Source | Retail Circle

"Endure hardship, be patient, fear nothing, and act boldly"—this portrayal of the Hunan spirit is carving an astonishing territory on China's leisure snack map. Walking down the street, tearing open a pack of劲仔 (Jinzai) small fish, chewing on a绝味 (Juewei) duck neck, or tasting a spicy strip from麻辣王子 (Mala Prince)—behind these national snacks, Hunan genes are pulsing. In the "2024 CNPP Top 10 Snack Store Industry Brands List," among the top ten bulk snack retailers nationwide, four are registered in Hunan, and even the fifth-ranked零食有鸣 (Lingshi Youming) is helmed by a Hunan native. Hunan people have elevated "love of eating" into an industrial philosophy, using grassroots wisdom to refine local snacks into a hundred-billion-yuan industry. Hunan alone contributes one-third of the nation's annual output value of leisure food and three-fifths of its leisure cooked food. The first self-manufacturing leisure snack company in China was born in Hunan, and Hunan is also the province with the most snack enterprises. These figures herald Hunan's "snack hegemony." Today, let's take stock of those Hunan brands that have taken the streets by storm.

Salt Plum Shop (盐津铺子) - Zhang Xuewu Born in Liuyang, Hunan, Zhang Xuewu's father ran a small preserved fruit workshop called "Tengfei Food Factory" with seven or eight workers. At the time, the factory's products were limited to local flavors, and sales relied on traditional wholesale. After graduating from university, Zhang Xuewu gained experience at a foreign-invested food company. After years of honing, he believed that if a slice of potato chips, a biscuit, a candy, or a chocolate could become a brand abroad, then salt plum food could also transform from a local specialty into a Chinese brand. With this dream, in 2005, Zhang Xuewu resolutely returned to his hometown and founded Salt Plum Shop Food Company, naming the brand after Liuyang's traditional "salt plum" technique (preserved fruit with less sugar and more salt, leaving a sweet aftertaste). After taking over, Zhang Xuewu realized that the small workshop model had no future. He identified three major problems: brand, product, and channel, and decided to tackle them by ensuring product quality, establishing sales channels, and building brand image. Zhang Xuewu abandoned the small workshop model, learned from徐福记 (Hsu Fu Chi), and proposed a channel strategy of "supermarket-led, distributor-following." In the early days, Salt Plum Shop's product line was thin, and it encountered difficulties in sales channels. Once, when an international hypermarket opened its first store in Changsha, Zhang Xuewu went to negotiate cooperation. The other party demanded a 45-day payment period, entry fees, barcode fees, and required factory inspections above national standards, which instantly dashed his spirits. But after deep consideration, Zhang Xuewu ultimately partnered with them despite the pressure. He believed that modern channels were the only way to build a brand and drive sales. The international hypermarket's pull forced the company to grow and accelerated its development. In 2006, he signed with Walmart, placing products in large supermarkets, eliminating distributor markups, and directly facing consumer demand. Meanwhile, the strict quality inspections of supermarkets forced the factory to upgrade—Zhang Xuewu established a full-chain quality control from raw materials to finished products. By 2016, it covered over 1,700 outlets across 45 chain supermarkets including Walmart and Carrefour, with direct-operated channel revenue accounting for more than half, reaching 31 provinces. Initially, Salt Plum Shop only produced preserved fruit, but Zhang Xuewu quickly drove category expansion. In 2006, it added soy products, avoiding direct confrontation with candy giants; subsequently, it expanded into meat products, nuts, and vegetarian snacks, forming five core categories. It pioneered the "experimental factory" model, testing market response with small-batch trial production before scaling up. In 2019, bakery product revenue surged 90%, accounting for one-third of total revenue, becoming a new growth pole. After listing in 2017, it launched the "Golden Shop" and "Sapphire" dual in-store island models, reaching 16,000 by 2020, driving revenue to double in three years to 1.96 billion yuan. When supermarket foot traffic declined in 2021, it quickly embraced bulk retail channels like零食很忙 (Lingshi Henmang) and Douyin e-commerce, with 2024 revenue soaring to 5.3 billion yuan and net profit quadrupling in four years. On February 8, 2017, Salt Plum Shop listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the first self-manufacturing snack enterprise to go public in China. Zhang Xuewu's bell-ringing moment marked the transformation from a million-yuan workshop to a ten-billion-yuan market value giant. After listing, Salt Plum Shop continued to develop. In 2020, bakery product revenue surged 90.26% year-on-year, becoming the company's largest category. In 2021, facing declining supermarket traffic, the company experienced brief difficulties before transitioning to omni-channel development, with revenue recovering high growth in 2022. By 2024, Salt Plum Shop's revenue reached 5.3 billion yuan. To date, its market value exceeds 20 billion yuan, ranking among the top A-share leisure food listed companies. On July 10, the 2025 Forbes China Best CEO list was officially released, and Salt Plum Shop Chairman Zhang Xuewu was honored. In 2025, Salt Plum Shop will focus on the konjac category in Southeast Asia, further explore Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the US, and strive to build an important growth pole for global development within 3 to 5 years, achieving a strategic leap from regional breakthrough to global operations.

