Podcast: Story in the Story (12/11/2018 Tue.)
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From the People’s Daily app.

This is Story in the Story.

Times are changing for one of China’s best known street food chains.

Shaxian Delicacies is renowned around the country for its unique dishes, some of which are based on recipes dating back 1000 years.

Shaxian franchises have either opened, or are likely to in the near future, in at least ten countries, yet at home, the brand is looking for ways to address sagging demand.

Originating from Shaxian County in east China's Fujian Province, Shaxian food became a hit among college students, migrant workers and merchants in urban areas.

In the 1980s, food stalls featuring Shaxian County snacks started popping up all over the country after many Shaxian residents left the county to sell their local cuisine from street-side stalls in nearby cities.

As the food got more and more popular, it spread farther and farther away. The snacks were warmly welcomed for their widely accepted flavors and affordable prices.

People came to know and remember the name of this small town by grabbing a bite of its peanut butter noodles, pork wontons, steamed dumplings and tofu balls.

Today’s Story in the Story will look at the challenges facing Shaxian Delicacies and what can be done to revitalize the chain.

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A woman walks past a Shaxian Delicacies restaurant in Beijing. (Photo: Global Times)

China's Shaxian Delicacies restaurants take in about 10 billion yuan ($1.44 billion) in annual revenue and employ more than 60,000 people from different regions in the country.

The industry has driven the town's development. "Noodles and wontons built the high-rise buildings of Shaxian," said local official Yang Xingzhong.

However, underneath the remarkable success of the industry, challenges have emerged in recent years.

According to a display board in a snack-themed museum in Shaxian County, the number of snack bars run by those from the county is more than 30,000. But Yang said only 2,000 of them were authorized to use the brand "Shaxian Delicacies," which was registered in 2016.

"The traditional husband and wife snack bar no longer fits with the customers' needs," Yang said. Problems including poor sanitary conditions and disorganized brand management are putting a brake on the industry's development.

The Shaxian County local government wants the brand to be repositioned.

Apart from registering a unified brand for local snacks, the government also set up supply chains to distribute semi-finished products to domestic snack bars, hoping that standardized management can improve the brand's image.

Luo Fenlin, 27, has been running a Shaxian Delicacies bar in Beijing for four years. His eatery was franchised last year.

"A unified brand and improved decoration brought me more customers," Luo said. "It's necessary for the brand to establish certain standards. Only by doing so can the brand become more attractive.”

"I eat here often, but the sanitary conditions and customer service could be better," said Guan Shanqing, 24, who is not completely satisfied with Shaxian Delicacies.

“But I don't want the brand to change too much," said Guan. "I hope the prices will still be affordable."

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The transformed Shaxian Delicacies restaurant featuring cute images in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Jan 12, 2018. (Photo: China Daily)

One of China’s biggest retailers has come up with a novel way to modernize the chain in an effort to bring in new customers while also promoting its own products.

Alibaba's e-commerce platform Taobao has transformed three Shaxian Delicacies restaurants into cartoon-style places.

Located in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, are serving food with cute animal-print tableware and are decorated with adorable dolls, cartoon-print wallpapers and tablecloths – a totally different ambience to the more humble places they used to be.

In the restaurant, customers can not only have meals but can also use the Taobao app to scan decorations or tableware to buy them online, serving as an example of Alibaba's new retail strategy.

"Shaxian Delicacies has no unified business entity. Their restaurants across the country are operated individually," said Liu Xuwei, an analyst from the Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International.

There has been talk of listing the chain for an IPO, but Liu said because it is so difficult to integrate such a scattered group of restaurants, there is only a slim possibility of an IPO.

"We will try our best to make Shaxian Delicacies an iconic Chinese brand with world-wide influence," said Zhang Xin, deputy director of the brand’s industry development center.

Another major challenge facing all street food chains is the online food delivery market. It hit 204.6 billion yuan (about $31.9 billion) in 2017, 23 percent more than the previous year, according to a report by Meituan Waimai, a major food delivery firm.

About 300 million users have used online services to order food, the report showed.

Young people were also among the most active users, according to Jiang Junxian, director of China Cuisine Association (CCA). 

(Produced by Nancy Yan Xu, Brian Lowe, Lance Crayon and Da Hang. Music by: bensound.com. Text from People’s Daily App, Global Times and China Daily.)