Childhood snacks have a bit of magic. Whether you're from the 70s, 80s, or 90s, you surely shared a genuine love for snacks as a child. Many snacks are common taste memories that have accompanied generations. Today, for Children's Day (June 1st), we've compiled the evolution of snacks over the past 40 years, taking you to see how those childhood snacks were born and what interesting stories they hold. Today, we want to go back with you to the small shop in your childhood memories.

The 1980s Chinese and Foreign Snacks Blossom Everywhere Everything Was Fresh

In 1978, with the reform and opening-up, many European and American snack and beverage giants began to enter the Chinese market. At the end of the year, Coca-Cola returned to China after more than 51 years. Throughout the 1980s, it had to compete with Beibingyang soda, which was priced at less than half of Coca-Cola's price. Some may remember that after the "News Broadcast," 18 TV stations across the country simultaneously aired a Coca-Cola advertisement. It is said that this cost Coca-Cola a full year's income.

In April 1984, Time magazine featured President Reagan's visit to China, with a young person holding a Coca-Cola.

In the year Coca-Cola returned, Pepsi also opened a factory in Shenzhen. Compared to the "authentic" Coca-Cola, Pepsi invited Leslie Cheung to be its first spokesperson in Asia. This was one of only four commercial ads in his life. Later, Pepsi also acquired Beibingyang and shelved it for 15 years. Since then, in the domestic soda market, the two major cola giants have almost dominated.

In 1979, Shanghai's Pudong New Area welcomed the arrival of Wow Wo, which contributed many milk candies to tea tables in the following years, and Pudong New Area also contributed a lot of GDP.

In 1983, children in Shekou, Shenzhen, were the first to taste Khong Guan raisin biscuits. Yes, this brand is not 100% domestic; it actually originated in Singapore and only began setting up factories in China in the 1980s. Around the same time, Maltesers was also introduced to China by Mars, Inc. Is there anyone like me who would first nibble off the outer chocolate and then eat the crispy center separately? It is said that the calories in every 100g of Maltesers are roughly equivalent to two McDonald's Big Macs.

Although Switzerland doesn't have Swiss rolls, there really is Sugus Swiss candy. It also entered China in the 1980s, and it's said that the small square shape imitates the Swiss flag.

In 1988, MIMI shrimp crackers from Malaysia landed in Shantou. Ten years later, Fujian Aishang (i.e., Fuma Food) made a pirated version called "Weimi Shrimp Crackers," which unexpectedly sold even better than the original. The imitation packaging was similar to the original, but the cat's color was darker and it didn't have a guitar.

A year later, Spain's "Dada" bubble gum also entered China. Some might ask, "Isn't Dada from Mars in the US?" Yes, but that was after it was acquired in the new millennium. At that time, the most coveted was the Dada roll: a pink box similar to a tape dispenser, from which you would cut a small piece when you wanted bubble gum. When "Digimon" was popular, the candy wrapper would even print Greymon. It wasn't until 1999 that the Dada Superman image appeared!

In the same year, we got to eat the rare American Dove chocolate. However, times have changed; now giving Dove on Valentine's Day might get you recommended to a break-up advice group.

While imported snacks were thriving, domestic snacks were also quietly developing, but mostly imitating imported products without forming their own style. In 1983, Shanghai Yimin Food Factory No. 1 introduced a production line from Italy's MARK company for the first time, producing the later popular doll-shaped ice cream. By the way, Yimin is the predecessor of Bright Dairy!

While American Maltesers and Dove were entering China, domestic chocolate also seized the opportunity. In 1986, Liangfeng in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, tried using cocoa butter substitute to reduce costs, making Maltesers a popular childhood snack. Later, Bainuo and Golden Monkey followed suit, with Golden Monkey launching many cheap chocolate varieties in addition to Maltesers. Interestingly, later, Maltesers appeared in various martial arts TV dramas as "Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills," "Life-Giving Creation Pills," "Heart-Detoxifying Pills," and other martial arts holy medicines...

In the 1995 version of "The Return of the Condor Heroes," Maltesers appeared.

In the south, there were Maltesers; in the north, there were Tianjin Kiessling bars and Black Diamond. In an era when pocket money was only one or two mao, Kiessling bars sold for one yuan and fifty cents. It's fair to call it the Hermès of chocolates!