Jinzai Food (劲仔食品) - Zhou Jinsong In 1987, 15-year-old Zhou Jinsong dropped out of school due to poverty and sold preserved fruit by bicycle, wearing out five bikes in two years to save his first pot of gold. In 1990, with 300 yuan from his mother's pig sale and 36 jin of soybeans, he started a dried tofu workshop in Pingjiang, hand-braising bean curd daily, selling out the same day, and recouping costs in the first year. In 1994, with fierce competition in Pingjiang dried tofu, Zhou Jinsong ventured alone to Luoyang, Henan, starting a business with a 60-yuan monthly rent. He adapted the Hunan flavor, selling dried tofu into school canteens, producing and selling daily. Within just three years, output value exceeded one million yuan, and he registered the "Jinzai" trademark with his personal portrait, becoming the "leading brother" for Pingjiang people starting businesses elsewhere. After 2000, Zhou Jinsong built factories in Shenyang, Chengdu, and elsewhere, but decentralized operations led to management loss. In 2009, he decisively streamlined, divesting inefficient assets and focusing on flavor leisure food R&D. In 2010, Zhou Jinsong returned home to found Huawen Food (predecessor of Jinzai Food). Leveraging Yueyang's aquatic resources and Hunan braising techniques, he innovatively launched "Jinzai Deep-Sea Small Fish," upgrading Pingjiang's fire-baked fish into a portable snack with deboned, sauce-braised flavor, filling a national market gap. Later, he signed Hunan celebrity host Wang Han as spokesperson, conveying the brand's "honest" culture. In 2015, he built a smart manufacturing base in Pingjiang; in 2016, he received 300 million yuan investment from Legend JIAWO Group, building an automated small fish production line with capacity increased to 18,000 tons/year. In September 2020, Jinzai Food listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the "first fish snack stock" on A-shares. It raised 160 million yuan for expansion, with revenue exceeding 900 million yuan that year, pioneering Yueyang food enterprises' listing. After listing, Zhou Jinsong did not stop. In 2021, "Huawen Food" was renamed "Jinzai Food," unifying brand and company name, and simultaneously implementing a "large packaging strategy" to cover mainstream supermarket shelves and upgrade terminal image. It established Hunan's first engineering technology research center for healthy leisure food; launched preservative-free "Zhou Xianxian" dried tofu, DHA deep-sea anchovy, and ready-to-eat soft-boiled quail eggs, with poultry product revenue growing 98.61% in five years. In 2024, Jinzai Food's revenue was 2.412 billion yuan, net profit 291 million yuan (up 39% year-on-year), and gross margin improved to 30.47%. The same year, it launched a "Three-Year Rebuilding Plan," targeting 4 billion yuan revenue by 2026. Today, Jinzai Food has built an aquatic product primary processing base in Kenya, with products exported to 40 countries, and cumulative sales of deep-sea small fish exceeding 7 billion packs, making it a well-deserved "global leader in braised snack sales." From a bicycle-riding youth to the "Small Fish King" steering a listed company, Zhou Jinsong exemplifies the Hunan entrepreneurial philosophy of "patience and boldness"—honesty brings flavor, and persistence leads to benchmarks.

