Fast food powder is oriented to the development of high-end, regionalized and restaurant-reduced local specialty snacks.

This newspaper (reporter Yan Liwen/photo)The Guiding Opinions on Cultivating Traditional Dominant Food Producing Areas and Local Characteristic Food Industries jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 11 departments clearly states that by 2025, the development pattern of local characteristic foods with "10 billion leaders, 100 billion clusters and 1 trillion industries" will be basically formed, and a number of national famous local characteristic food brands and typical cases of local characteristic snacks industrialization will be created.

As a representative of food on the tip of the tongue, local specialty snacks have condensed the wisdom of countless working people and are an inexhaustible motive force to promote regional economic development. With the growth of the new generation of consumer groups and the surge of online marketing, local specialties such as snail powder and hot and sour powder have ushered in new development opportunities. As a new force of convenience food, how will it develop more steadily and sustainably in the future?

A few days ago, at the Forum for the Development of Instant Food Industry of the 23rd China Instant Food Conference hosted by chinese institute of food science and technology, the participating experts and business representatives exchanged ideas around the cluster development advantages of local specialty snacks and explored the road to industrialization of local specialty foods.

Youpinzhi innovation special food

In recent years, the continuous growth of convenience foods such as hot and sour powder and snail powder has shaken the pattern of weak flour in the past decades, and these products have injected new vitality into the convenience food industry.

When talking about the development of snail powder, Lu Xiaoli, a professor at Sichuan University, said that the rapid development of Liuzhou snail powder industry is inseparable from the support of national policies, the promotion of local governments, the support of consumers and the vigorous marketing of merchants. Its product structure is not limited to the original model, and it has made great innovations in ingredients and soup packages. At present, there are more than 200 brands of pre-packaged Liuzhou snail powder, and the technical level of the production line integrates mechanization, automation and intelligence, which effectively helps the high-quality development of the industry.

Like snail powder, hot and sour powder is also working hard to improve quality. Dai Guichun, deputy general manager of the Instant Noodles Division of Sichuan Baijia Akuan Food Industry Co., Ltd. said that Baijia Chenji Hot and Sour Powder, as a pioneering representative of convenience fans, is also constantly innovating and developing to meet the growing health needs of consumers. "Jinli Ancient Street" small fresh flour, using a brand-new wet flour technology, produces wet flour with a water content of more than 50%, highly restores the taste of hand-beaten wet flour in restaurants, and makes authentic Sichuan-Chongqing snacks enter thousands of households.

He Jiguo, a professor at the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering of China Agricultural University, is concerned about the functional convenience market for fans. He said that convenience food has become a part of the staple food of Chinese residents. Consumers have a large intake of staple food and high intake frequency, and its advantages after functionalization are remarkable. Enterprises should pay attention to the use of raw materials in the process of functionalizing convenience foods. The ingredients of food can increase the homology of medicine and food. Considering the adaptability of different combinations, on the basis of strictly observing relevant national laws and regulations, innovative research and development of functional convenience foods can meet the special needs of consumers.

"It is also an innovation for one side to raise one side by soil and water." Colin, manager of convenience food category of Shandong Tianbo Food Ingredients Co., Ltd., said that returning to tradition and focusing on quality are the focus in the industrialization of convenience food. Whether it is instant noodles, boiled noodles or mixed noodles, its essence is to meet the needs of consumers for meal replacement in specific scenes. In recent years, the development of fast food powder is oriented to high-end, regional and restaurant reduction, which also shows that product innovation should focus on people-oriented reduction of catering products, including taste reduction, quality reduction and fireworks reduction, bringing new value to consumers.

Strong cluster to cultivate advantageous industries

Hot and sour powder, snail powder, Regan Noodles, crossing the bridge rice noodles … These special snacks from all over the country are gathering resources, forming industrial clusters and driving local economic development.

