Fiery Chongqing hotpot ignites new growth points

CHONGQING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Zhou Pengcheng, the founder of an advertising agency, likely never thought that one day he would be promoting his business at a hotpot festival.

His booth, featuring hotpot posters, shop signs and decorations, has drawn the eyes of many participants at the 15th China (Chongqing) Hot Pot Food Culture Festival, which is currently underway in Chongqing, a city famous for hotpot.

Characterized by its red oil base, the bubbling spice from the red-hot Chongqing hotpot launches a fiery, heady assault on the taste buds, capturing not only the eagerness of locals, but also foodies across the country and even overseas.

"The Chongqing hotpot business skyrocketed this year, especially in areas outside Chongqing. These restaurants attach both importance to taste and the culture behind it, which gives us lots of space to do the interior design," Zhou said.

Zhou's company began tapping into the hotpot business sector this year and has been wowed by its rapid growth, he said.

"We hired movie poster designers and some graduates majoring in calligraphy to do designs that are retro in style and embedded with Chongqing cultural elements," said Zhou, who expects more than tenfold growth in the company's sales volume this year.

Once just a popular local flavor, Chongqing hotpot can now be found in almost every corner of the city and has opened up new business opportunities for many other industries.

At a tableware exhibition at the festival, Wei Jichen, deputy general manager of Chongqing Jinhao Meinai Products Co., Ltd., said that half of the tableware products the company produces are designed for hotpot restaurants.

The company has also used straw and starch as raw materials to make eco-friendly tableware catering to the growing eco-living trend among young consumers.

"Now these green products account for about 30 percent of our overall output. Last year, our sales exceeded 200 million yuan (about 27.9 million U.S. dollars), and this year, they are expected to reach 300 million yuan," said Wei, noting that their products are also exported to Singapore, Malaysia and many other countries.

Hotpot has become Chongqing's symbol and a driving force for the progress of Chongqing's economy. Data from the Chongqing Hotpot Association shows that Chongqing alone is home to more than 32,000 hotpot restaurants and over 16,000 hotpot-related enterprises, which together yield an annual revenue of 60 billion yuan. The city exports about 900 tonnes of hotpot base every year.

The Chongqing flavor is also conquering a growing number of overseas foodies. Globally, there are nearly 200,000 Chongqing hotpot restaurants in more than 20 countries, the association noted.

According to chenzhidata, a consultancy firm specializing in data analysis for the catering and new retail sectors, the scale of China's hotpot business is expected to reach 500 billion yuan in 2023, accounting for 10 percent of the country's whole catering sector.