Mala Prince (麻辣王子) - Zhang Yudong In 1998, a catastrophic flood hit Pingjiang, Hunan, causing soybean production to plummet and paralyzing the traditional dried tofu industry. Three local masters, seeking livelihoods, innovatively replaced soybean flour with wheat flour. In flavor development, they drew inspiration from the spicy and numbing Sichuan hotpot they had tasted on a business trip to Sichuan, adding Sichuan peppercorns, and combined it with Pingjiang dried tofu techniques to create the first spicy strip—mala-flavored. Thus, the first spicy strip was invented. At that time, Zhang Yudong, a veteran returning from military service, was running a tea business. Witnessing the booming demand for spicy strips—"trucks queued for a week, loading tons each time"—he keenly sensed the opportunity. In 2002, to resolve his tea business's cash flow dilemma, Zhang Yudong founded Yufeng Food, transitioning to spicy strip production, beginning the entrepreneurial legend of "Pingjiang people, Pingjiang soul, selling spicy strips to rise above." In 2005, CCTV exposed chaos in spicy strip workshops, plunging the industry into a trust crisis. Zhang Yudong did not follow the trend of PR stunts but instead did two "foolish" things: First, he took the lead in setting standards, promoting Hunan Province's first local spicy strip standard, "Xiangwei Flour Cooked Food," in 2007, establishing industry rules. Second, he repositioned spicy strips with consumer and cognitive thinking. In 2009, Zhang Yudong registered "Mala Prince," focusing on authentic mala flavor singles. At the time, 80% of spicy strips were sweet-spicy; the brand name came from Pingjiang locals' colloquial term for spicy strips, "mala." In raw materials, Zhang Yudong insisted on natural wheat flour and non-GMO rapeseed oil, inheriting the authentic mala flavor. In 2012, Zhang Yudong fell into a "dignity dilemma": although spicy strips had basically achieved standardized production, the "unhealthy" label was hard to shake, and occasional problem products were exposed, making the whole industry pay the price. Consumers secretly bought spicy strips like "thieves," and peers were seen as "shady workshops." He resolutely launched a second venture. Zhang Yudong cut the annual 300-million-yuan bestseller "Ruyi Stick" and several low-end products, focusing on the Mala Prince single; invested 30 million yuan to build the industry's first 100,000-level GMP pharmaceutical-grade clean workshop, where workers must wear sterile suits and undergo triple disinfection; and from 2017 gradually eliminated cyclamate, pigments, and chemical preservatives, shortening product shelf life from 6 months to 4 months. In September 2020, Mala Prince and Pingjiang Vocational School co-founded China's first spicy strip professional class; in October, it partnered with the Pingjiang Food Industry Association to build China's first spicy strip museum. In 2022, spicy strip inventors Li Mengneng, Qiu Pingjiang, and Zhong Qingyuan joined Mala Prince as technical advisors. Under Zhang Yudong's persistence, spicy strips gradually shed the junk food label, gaining recognition from more consumers and becoming a choice for many "post-90s" and "post-00s" youth. Moreover, as a leading spicy strip enterprise in Pingjiang, Hunan, Zhang Yudong chose to "act boldly" to the end, focusing on authentic mala flavor, and together with the three spicy strip inventors and Sichuan cuisine master Xiao Jianming, he inherits and promotes authentic mala spicy strips. In 2023, Mala Prince's annual sales exceeded 1 billion yuan. In 2024, annual sales broke 1.5 billion yuan for the first time, with brand awareness nationwide exceeding 90%, and it became the top spicy strip category seller in 37 national supermarket systems. In April 2025, Mala Prince held a "Breaking 1.5 Billion Celebration and Shenzhen Launch Conference" in Shenzhen. Hunan native Zhang Yudong proves that even a spicy strip can be branded with "authenticity" and "reverence." At the Shenzhen conference, the crown logo for 1.5 billion yuan in sales lit up, and this "Spicy Strip Prince's" ambition has long crossed the hills of Pingjiang—on the road to upgrading Chinese snacks, Hunan people are never absent.

