Xinyuan sausage production site.
Li Ling Photo
In the middle of winter, at 4:30 am, more than 3,000 kilograms of fresh pig hind legs were sent to the production workshop of Feizaiqiu Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fatizaiqiu Food") located in the water town of Dongguan. The fresh meat was cut and washed, minced, stirred, baked, and dried for at least half a month. The famous Feizaiqiu Sausage was released.
The hotly produced sausage companies is one of the winter glimpses of more than 41,400 food production companies in Dongguan. Dongguan's food and beverage processing and manufacturing industry is developed with a strong foundation, and has formed a trillion-dollar industrial cluster, making it one of Dongguan's five pillar industries.
Recently, the "Dongguan Youpin" e-commerce platform, a direct-supply sales service platform jointly built by Mengda Group and 108 local well-known brand manufacturers in Dongguan, was launched for trial operation. The reporter visited several food and beverage companies that have settled in the platform to decode how traditional food companies can achieve retail transformation.
Written by: Shi Mei He Qiying
Planning: Dai Shuangcheng
Product innovation
Actively embrace the new trend
Three different flavors and five ingredients, in just over ten minutes, you can enjoy the hot Cantonese cured sauce clay pot rice . This is the new Xinyuan authentic clay pot rice launched by Dongguan Xinyuan Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinyuan Food") last month. Without the need for cumbersome processes, you can easily cook delicious clay pot rice with Lingnan flavor at home.
"The product was well received by consumers as soon as it was launched." said Wang Leqiang, deputy general manager of Xinyuan Food Sales. As an enterprise specializing in the production, research and development, production and sales of regional traditional food, Xinyuan Food, founded in 1966, currently has more than 200 products on sale, meeting the consumption needs of different festivals and occupying a certain share in the local market.
"In order to meet the needs of the new generation of young consumers, we actively explore new food retail, innovate and explore in inheritance, seize the needs of consumption upgrading, and stimulate innovative vitality." Wang Leqiang said.
This year, in the hot spot of pre-made dishes, Xinyuan invested in the pre-made dishes production line based on its own raw materials advantages to create special pre-made dishes, and innovatively developed Lingnan specialty clay pot rice, tangerine peel floral gel sugar water and other products, and made innovative upgrades from product positioning, packaging design, and sales channels, actively explored e-commerce sales platforms such as Douyin , Tmall , and Taobao to expand production and operation scale and expand market sales channels. Coincidentally, Huamei Food Group (hereinafter referred to as "Huamei") located in Chashan Town, is also constantly innovating and investing in the "what you like" of young people. "No company doesn't think about how to take the path of young people." Yuan Hanzhao, president of Huamei Food Group, believes that the times are progressing and enterprises are also progressing. In order to make products more in line with market consumption, Huamei has carried out reforms in many aspects to keep pace with the times. In the research and development of product , Huamei closely follows the preferences of young consumer groups and develops marketable and good products. For example, Huamei Mooncake has added milk-yellow mooncakes such as durian flow, black truffle , bird's nest flow, and fruit mooncakes with innovative fillings on the basis of traditional flavors; conventional cakes are innovating, including French fries waffles, semi-cooked cheesecakes, lemon cakes, milk stewed cakes and other products.
Xinyuan Food and Huamei seize the "favorite" of young people and lay out a new track. Another local food giant in Dongguan and New Year’s goods Xu Fuji is also constantly updating and adjusting New Year’s goods products to create a richer New Year’s atmosphere experience.
Recently, the annual Xu Fuji Spring Festival sale opened at Xu Fuji Factory 3. The warehouse about 3,500 square meters has transformed into a hypermarket, attracting many consumers to come and shop.
At this special sale, Xu Fuji launched 26 new products that were first launched, including Shaqima , Muffin cake, Yangzhi Ganlu jelly, etc. In terms of gift boxes, Xu Fuji Special Sale has launched a total of 5 exclusive gift boxes.
In fact, in recent years, Xu Fuji is adapting to the new trend of snack development "nutrition addition, ingredient subtraction" and healthier processes to develop new products.These new products also give the company a healthy market return. According to reports, in the first nine months of this year, Xu Fuji achieved high-digit growth and firmly took up the position of leader in bulk categories.
"Consumers and customers are the only focus of Xu Fuji's innovation." Zeng Qian, head of Xu Fuji's marketing department, said that after listening to the voices of consumers and customers, Xu Fuji made an innovative strategy, which mainly includes two parts: First, paying attention to the marketing needs of young people, and working with spokesperson Gong Jun to win the favor of a group of young people; second, with the rise of healthy snacks , Xu Fuji has paid more and more attention to reducing sugar, reducing oil, reducing salt, reducing additives in product development, and has developed jelly products with 0 fat, 0 sugar, and 0 card.
Create a brand
Tell good new stories in Lingnan
Time-honored brands not only need to develop new products, but also tell new stories.
In Dongguan, there are many "time-class" traditional food companies, and their births are often simple and legendary. For example, why is the "Fatty Qiu" sausage called "Fatty Qiu"? This comes from the short and fat figure of the founder Zhong Woqiu. Zhong Woqiu is kind, honest and honest, and everyone affectionately calls it "Fatty Qiu".