Black Diamond, which came later in the 80s, created a signature product: King Kong 125 filled chocolate. At that time, it was standard at wedding banquets from Tianjin to North China.

In 1986, the southern coastal cities led by Chaozhou took a different path. They further promoted traditional preserved fruit and dried fruit snacks. The most well-known was Huahuadan, also called Monkey King Pills or Mouse Droppings. The classic version came from Guangdong Kanghui Food in 1988. How many people actually used it to simulate mouse droppings scattered in a drawer?

There's another snack I'd call the century's biggest scam: the sweet and sour dried shredded fig, which leaves white sugar powder on your lips after eating. Only when you grow up do you learn the ingredient is shredded radish! Chaozhou Zhengda Food, you deceived my feelings!

In 1987, the global population reached 5 billion. The number of children in developing China was growing, and nutritional health issues received great attention. In Hangzhou, inland, a Baoling Children's Nutritional Food Factory was established. The following year, based on the situation of only children not wanting to eat, being picky, and malnourished, they developed the first children's nutritional liquid, which was Wahaha. "Drink Wahaha, meals are fragrant" resounded across the country. Later, Wahaha also launched a soul product - Puer Tea Shuang, although it was discontinued later, it was a pioneering non-alcoholic beer, right?

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, Taikang Wannian Green biscuits still dominated the biscuit market, and White Rabbit, born in the 1950s, remained the top candy. But even happier were the post-90s, who had an unprecedented variety of snacks.

The 1990s Taiwanese and Foreign Investment Flood In An Era of Shining Stars

Snacks in the 90s were truly dazzling. On one hand, foreign, especially Taiwanese, enterprises emerged in concentration; on the other, local brands were actively innovating. The snack trend in small shops blew all the way into the new millennium.

In 1990, Tianjin welcomed a foreign guest carrying cocoa powder - that was the Nutresa Group, which had been popular in Spain for decades. It gave itself a festive Chinese name: Cola Cao. In the TV drama "Home with Kids," Cola Cao was the favorite of the three children in the family. At the company's inauguration ceremony, the ribbon-cutting was done by former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. Years later, he also announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics. Since then, the bustling 90s kicked off with the aroma of hot chocolate.

In 1992, the "Southern Tour" and the 14th Party Congress accelerated Taiwanese businessmen's investment in the mainland. In that year alone, more than 6,000 new Taiwanese enterprises were added on the mainland. 1992-1993 was probably the two most star-studded years in snack history. Those brands that are still influential today all rushed to enter the mainland at this time, bringing countless classic candies and puffed snacks.

In 1992, the four Hsu brothers from Taiwan came to Dongguan to start a business, and two years later founded Hsu Fu Chi. Six years later, it firmly held the top position in China's candy industry. Gold coin chocolates, Sachima, crispy heart candies... Even now, these enduring products can still be seen on the tea table during the New Year.

Another Taiwanese company that arrived at the same time as Hsu Fu Chi was Yilan Food Industry Company. It combined Japan's rice-based snack "rice crackers" with Taiwan's surplus rice resources at the time, developing the virgin territory of snacks - Want Want Senbei. In just 20 years, Want Want grew its annual sales from zero to 10 billion. Back then, almost every Want Want ad was particularly viral. Li Ziming's mother delivering milk, the kids breaking the frozen popsicle in half, and the catchy O-Pao Guonai song... These still echo in the minds of post-90s. Despite consecutive negative growth from 2014 to 2017, Want Want remains resilient, even becoming a cultural icon thanks to UP主 Shifen.

In Taiwan, senbei is often used for worshiping ghosts during Ghost Festival and ancestors during Qingming... And engineers place Guai Guai crispy rice crackers on computer hosts, saying it ensures safety!

Actually, earlier than Want Want in expanding to the mainland market was the Philippine company LIWAYWAY. Initially, LIWAYWAY made packaged cornstarch, then became famous for shrimp crackers and shrimp sticks. It wasn't until 1993 that it set up a factory in Shanghai, called Oishi.

In 1993, three years after Cola Cao came to China, it met its competitor - Swiss Ovaltine. In the previous four to five decades, Ovaltine could only be drunk in Hong Kong. That same year, UK's Wall's entered mainland freezers. Thirteen years later, all children's tongues were dyed green by Green Tongue popsicles.