Kouwei Wang (口味王) - Guo Zhiguang Guo Zhiguang, from Yiyang, Hunan, was born in 1974 into a poor farming family in Xiangjiadi Village, Xinqiaohe Town, Ziyang District. After finishing junior high at 14, he followed his father to peddle betel nuts in Yiyang and Yueyang, but in Yueyang, due to lack of product differentiation, he lost all savings, left with only 25 yuan and sleeping under a bridge. This darkest hour tempered his stubbornness—"I won't go home until I make betel nuts work"—he borrowed from relatives and friends, sold pigs to raise money, set up two shabby factory rooms in his hometown, and with five or six workers hand-packaged, created Hunan's first coffee-flavored betel nut. This sweet-scented and cooling product quickly opened up the Yueyang market, with sales soaring in 1999. In 2000, Guo Zhiguang formally founded "Kouwei Wang Betel Nut Factory," and between 2002 and 2003, it captured 95% of Yueyang's market share. After that, Kouwei Wang's production bases multiplied, and the company gradually expanded beyond the province, increasing national influence. Guo Zhiguang's ambition was not limited to a small workshop. In 2003, he registered Yiyang Kouwei Wang Betel Nut Co., Ltd. "Before 2000, people always thought betel nut was like chewing gum, not fit for elegant occasions. I never believed that; I wanted to make betel nut a high-end product." Once, betel nuts sold for only 1 yuan a pack, with rough packaging, and were seen as a niche product. Under Guo Zhiguang's insistence, Kouwei Wang pioneered vertical packaging for betel nuts. The best performer was the high-end brand "Hecheng Tianxia," launched in 2014, which became the sales leader in Hunan within two years and sold 800 million packs in six years. At a time when the betel nut industry was mired in price wars, Kouwei Wang decisively abandoned traditional smoked betel nuts, focused on green betel nuts, independently developed steam drying technology, pioneered a smokeless process, and launched innovative categories like "raisin betel nuts." This differentiation strategy allowed Kouwei Wang to capture markets outside Hunan, including Guangdong. Additionally, he understood the profound impact of brand promotion on sales, going down to the market to provide free signage with Kouwei Wang logos to local grocery stores in Hunan, and brand influence soared. Today, Kouwei Wang has grown into a group with annual output value in the billions and eight production bases. Reviewing Guo Zhiguang's entrepreneurial journey, in 2007, due to a cash flow break, he publicly burned 66,000 packs of defective products; in 2019, he spent ten billion yuan to purchase and store dried betel nuts in Hainan, teaching farmers his self-developed drying technology. Despite ongoing health controversies in the betel nut industry, this "Betel Nut King's" legend has become a vivid footnote to Hunan entrepreneurial spirit.

Weilong (卫龙) - Liu Weiping Liu Weiping, founder of Weilong, was also born in Pingjiang, Hunan, the hometown of dried tofu. As early as 300 years ago, Pingjiang dried tofu was a Qing Dynasty tribute. At 14, he learned traditional dried tofu making from his mother, carrying loads over mountains to sell, deeply understanding the essence of Hunan's spicy and numbing techniques. In 1998, the catastrophic flood in Hunan doubled soybean prices, and Pingjiang masters replaced soybean flour with wheat flour, creating gluten-based spicy strips. However, Pingjiang is mountainous and not rich in wheat, so raw materials had to be transported from elsewhere, costing time and increasing logistics. People found that most spicy strips were sold to the north, and Pingjiang had neither raw material advantages nor a good market, so many Pingjiang people took the spicy strip recipe to the central plains, where wheat was abundant, to start businesses. Liu Weiping keenly sensed the opportunity and took the recipe north to Luohe, Henan, a major wheat-producing area. He and his younger brother Liu Fuping rented a workshop in Luohe with their savings, making and selling spicy strips day and night. After three full years, they finally saved enough to open their own factory. Using gluten as the raw material, combined with dried tofu techniques, he created a product with "slight sweetness, slight spiciness, refreshing, and lingering aftertaste," and also developed China's first strip-shaped spicy strip, "Mala Silk." At that time, Jackie Chan was popular, so Liu Weiping named his brand "Weilong." In 2003, he registered the "Weilong" trademark, becoming the first branded spicy strip enterprise in the country. He changed transparent bags to aluminum foil small packages for students' convenience, and ground promotion covered all supermarkets within 200 kilometers of Luohe. Soon after, CCTV exposed a gluten production company illegally adding additives to raw materials, and spicy strips were suddenly caught in a food safety storm. At the time, Weilong's annual output value was only 1.2 billion yuan. To shed the "junk food" label, Liu Weiping spared no expense to build new factories, transforming