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Nanhai.com reporter Wang Kangjing

On August 9, the Hainan Financial Research Institute of Hainan Daily News Group released the "2024 Hainan Zongzi Industry Development Trend Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") after three months of research and visits to Ding'an, Danzhou, Wanning, Tunchang and other places on the development of the zongzi industry. It sorted out the current situation of Hainan's zongzi industry, gained deep insights and formed predictions for future trends.

The report shows that the market value of the national zongzi industry will increase significantly in 2024, breaking the 10 billion yuan mark for the first time. Among them, the market size of Hainan's zongzi industry will exceed 1 billion yuan, and Ding'an zongzi leads the island with 712 million yuan. The report believes that Hainan's zongzi industry faces problems such as insufficient sales channels, brands and innovation. It needs to seize market growth opportunities, take the e-commerce express train, give play to the carrier of cultural heritage and brand value, and promote the maturity of the zongzi industry chain.

In addition, industry experts and zongzi entrepreneurs have offered suggestions and shared experiences for the development of Hainan zongzi. They believe that Hainan zongzi needs to further promote the formulation of alliance standards, innovate to meet the needs of different customer groups, move towards green and healthy concepts, and strive to make Hainan zongzi enter the national and even overseas markets.

At the release site of the "2024 Hainan Zongzi Industry Development Trend Report", industry experts gave keynote speeches.

In 2024, the scale of Hainan Zongzi will exceed 1 billion yuan, and the number of enterprises will rank fourth in the country

The report points out that in recent years, China's zongzi industry has shown a booming development trend, and the market scale has continued to expand. In 2024, the total market volume of zongzi will increase by 8%, breaking the 10 billion mark for the first time, reaching a market scale of 10.3 billion yuan, and is expected to exceed 11 billion yuan in 2025. Among them, the scale of Hainan's zongzi industry has exceeded 1 billion yuan, accounting for 10% of the country, and the market has shown a clear growth trend.

From the perspective of industry competition, my country's zongzi industry presents the characteristics of "one superpower, many strong players, and a group of heroes competing for supremacy". As of July 31, 2024, there are 5,830 existing zongzi-related enterprises in my country. The number of registrations has been increasing in the past 10 years, and 197 have been registered this year. From a regional perspective, Zhejiang ranks first in the country with 720 related enterprises, followed by Shandong, Guangdong, and Hainan with 536, 527, and 463 respectively.

From a geographical perspective, my country's zongzi industry is widely distributed, but mainly concentrated in the southeastern coastal areas, especially in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hainan and other provinces. These regions have become the forefront of zongzi production and innovation with their rich natural resources, mature food processing technology and convenient logistics system.

Specifically, Ding'an Zongzi leads with an output value of 712 million yuan, followed by Danzhou, Tunchang and Wanning with 180 million yuan, 70 million yuan and 40 million yuan respectively. The report believes that the significant increase in Hainan Zongzi sales compared with last year shows that people's demand for Zongzi has shifted from food to gift, and consumer demand has increased.

Ding'an County has become the center of the zongzi industry in the province with 113 zongzi enterprises. Among the major production areas of Ding'an, Danzhou, Tunchang and Wanning, Ding'an has the largest scale and the highest industry maturity; Danzhou actively integrates local characteristics and explores product innovation; Wanning will introduce industry standards to regulate product quality in the next step; Tunchang is in the process of platform integration and rapid development.

Ding'an rice dumplings are ready for packaging.

Hainan's rice dumpling industry faces three major limitations: insufficient sales channels, brand building and product innovation

The reporter learned from the above-mentioned "Report" that my country's zongzi industry is currently facing five major development opportunities: continued expansion of market scale, technological innovation and product diversification, brand building and channel expansion, international market development, policy support and industrial integration. Fu Rongjing, a researcher at the Hainan Finance and Economics Research Institute, said that with the opportunity of the zongzi industry ushering in a 10 billion market, Hainan's zongzi industry is also showing a booming development trend.

The "2024 Hainan Zongzi Industry Development Trend Report" released by the Hainan Finance and Economics Research Institute.

"However, while Hainan's rice dumpling industry is developing rapidly, it also faces many limitations. The main ones are the relatively single sales channels, insufficient brand influence, and insufficient product innovation capabilities," said Fu Rongjing.

She also gave an example, saying that although the scale of the national zongzi industry has exceeded 10 billion yuan, there are few national brands. Industry leaders such as Wufangzhai have a far-leading market share and are large manufacturers. Although Hainan has 463 zongzi companies of all sizes, ranking fourth in the country, these companies were established relatively concentratedly, with small-scale companies dominating. Many of them are small-scale family workshops, and their brands are not well built.

As the publisher of the report, Fu Rongjing explained to reporters the trend forecasts and development suggestions for the development of Hainan's zongzi industry in the report. He believed that the positioning of Hainan's zongzi industry is to practice "strengthening one, optimizing two, and promoting three", namely: focusing on tropical high-efficiency agriculture, strengthening research and development and breeding, enhancing the health value of agricultural products such as glutinous rice and zong leaves, and driving the planting and breeding of glutinous rice, zong leaves, pork and other agricultural products; promoting the quality upgrade of secondary food processing industry, and optimizing Hainan's zongzi industry towards food scale and industrialization; cultivating characteristic tourist destinations with the "food + tourism" model, promoting the integrated development of the zongzi industry and cultural tourism, realizing a closed-loop improvement of the entire chain, and deepening tourists' experience of Hainan zongzi.