As the "Capital of Hot and Sour Powder in China", Tongxu has provided a model for building a local snack industry cluster. Han Zhenqiang, the county magistrate of Tongxu County, Kaifeng City, Henan Province, said that in order to realize the development of hot and sour powder industrial cluster, Tongxu County planned to build a hot and sour powder industrial park with a total area of 2,730 mu, covering hot and sour powder cakes and ingredients processing, production and packaging, cold chain logistics, R&D quality inspection, e-commerce live broadcast and so on. At the same time, with minimal approval, strict constraints, excellent service and extremely fast efficiency, we will provide quality services to the majority of enterprises and continue to empower industrial development.

In Sichuan, all kinds of special foods also gather in groups. Hou Jinglin, Deputy Director of the Management Committee of Tianfu Modern Seed Industry Park in Qionglai City, Sichuan Province, introduced the investment project of green food industry in Qionglai Economic Development Zone. He said that Sichuan Qionglai Economic Development Zone focuses on the development of food and beverage, high-quality liquor and other industries, and strives to build a leading green food and beverage industry base in the west. It is the main bearing place for the development of Chengdu liquor industry and the liquor industry in the metropolitan area, initially forming the development trend of the whole liquor industry chain.

According to Ren Weiwei, executive president of Chengdu Food Industry Association, the emergence of local specialty snack industry clusters is the choice for the development of consumer market. In the future, the development of characteristic industries needs industrial thinking, government support and industry promotion. Enterprises need to have the ability of continuous product innovation and model innovation, open up the market through the marketing method of "online explosion and offline expansion", create a resounding product brand and category brand, realize the leap-forward development of enterprises, and create a trillion-dollar local specialty snack industry market.

Promote development and empower industry iteration

The structure of the convenience food industry has quietly changed, and the products such as instant vermicelli, rice noodles and rice noodles have catered to consumers’ demand for local specialties.

Li Shu, director of the Network Supervision Department of Henan Provincial Market Supervision Administration, believes that the role of digital technology in the industrialization process of local specialty snacks should not be underestimated. Henan is a big food manufacturing province, and it is proposed to speed up the certification of smart workshops and smart chemical plants in the construction of public brands of "Famous American and Henan Products". The growth of the output value of single products such as snail powder and steamed eggs with flour is inseparable from the help of enterprises to analyze and accurately position the market with big data. Industrial digitalization is promoting major changes in production methods and social economy, empowering and vigorously promoting the take-off of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Zhang Yi, founder and CEO of Ai Media Consulting Group, said that the categories represented by Liuzhou snail powder, Chongqing hot and sour powder, Hunan Changde rice noodle, etc., restore and reproduce local food and flavor snacks, which are favored by consumers, and the regionalized features of convenient noodles are increasingly obvious, and new categories and new tastes of convenient noodles with regional characteristics are rapidly hatched. In the future, it will be the trend of product innovation and development for the instant noodle food industry to speed up cooperation with universities and research institutes, dig deep into regional traditional foods and conduct in-depth research on special foods in different regions.

He Yao, the founder of Sichuan Creative Box Brand Marketing Planning Co., Ltd., said that when talking about the innovative planning and three-dimensional marketing of new convenience foods with local characteristics, the R&D propaganda of new categories should clearly state "Who am I", focus on one point and one group of people, and avoid making products that are suitable for any scene and can be eaten and eaten by men, women and children without memory points. In the face of the changing market, only by making the brand itself a "flow" can the brand grow red after the flow "fades".

Liu Haoyu, Deputy Secretary-General of chinese institute of food science and technology, said that with the influx of more and more brands and capital, both the marketing model and product design have subverted the previous forms and easily switched between culture and personality. In the new era, the convenience food industry, as the main force in the field of food industry, the important carrier of rural revitalization and the key support of healthy China, will play an important role in the process of Chinese modernization, and the industrialization process of local specialty food is also an important way for the convenience food industry to meet people’s yearning for a better life.

Consumer Daily, October 12, 2023