Yuri Valazza started a small shop eight years ago in Shanghai, selling imported foods to locals.
"At that time it was almost 90 percent foreigners," said Valazza, according to MarketPlace.org.
Those numbers have changed as the quality in Chinese domestic products has dipped.
Due to a rising consumer class and a number of scandals such as the one involving 300 million pounds of tanning leather byproduct ruining crops of rice, many Chinese no longer believe the domestic food sold to them is safe.
"Whenever it rained, our rice paddy and the river would suddenly turn bright yellow," said Wu Shuliang, who suffered from health problems as a child and now owns a rice paddy near a hill of chemical waste. "Much of my rice died. It killed everything in its path."
Area residents are turning to imported goods and Valazza's small store to feed their children safer products.
"We see a lot of fresh milk being bought a lot, yogurt, especially, anything that children tend to eat, baby foods," Valazza said.
The small convenience store has seen a 30 percent increase in revenue over the last year according to MarketPlace. Overall, imported food generates $18 billion per year in China.
"With imported food, if the label says it's organic, I trust that," said Zhang Qi, a 33 year-old lawyer shopping with his 3 year-old daughter. "Food made in China -- especially children's food -- is often labeled organic, but it's easy to fake that. So we're sticking with imported food, organic or not."
American companies such as Organic Valley have capitalized on this trend and started exporting milk to China three years ago. The organic isn't the only label Chinese are concerned with.
"You also have the USDA seal of quality control," said Organic Valley CEO George Siemon, "So it really is a double premium that we're able to offer people."
