Western China Pre-made Food Expo shows off booming industry

On Tuesday morning, four trucks fully loaded with pre-made food, departed from Chongqing's Liangping district for Hong Kong and several Southeast Asian countries including Singapore and Thailand.

The goods, all locally manufactured pre-made food including grapefruit juice, dried bean curd, canned pork and pickled vegetables, will reach their destinations within seven days via the new Land-Sea International Trade Corridor, according to Shuai Lang, an official in Liangping. "The district is aiming to export over 1,000 tons of pre-made food within one year."

The new International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, or ILSTC, is a trade and logistics passage jointly built by provincial-level regions in western China and the ASE AN member states, with Chongqing as the transportation hub. Its land-sea transit route is based on the efficient use of a variety of transportation modes, including railways, highways and waterways.

At the second Western China Pre-made Food Industry Development Conference, held in Liangping on the same day, the country's first index for pre-made food industry development — Liangping Index 2023 —was released.

According to Yu Debiao, director of Consumer Economy Research Center of market research firm CCID Consulting, China's pre-made food industry has maintained a soaring growth in recent years, driven by the improvement of consumption capacity, cold chain logistic technology and previous COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control, and supported by increasing investments.

Yu noted that the first-quarter index this year in the country is 2.7 times that of the first quarter in 2019.

At the event, the China Pre-made Food Research Institute was officially established. It was jointly initiated by the local government and Jiangnan University, a top institute in food science and technology in China.

On Tuesday, the Western China Pre-made Food Expo 2023 also kicked off in the district. The expo, which will run until Thursday, exhibits nearly 1,000 types of products from more than 130 brands in the industry from across the country.

"The district is striving to become a pre-made food center in western China," said Chen Mengwen, head of Liangping district.

According to a report released by CCID Consulting in January, Liangping ranks at the top of China's list of pre-made food bases in 2023.

"Liangping has formed a complete industrial chain for developing pre-made food," said Qing Shengjin, deputy director of the district's High-tech Zone Management Committee, where the base is located. Qing added the local government is building a 23.3-hectare pre-made food purchasing base, including a distribution center and a cold chain logistics center.

The pre-made food industry chain scale in Liangping will reach 50 billion yuan ($6.94 billion) in 2025, and 100 billion yuan in 2030.