In 1994, South Korea's Lotte and Orion came. The former contributed bear-shaped cookies, and the latter brought filled chocolate pies. Remember the 2010 seat-giving Orion ad? The little boy with the watermelon head on the left is a 9-year-old Yi Yangqianxi. Nine years after Orion's pie became popular, a Fujian company made a cheaper alternative at one-third the price - Daliyuan, whose sales once surpassed the original. However, it's said that Orion's Mushroom Chocolate is not original either, but a copy of Japan's Meiji's "Mushroom Mountain" (きのこの山) launched in 1975. It must be said, history always repeats itself...

By 1995, America's Skittles also came in. Its ads were incredibly creative and often became material for Bilibili users' remixes. That same year, the leopard brought Cheetos! It's said that every Cheetos curl looks different, and the Cheetos official website has a museum dedicated to collecting interestingly shaped Cheetos. Even more exaggerated, in 2018, a Cheetos shaped like a gorilla was auctioned on eBay for a whopping $90,000!

A year later, Italy's Alpenliebe entered China. Its siblings that followed included Bebob bubble gum and Mentos (yes, the one that creates a fountain when dropped into a Coke bottle). That year, we could also eat Oreo! All children remembered the standard way to eat it from TV ads: "Twist, lick, dunk."

In 1998, many Yunnan friends grew up eating Zidi potato chips, which was founded as a Sino-foreign joint venture. It slices potatoes directly and seasons them. Although thick and rough, it has a simple and rich potato flavor. Zidi is considered the first generation of original-cut chips we encountered. Lay's, born five years earlier, uses mashed potato pressed into chips. Although it lacks the plateau's simplicity, the texture is thinner and crispier.

While foreign brands were entering China, local snacks were also rising rapidly, once leading trends and even exporting back abroad. In 1992 in the Northeast, many people fell in love with lychee - the taste of this southern fruit, not because of advanced logistics, but thanks to a can of soda. Jilin Siping's beverage giant Hongbaolai was born, the originator of lychee soda. Don't underestimate a bottle of soda; within just six years, its sales exceeded 100 million. To this day, this unpretentious glass bottle remains a classic pairing in Northeastern cuisine. Barbecue restaurants without it dare not open! In "Country Love," the transparent glass bottle that appears multiple times is Hongbaolai.

Also founded in the same year was Zhenzhen lychee soda. People from its hometown of Foshan, Guangdong, may not have drunk it, but it has miraculously sold well in the Northeast for over 20 years.

While lychee soda's popularity continued in the Northeast, in 1994, Hebei gave birth to a groundbreaking beverage - iced black tea. Xurisheng was the first brand to use Chinese tea to develop beverages. Its pioneering "iced tea" is an indelible blue memory for many post-80s, and it hired many celebrities for ads at the time. According to the China Beverage Industry Association: In 2000, Xurisheng's total output accounted for 70% of China's tea beverage market, ranking second among the top ten beverage companies. Unfortunately, time stopped in 2002. The group failed to secure financing and declined. As for the most familiar Uni-President iced black tea, it's a later generation compared to Xurisheng. It once invited Avril Lavigne as spokesperson - truly rich.

In 1995 in Anhui, 36-year-old Chen Xianbao suddenly gave up his position as a government office section chief and decided to research herbal water-boiled sunflower seeds. Qiaqia sunflower seeds have been popular from then until now.

Fast forward to 1997, the fifth year of Crystal Love's birth. Xizhilang monopolized the jelly market with it. Later, when "Titanic" was hot, Crystal Love made a parody ad starring a youthful Huo Siyan and Chen Long.

In the mid-to-late 90s, besides local big names like Xizhilang, small shop snacks also began to rise, a trend that continued into the early 21st century. Little Raccoon and Little Master are prominent representatives of small shop snacks, both under Taiwan's Uni-President, which began investing in mainland factories in 1992. (By the way, Little Raccoon is still less than one yuan a pack.) "Little Raccoon crispy noodles have a new flavor, the new flavor is BBQ, BBQ is grilled meat flavor," the catchy ad line still echoes in our ears. Most of the time, buying crispy noodles was more about collecting the cards. A secret: early Little Raccoon packaging was somewhat translucent. Later, to prevent kids from peeking at the cards, they changed to inner aluminum foil.