In order to further establish the brand, these "time-class" food companies have to tell new stories.
tells a good story of "intelligent manufacturing". Walking into Huamei Food’s production park, the aroma of pastries comes to your nose. On the neat and automatic production line, exquisite "little cuties" are being born in batches. At present, Huamei Food has dozens of automated production lines, including many of which were introduced from Europe and Japan. The daily production capacity of mooncakes exceeds 3.5 million, and the daily production capacity of cakes reaches more than 120 tons, ranking first in the country.
Yuan Hanzhao introduced that the product process produced by imported production equipment is more standard, the product quality is stable and safe, and the manpower is reduced, laying the foundation for Huamei's future development.
Dongguan Silang Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Silang Food"), also a veteran food company in Dongguan, is also committed to telling the story of "smart manufacturing".
Dongguan Silang has introduced the internationally leading fully automatic production assembly line very early, realizing the automation, precision and intelligence from production raw materials to finished product output, and promoting industrial upgrading. The year before yesterday, Jiangxi Wanshen Pharmaceutical Machinery jointly launched the construction of the " smart factory + shared factory". The solid beverage and tablet candy production line that will be put into production in 2020 will cooperate with domestic high-quality smart factory suppliers to realize intelligent equipment data collection, production quality control, production site visualization, better collect and utilize production big data, and fully enter the big health industry.
tells the story of "Good Products in Lingnan". The story of "Mr. Chenpi" and "Miss Red Bean" is told on the packaging of exquisite tangerine peel bean paste mooncakes; the exquisitely crafted Meteor cream yellow mooncake packaging won the 2022iF Design Award... On the one hand, Xinyuan Food combines the current popular flavors and innovative flavors in product research and development; on the other hand, in terms of packaging form and brand image, the company specially invited design institutions to carry out exquisite designs on packaging, innovative upgrades in product positioning, packaging design, and sales channels, and give new vitality to traditional foods.
In order to better inherit and spread the traditional food culture in Lingnan, in 2016, Xinyuan Food built the Dongguan Xinyuan Food Culture Museum. In 2017, the museum was rated as the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture as the " Cantonese Braised Flavor Manufacturing Skills (Houjie Sausage Making Skills)" inheritance base; in 2018, it was rated as a national AAA-level tourist attraction by the National Tourism Scenic Spot Quality Rating Assessment Committee; in 2021, it was rated as a science popularization education base in Dongguan.
Breakthrough online
New way of playing traditional enterprises
"Babys, welcome to the Qifeng Laquix live broadcast room. Our Qifeng Laquix is well-known in Dongguan, and is an old-fashioned enterprise with a history of more than 60 years of cured flavour production..." In the Qifeng Laquix online live broadcast room, the anchor is introducing Dongguan's "old brand" sausage to netizens across the country.
Qifeng Food was established in 1954. It mainly promotes three series of products: sausage, bacon, and bacon , and produces and sells Dongguan specialties with strong local characteristics.
is affected by the epidemic, and the advantages of online sales have been magnified. Citizens prefer to purchase through online flagship stores, live broadcast rooms and other platforms, and can also get discounts. This year, Qifeng Food’s online investment is still increasing steadily, accounting for 10% of the total.
is not just Qifeng, but sausage companies such as Feizaiqiu and Xinyuan Food have also deployed online channels and entered the local e-commerce "Dongguan Youpin" platform.
"Join the 'Dongguan Youpin' platform of Mengda, I believe that Qifeng Food's online sales will be broader." Feng Jinhai, manager of Qifeng Food Production Department, said that the group appearance with other high-quality enterprises in Dongguan is conducive to gathering forces, gaining more traffic, enhancing the popularity of Qifeng Sausage, leading the authentic Dongguan flavor, and promoting Dongguan Sausage to the whole country. At the same time, consumers also have more choices, thereby enhancing the viscosity between consumers and the "Dongguan Youpin Pavilion" and realizing mutual empowerment between enterprises and platforms.
Fatty Qiu Food mainly sells black garlic pork sausages and umami sausages on "Dongguan Youpin". They hope to use the new platform of "Dongguan Youpin" to further expand the market and promote Dongguan traditional sausages to a broader audience.
Feizaiqiu Chief Brand Officer Chen Chumei said that in addition to the five offline self-operated stores and supermarkets, Feizaiqiu has also attracted much attention in the newly opened online e-commerce platform channels, "Our products rank among the top in the Cantonese bacon list of e-commerce platforms."
Most of the food companies that have settled in "Dongguan Youpin" have online sales channels across the network, and there are also companies that have been "electrically shocked" for the first time. Elevi Wine Industry Supply Chain (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Elevi Wine Industry") is one of them. "We have more than 3,000 customers across the country, covering more than 30 cities." Yang Lishuan, brand director of Elevi Wine Industry, introduced that previously, Elevi Wine Industry mainly allowed Elevi Wine to enter consumers through offline wholesale and distribution.
Nowadays, Elevi Wine Industry has brought its main variety French blue-label dry red wine and four other wines to the local e-commerce platform "Dongguan Youpin", seeking retail transformation with the help of local e-commerce.
"The selection of Dongguan Youpin is for many considerations. On the one hand, we are deeply rooted in Dongguan and have certain channels and popularity in the Dongguan market, so we hope to choose a local e-commerce channel to further increase our popularity; on the other hand, we did not choose a national e-commerce because it is not conducive to the maintenance of offline channels." Yang Lishuan explained.
When traditional food companies innovate independently, embrace e-commerce, and tell new stories, what kind of "new buds" will the "old brands" send? I believe the market will give an answer soon.
