouth-watering prospect for any entrepreneur, but despite an apparent increasing desire for Western food across China, foreign caterers and restaurateurs are finding it hard to satisfy demand.

In a food and beverage industry worth more than 2 trillion yuan ($317.4 billion, 241 billion euros) annually, Western cuisine - which ranges from American hamburgers to French foie gras - makes up a tiny portion, with revenue of around 3 percent of that figure.

But in the past four years, the number of foreign restaurants in China's capital has more than doubled, from 2,000 to more than 5,000.

That trend has been evident across the country, Xu Meng, secretary-general of the Beijing Western Food Association, says. "For the past three years, Beijing alone has seen more than 400 new foreign restaurants opened each year," she says.

While interest in international cuisine is growing generally, especially among China's younger generation, the hunger is keenest in the major cities, with their greater concentrations of foreign residents.

"It's gotten very competitive," says Bob Boyce, founder and CEO of the Shanghai-based Blue Horizon Hospitality Group.

The 42-year-old American, who first established Blue Frog Bar & Grille in Shanghai in 2003, now manages one of the most successful China-grown foreign restaurant brands in the country.

So much so that in December a 51 percent stake in Blue Horizon Hospitality sold for 126 million yuan to Warsaw-based restaurant operator Amrest.

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The move is part of a pledge made in August last year by the multi-billion dollar company, which operates about 650 restaurants globally, to expand its operations in China by more than 40 restaurants.

While large international companies may now see the potential of bringing investment in foreign food to China, it is pioneers like Boyce who helped build the industry, beginning more than a decade ago, when options were scarce.

"When we started there was really nothing like we were doing," he says.

What was regarded as Western cuisine at the time was limited to opulent hotels and restaurants or fast-food outlets.

Focusing on creating a mid-range option for white-collar workers, Boyce has seen the number of restaurants grow from one to 11 and his clientele shift from mostly foreign expatriates to China's middle class.

"When we first opened 10 years ago, the white-collar professional segment in Chinese society had not really developed," Boyce says. "Now, it's fully developed and the spending power is really incredible."

The growing number of young Chinese workers with money to spend heading to mid to high-end Western restaurants has also caught the interest of Chinese investors, who see China's increasing appetite for Western food as a chance to cash in.