Besides well-known brands like Little Raccoon, there were many snacks produced by small workshops in childhood small shops, mostly from Chaoshan. Mushroom beef, Beijing roast duck, and satay skewers... Don't underestimate these "three-no products"; they are all made from soybeans, which can be said to be plant-based meat products ahead of their time by over 20 years! Also made from soybeans are various "latiao" (spicy strips), mostly from Hunan and Henan: Tangseng meat, Divine Condor Heroes, Big Knife Meat, Little Slick... all born several years earlier than Weilong!

Remember Trolli hamburger gummies? They always hung in a long strip at the entrance of small shops. Actually, they come from Germany. According to statistics, in the past 10 years (up to 2019), over 1.5 billion hamburger gummies were sold, which, strung together, could circle the Earth once. There were also little stone candies, colorful ropes, and a kind of straw candy that you'd secretly hold in your mouth during class until the teacher noticed. Raise your hand if you've sucked on Tuofei! It's a small packaged coconut juice drink; it's said that eating it frozen opens a new world!

At the turn of the millennium, Shantou's Tiantianle produced Planet Cups. Actually, the small spoon included wasn't very useful, so many kids just licked it with their tongues. Those who found Planet Cups too small would often buy another kind, Baile Cup, which is probably the rustic version of today's Pocky.

Post-90s, you witnessed the birth of countless hit snacks. Back then, various celebrity endorsements, gift marketing, and IP collaborations were all played out by brands. Until 2003, when Taobao was founded, Chinese snacks opened a new chapter.

The 21st Century Rise of Chain Stores and Online Channels Snacks Also Go Healthy

The rise of e-commerce brought earth-shaking changes to the snack industry. In 1999 in Shanghai, Shi Yonglei and Yu Ruifen, a couple, targeted the blind spot of roasted nuts and snacks, opening a shop named "Leifen" on North Sichuan Road. At that time, leisure snacks were mostly sold in rented stalls in shopping malls, but they were obsessed with direct-operated chains. Of course, they later opened franchising. This is "Laiyifen."

In 2000, Jay Chou debuted with his first album "Jay," gradually climbing to the pinnacle of Chinese pop music. "Happy every moment, my Capico," three years later, Capico chips invited the then-popular Jay Chou as spokesperson. Jay Chou also endorsed Xiangpiaopiao milk tea, whose slogan was "cups connected can circle the Earth x times." It was born in Huzhou, Zhejiang, and in 2017 became the first listed company in the domestic milk tea industry. Three years after endorsing Xiangpiaopiao, Jay Chou, who loves milk tea, quickly endorsed Youlemei. That year, notes passed between early-love classmates said: "What am I to you? You are my Youlemei," "I want to hold you in my hands." In the era when milk tea wasn't that sophisticated, just mixing powder made us happy.

In 2003, Baicaowei, in Hangzhou, China's e-commerce capital, opened its first physical store. Initially, it only did offline business, but later completely transformed into a pure internet business. In the following years, this comprehensive snack model became popular across China. In 2005, Yanjin Shop in Changsha began self-developing food; the next year, Liangpin Shop opened its first store in Wuhan, and in just 6 years, it opened nearly a thousand stores. The product placement of Liangpin Shop in "Ever Night" made netizens exclaim they couldn't stand it...

In 2012, when snack giants like Uni-President and Want Want reached their most glorious peak, a young man opened an online store called "Keke Guo," selling 20 million yuan worth of pecans in one year. This is the predecessor of Three Squirrels. Unlike its predecessors, this brand, which didn't even have its own factory, started as pure online business from the beginning. Seven years later, it became the "first stock of internet leisure snacks," even advertising in the American TV series "The Big Bang Theory"! In Season 10 of "The Big Bang Theory," Three Squirrels made a surprise appearance.

Taking 2014 as a watershed, those snack giants from the 90s that you know well have more or less started to decline. After 2019, this comprehensive snack model seems less popular. After all the twists and turns, the snack circle returned to the 90s' single-product hit era. Xuanma egg yolk pastry, Wolong "Daily Nuts," Daily Dark Chocolate... From high sweetness to zero sugar, from high calorie to low fat, snacks are designed to be healthier and more refined. When we were kids, we were obsessed with Assam and Xiangpiaopiao; when we grew up, we have Heytea and Naixue. We used to love cocoa butter substitute Maltesers, but now we prefer more premium fine chocolates. Think carefully: although snacks and drinks have become more upscale, our pursuit of this dopamine has never changed. May these small, simple joys continue to accompany you.

Source: Penguin Food Guide (ID: qiechihe)

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