production workshops into fully automated ones and strictly controlling food production quality. Meanwhile, Liu Weiping put great effort into sales. Besides conventional celebrity endorsements, he specially invited professional photography teams to film corporate promotional videos in the workshops, and invited media and internet celebrities to live-stream the production workshops. In 2015, he collaborated with Bào Zǒu Màn Huà to launch the "Come, have a spicy strip and calm down" emoji pack; in 2016, he imitated Apple's style to design the "Hotstrip 7" spicy strip, creating the "LV of spicy strips" persona; he even frequently went viral overseas, priced at $14 per pack (about 96 yuan) on Amazon, featured in BBC reports, becoming a curiosity luxury item for young Westerners. On December 15, 2022, Weilong listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a market value exceeding 60 billion yuan, and the Liu brothers' wealth surpassed 55 billion yuan. It took the lead in establishing the "Sichuan-Flavor Leisure Snack Globalization Development Alliance." In 2024, annual revenue reached 6.266 billion yuan, up 28.6% year-on-year, and net profit was 1.068 billion yuan, up 21.3%. From a dried tofu youth in Pingjiang's mountains to the "Spicy Strip King" commanding a 60-billion-yuan market value, Liu Weiping has spent 25 years interpreting the business legend that "no army is complete without Hunan."

Jiajia Food (加加食品) - Yang Zhen In 1962, Yang Zhen was born into a poor family in Donghutang Town, Ningxiang, Hunan. His father died early, and his mother raised three brothers alone, deeply imprinting the Hunan character of "enduring hardship and acting boldly." He later entered the Chinese Department of Yiyang Normal College and became a Chinese teacher at Ningxiang Middle School after graduation. Because a teacher's monthly salary could hardly improve his family's situation, Yang Zhen resolutely resigned from the "iron rice bowl" to start a business. In the first 10 years of entrepreneurship, he successively engaged in special breeding, food processing, and promotion of invisible screen window technology, earning his first pot of gold and becoming one of Ningxiang's first "ten-thousand-yuan households." In his spare time, Yang Zhen enjoyed cooking. Dissatisfied with the traditional soy sauce bottle that required piercing with a sharp object and easily dirtied hands, he invented a pull-ring cap with a hole. He tried to sell the patent to a Hunan soy sauce factory for 500,000 yuan but was rejected. Then he made a bold decision: to open his own soy sauce factory and use the pull-ring, holed cap on his own products. In early 1997, Jiajia Soy Sauce Factory was founded in Ningxiang County, Hunan. According to Yang Zhen's recollection, the factory initially had only 3 mu of land and dozens of workers. But what he envisioned was a high-end positioned soy sauce enterprise. The first bottle was priced at 6.5 yuan, while the average price in Hunan at the time was around 1.6 yuan. With differentiated packaging and a suspenseful ad "Wheat + Soybean = ?", it exploded into the Hunan market. In 2003, Yang Zhen bet all of Jiajia's seven-year profits of 48 million yuan to win the CCTV "bid king" for two months. From May to June of that year, Jiajia soy sauce ads aired at 7:00 pm time signal and after the 7:30 pm news broadcast, with surprisingly good results. The Jiajia brand instantly imprinted on people's minds, and distributors nationwide flocked to inquire, with the distribution network covering the whole country. In 2004, Jiajia Food's annual revenue reached 500 million yuan; by 2012, it grew to 1.657 billion yuan, leading domestic condiment companies at the time. In 2008, Yang Zhen began preparing for listing, and on January 6, 2012, Jiajia Food listed on the A-share market, becoming China's first soy sauce stock, with that year's revenue of 1.657 billion yuan and net profit of 176 million yuan. At that time, Haitian Flavoring had just started its listing process, and Qianhe Flavoring was still a local small brand. From 2008 to 2018 was the golden age of e-commerce, but Jiajia, known as the "first soy sauce stock," missed the "digital operation" train and was overtaken by Haitian. In 2019, Jiajia Food introduced internet talent, leveraging e-commerce advantages to empower traditional C-end soy sauce sales, beginning a continuous catch-up. In 2023, Yang Zhen's son Yang Zijiang first appeared as the group's executive vice president and sales general manager, launching a "zero-additive" strategy: products removed preservatives and white sugar, focusing on healthy items like squeeze-bottle oyster sauce and ginger-onion cooking wine. It also actively laid out new e-commerce, entering Douyin and other new media to follow young people's footsteps. From resigning from teaching to regrouping in his sixties, Yang Zhen has spent 30 years interpreting the Hunan merchant's resilience of "patience and boldness." Although Jiajia's market value is not as high as Haitian's, this Ningxiang entrepreneur's innovative genes continue.