Hainan's rice dumpling industry needs to strengthen the construction of the industrial chain and improve product quality, so that the "green" of rice dumplings can expand bigger and tighten, and become an important means for Hainan's rural revitalization.

In addition, the "Report" believes that the development of Hainan's zongzi industry shows four major trends: empowerment of new channels, riding on the express train of e-commerce, zongzi becoming a carrier of cultural heritage and a reflection of brand value, product innovation moving towards a healthier direction, and seasonal food evolving into daily convenience food.

The release site of "Hainan Zongzi Industry Development Trend Report 2024".

Industry experts: Explore the cultural connotation of Hainan Zongzi and formulate industry alliance standards

How can Hainan's zongzi industry be further expanded and strengthened? Li Renjun, professor of the School of Economics and Management at Yunnan Nationalities University and executive director of the Hainan International Tourism Island Development Research Institute, said that Ding'an Zongzi industry, as a relatively mature part of Hainan's zongzi industry, needs to be optimized and upgraded. First of all, it is necessary to focus on quality and highlight characteristics, because quality is vitality, and good quality should be used to help zongzi expand its market share. He believes that it is also necessary to grasp the stomach of consumers according to their consumption level and taste segmentation, such as multiple flavors and multiple specifications, so as to grasp the lifeline of product development.

"We should also actively explore the cultural heritage behind Hainan zongzi. We know that many people will associate zongzi with Qu Yuan, so what about Hainan zongzi? Ding'an zongzi also has a beautiful love story between a folk girl and a royal noble. Zongzi is an important carrier of cultural heritage." said Li Renjun, who has worked in Hainan for many years.

Secondly, the Hainan Zongzi industry should integrate branding and standardization to enhance the influence of Hainan Zongzi, and actively explore the market outside the island, which can be driven by cultural tourism, e-commerce sales, and the continuous introduction of new products to stimulate consumers. Finally, it is necessary to promote the government-industry-cooperative-research alliance to jointly promote the development of Hainan Zongzi industry, and to formulate product standards for the industry alliance. With standards, quality can be further guaranteed.

Tan Lehe, a second-level researcher at the Food Nutrition and Health Research Laboratory of the Analytical and Testing Center of the Chinese Academy of Thermal Sciences, made three suggestions from the perspectives of agricultural product brand building, market promotion and supply chain management.

"Under the new development situation, Hainan's rice dumpling industry needs to achieve upgrading. It needs to vigorously promote the new 'three products and one standard' in the production of raw materials such as glutinous rice, rice dumpling leaves, pork, and duck eggs." Tan Lehe said that secondly, with regard to the cultivation and construction of Hainan's rice dumpling brand, we must first improve brand cultivation awareness, second, fully explore brand characteristics, third, strengthen brand communication efforts, and fourth, standardize brand construction management.

Finally, he believes that the development of Hainan's rice dumpling industry needs to gather strength and form a joint force. For example, through social forces such as rice dumpling associations and industry alliances in various places, we can benefit from collective development.

Representatives of zongzi companies exchanged and shared their views at the release of the "2024 Hainan Zongzi Industry Development Trend Report".

Zongzi enterprises: Develop different flavors and specifications to cater to different customer groups in the market

Wang Feijian, president of the Ding'an Zongzi Association, said that as early as March 2014, "Ding'an Zongzi" obtained the national geographical indication certification trademark. In recent years, the Ding'an Zongzi industry has developed rapidly. It is not only popular in the domestic market, but also exported overseas, becoming a resounding business card of Hainan.

"As an industry association, the Ding'an Zongzi Association has promoted the modernization and standardization of production equipment and facilities of four member companies in recent years, which has greatly improved efficiency. The intelligent equipment of Hainan Ankai Zhongtai Industrial Co., Ltd., one of the association's members, can produce 40,000 zongzi a day." Wang Feijian said that the association's companies have also actively developed coconut zongzi, colorful zongzi, fruit zongzi, etc., and also produced zongzi of various sizes, such as 150-gram small zongzi, to meet the needs of different consumer groups in the market.

In the future, the Ding'an Zongzi Association will continue to deepen cooperation with cultural departments, strengthen cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry, expand sales channels, continue to carry out technological research and innovation, strengthen talent training, and accelerate the establishment of Ding'an Zongzi leading enterprises.

As one of the most representative zongzi enterprises on the island, Zhao Yingqiong, founder of Hainan Zhao Xishi brand, shared the secrets of building Hainan Zongzi brand. She said that in the process of development, Zhao Xishi brand positioned itself as a new Hainan-style New Year gift, and insisted on integrating innovative strategies with national trend culture. Since 2018, Zhao Xishi has held Xishi Zongzi Cultural Festival every year, which has been held for five consecutive sessions, and added Hanfu cultural elements.

"The colorful rice dumplings we developed have been praised by variety show stars. In addition to product research and development innovation and brand marketing, we also pay special attention to long-term brand and quality operation and maintenance. I myself am also actively communicating with supermarkets and large-scale group purchases to provide accurate product services, and provide rice dumpling products to various consumer groups through online live streaming." Zhao Yingqiong said.

(Nanhai.com)