Jialong Food (佳龙食品) - Li Yuanzheng Born in 1976 in Pingjiang, Hunan, Li Yuanzheng dropped out of school at 14 due to poverty and followed elders to learn traditional dried tofu techniques. This skill, rooted in the Hunan land, became the original gene of his entrepreneurship—Pingjiang dried tofu is known for being "salty, spicy, and sweet with aftertaste," precisely the taste reflection of Hunan people's "enduring hardship and acting boldly." In 1993, Li Yuanzheng founded Yuanzheng Food Factory in Hengyang, focusing on spicy dried tofu loved by Hunan people, earning his first pot of gold. In 1998, to reduce raw material costs, he went to Harbin but was frustrated by soybean price fluctuations. With Hunan people's pragmatic spirit, he turned to wheat flour as a raw material and keenly discovered Henan's wheat resource advantages. In 1999, he took Pingjiang techniques to Xinzheng, Henan, founded Jialong Food, and injected Hunan's spicy and numbing genes into the central plains' granary. In 2005, CCTV exposed spicy strip chaos, plunging the industry into crisis. Li Yuanzheng took the lead in promoting standardization: in 2009, it became one of Henan's first QS-certified enterprises; in 2013, it signed He Jiong and Hua Shao as spokespersons, using credibility to reshape the industry's image. From 2008, it established production bases in Changge and Minquan, but the core technical team always retained Pingjiang masters to ensure the inheritance of Hunan's "spicy, numbing, fresh" flavor. The spicy strip world has many talents, and to secure a place, Li Yuanzheng relied on innovation. While deeply cultivating "a pack of good spicy strips," Jialong Food continuously optimized and enriched its product structure. In 2022, it launched "fresh bamboo shoots and konjac," winning the China Convenience Food Innovation Award; in 2023, by innovatively adding glutinous rice flour and using amylopectin to lock in moisture and enhance Q-elasticity, Li Yuanzheng opened a new soft and chewy spicy strip track. Jialong Food has formed three major product series: seasoned flour products, vegetable products, and soy products, with over 100 SKUs. Among them, "Five Grains," "Corn Full," "Fresh Bamboo Shoots Konjac," and "Crispy Konjac" have become bestsellers across all channels, with annual output value exceeding 1 billion yuan. Currently, Jialong Food has three production bases in Xinzheng, Changning, and Changge, with an annual production capacity of over 100,000 tons. In 2023, it covered 72% of national snack systems and 78% of stores, with channel performance nearing 200 million yuan. In August 2023, it became the first enterprise in the country to receive approval for the "spicy strip" commodity category, paving the way for overseas expansion, with products exported to 30 countries including the US, UK, and Russia. From a Pingjiang youth selling dried tofu by bicycle to an industry leader commanding annual sales of 1 billion yuan and making spicy strips "expedition" to 30 countries, Li Yuanzheng has spent thirty years interpreting the Hunan business path of "body away from Xiangjiang, taste guarding Pingjiang."

Jiugui Liquor (酒鬼酒) - Wang Xibing Amid the green mountains and waters of western Hunan, a fine liquor carrying the Hunan spirit is nurtured—Jiugui Liquor. Its predecessor was the Jishou Distillery, the first workshop-style distillery in western Hunan, established in 1956. No one expected that this small distillery would transform into a legend of Chinese baijiu under Wang Xibing. In 1970, 18-year-old Wang Xibing entered the distillery as an accountant, and at 21, he took over as factory director. At that time, the distillery was small and the brand unestablished, but Wang Xibing dared to think and act—he sent teams to visit the eight famous distilleries nationwide, spending seven years studying techniques, and finally established the prototype of the fuyu (complex) aroma type. In 1975, he created the "Xiangquan" brand. In 1985, it was renamed Xiangxi Jishou Brewing General Factory. In 1983, Huang Yongyu designed a burlap sack-shaped pottery bottle for Xiangquan wine, stunning the industry with its rustic elegance; in 1987, the master proposed the name "Jiugui" (Drunken Ghost) and designed the "Drunken Ghost carrying wine" pottery bottle. From then on, this brand, with a touch of playfulness and cultural interest, officially entered the Chinese baijiu arena. Wang Xibing's "boldness" was fully displayed in marketing. In the late 1980s, Jiugui Liquor was priced at over 400 yuan (far exceeding Moutai and Wuliangye), becoming the "most expensive baijiu," yet still hard to find. In 1997, Jiugui Liquor listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming Hunan's third listed company, raising 400 million yuan for capacity expansion. At its peak, annual sales exceeded 1.1 billion yuan, and it was known as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings of high-end baijiu" alongside Moutai, Wuliangye, and Jiannanchun. But rapid expansion also planted hidden dangers. In 2000, Wang Xibing resigned as chairman, and Jiugui Liquor changed hands several times, suffering from plasticizer scandals and equity disputes. In 2012, its market value evaporated by over 32.8 billion yuan, once falling into a trough. The turning point came in 2016 when COFCO Group took over, and Jiugui Liquor regrouped. Relying on the national standard for fuyu aroma and the unique "one sip, three aromas" technique, Jiugui Liquor attempted to regain its glory. In recent years, despite industry adjustments and performance pressure, Jiugui Liquor continues to seek breakthroughs, collaborating with Pangdonglai to launch "Jiugui · Free Love," attempting to break through with affordable pricing and channel innovation. Starting from a small workshop in western Hunan, with its unique environment, craftsmanship, aroma, packaging, and culture, Jiugui Liquor has gradually grown into a uniquely charming brand in the Chinese baijiu market. The story of Jiugui Liquor always pulses with the Hunan spirit: Wang Xibing's tenacity in "learning and daring," Huang Yongyu's cultural empowerment; even through ups and downs, Jiugui Liquor adheres to the originality of "fuyu aroma," seeking balance between tradition and modernity. This liquor, steeped in western Hunan's landscapes and humanities, is both a footnote to Hunan people's pioneering spirit and a microcosm of the Chinese baijiu industry's turbulent development.

Conclusion The rise of Hunan's food industry is the result of favorable timing, geographical advantages, and human effort. This land has a strong agricultural foundation, providing abundant and stable raw material supply for snack manufacturing. The characteristic snack culture of the Hunan region endows products with unique taste memories and development inspiration. The Hunan people's character of "enduring hardship and acting boldly" has turned traditional flavors into nationally popular snacks through business operations and marketing. The cluster effect of Hunan people's "passing on and helping" has jointly forged this thriving industrial chain. In recent years, Hunan Province's food industry has developed strongly, with overall strength ranking sixth nationally, and the number of listed companies reaching 20, tied with Guangdong for second place nationwide. Besides the giants mentioned above, Hunan's food landscape has many other shining names: such as the regional specialty sauce-braised duck brand "Shunhua Linwu Duck," the spicy snack-focused "Jin Mofang," and the century-old Chinese pastry time-honored brand "Shaliwen"... In the Hurun Research Institute's "2024 Hurun China Food Industry Top 100 List," five companies headquartered in Hunan were listed: Jiugui Liquor, Salt Plum Shop, Juewei Food, Xuetian Salt, and New Wufeng. Starting with a pack of spicy strips or a bag of small fish, Hunan people have used keen business acumen to turn "small snacks" and "local flavors" that satisfy cravings into a "big track" related to people's livelihoods, employment, carrying local culture, and linking to the global market. What other Hunan snack brands do you know? Feel free to leave a comment to add.