---
title: "\"Light Salt\" Becomes a New Trend, Wujiang Pickled Mustard Makes a Major Entry!"
description: "A talk by Zhang Puhong, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health (China), highlighted that Chinese people consume more than double the recommended daily salt intake. This has spurred a trend towards reducing salt in food, with Wujiang pickled mustard launching a new light-salt product to meet health demands."
author: "田静"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2022-03-24"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/light-salt-becomes-a-new-trend-wujiang-pickled-mustard-makes-a-major-ent-8b4738d5/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/light-salt-becomes-a-new-trend-wujiang-pickled-mustard-makes-a-major-ent-8b4738d5.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/8uKyGlSDR_b-tC4HZXKKKg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%BD%BB%E7%9B%90-%E6%88%90%E4%B8%BA%E6%96%B0%E9%A3%8E%E5%8F%A3-%E4%B9%8C%E6%B1%9F%E6%A6%A8%E8%8F%9C%E9%87%8D%E7%A3%85%E5%85%A5%E5%B1%80-8b4738d5.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/light-salt-becomes-a-new-trend-wujiang-pickled-mustard-makes-a-major-ent-8b4738d5/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# "Light Salt" Becomes a New Trend, Wujiang Pickled Mustard Makes a Major Entry!

> A talk by Zhang Puhong, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health (China), highlighted that Chinese people consume more than double the recommended daily salt intake. This has spurred a trend towards reducing salt in food, with Wujiang pickled mustard launching a new light-salt product to meet health demands.

Regarding salt consumption, there was once a joke: Zhang Puhong, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health (China), gave a speech on "salt intake." He said bluntly: "In Africa and South America, salt intake is lower than ours, yet it is these countries that seem to outperform us in both football and running." Zhang joked: "Perhaps, for Chinese football to break out of Asia and go global, we need to cut down on salt first; it might just work." Seemingly a casual joke, it also reveals a fact: not just football players, but almost all Chinese people consume too much salt. The World Health Organization recommends a daily salt intake of no more than 5 grams per person, but the average salt intake in China is as high as 10.5 grams per day, more than double the recommendation. Most importantly, excessive salt increases the risk of disease.

Genki Forest reached a valuation of 14 billion yuan in 4 years, and the "sugar-free concept" reached unprecedented heights, sparking a sugar-reduction trend in the food and beverage industry. Similarly, reducing sugar and salt has become a nationwide movement. Many companies are thinking about what products are healthier and what reductions brands need to make. **For example, Wujiang pickled mustard, known as the "national taste."**

**Consumption Upgrade Creates New Market Opportunities**

On March 22, the launch conference for "China's Healthy Pickled Mustard New Benchmark · Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard" was held online. At the conference, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard used the "Ladybug 1" satellite, with its LED display and selfie stick, to take a selfie in space, with the screen showing the text **"Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard, New Benchmark for Healthy Pickled Mustard, Salt Reduced by Over 30%."**

After 10 years, 15 billion packs, and sales in 52 countries, the old version of Wujiang pickled mustard has become a super single product for the Wujiang brand. Now it has officially exited the consumer market, and Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard has made a high-profile debut.

Why make light salt products? Going with the trend, **"light salt" aligns with the current health development trend.** From solving food and clothing issues to pursuing health, from supply shortage to oversupply, China's economic development has brought about an upgrade in the underlying logic of consumption. Especially the Generation Z consumers who have grown up in an era of peace and abundance have a significantly increased demand for healthy food. Secondly, looking at the history of the side dish appetizer category, in the past, due to large differences in development levels among enterprises, rough processing of raw materials, low industry concentration, and fierce competition among large enterprises. Taking pickled mustard as an example, in 2004, Fuling Zhacai Group hired the famous Chinese planning agency "Beijing Ye Maozhong Planning Agency" to plan the Wujiang brand.

Through consumer research, the following data was obtained: In the survey data on positive and negative category characteristics of pickled mustard products, most consumers purchased to increase appetite and go with rice, but a considerable proportion of consumers were worried about preservatives, low price and low quality, and poor hygiene.

(2004 Ye Maozhong agency survey data)

To this end, Wujiang proposed inheriting the century-old essence of the "three clears, three washes, three pickles, three presses" process, highlighting the fresh, fragrant, tender, and crispy characteristics of pickled mustard and contemporary consumers' pursuit of food hygiene, health, and safety. Wujiang's "three presses" also became the standard for good pickled mustard in the industry, sales increased year by year, and "Wujiang" became a strong brand in the pickled mustard industry. It is undeniable that against the backdrop of consumption upgrade and industry health development, Wujiang's continued deep cultivation and the high-profile entry of Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard have not only won the market for the company but also created higher user demand. A distributor who has cooperated with Wujiang pickled mustard for many years said, "The product upgrade of Wujiang pickled mustard shows us Wujiang's leadership and innovation in meeting the demand for healthy food as a leading enterprise in the side dish appetizer category."

**Seizing the "Light Salt" Food Trend, Setting a New Industry Benchmark**

It can be seen that **Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard's innovation has created a new benchmark for healthy pickled mustard and raised the market ceiling.** The upgraded product, through product focus and upgrading to consumer demand focus, has strengthened consumer perception that **pickled mustard = Wujiang.** So, what is the competitive logic of Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard? Let's look at it from four dimensions.

**Reducing Salt Without Reducing Flavor, User First**

Directly reducing salt may lead to a lighter taste. How to achieve salt reduction without reducing flavor? Wujiang pickled mustard has developed a triple "salt reduction and freshness preservation" process: First, using a shallow salt cellar pickling and flavoring process to reduce "processing salt" from 12% to 8%; Second, using a three-stage linear desalination and precise salt control process to reduce salt content to 1.5%-5.5%, with desalination precision controlled within 0.5%; Third, using "hurdle technology" processes such as pasteurization and aluminum foil freshness preservation to eliminate preservatives and achieve long-term sterilization and freshness. With the support of these three technical processes, it ensures appropriate salt intake without affecting taste, so the elderly and children can eat with confidence.

**National Style and Trend, Packaging Upgrade**

In terms of packaging, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard not only surpasses the original classic packaging but also continues the original packaging's facial makeup elements, using a new national style youthful artistic expression. With a calm and rich Palace Museum red as the base color, it cleverly combines the essence of Chinese opera facial makeup culture with traditional Chinese cloisonné art forms, highlighting Wujiang's brand cultural heritage while incorporating the new national style art trend.

**Healthy Appetite, Nutritional Empowerment**

On the basis of reducing salt without reducing flavor, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard still contains 15 amino acids, dietary fiber, and trace elements. The calcium and iron content per 100 grams of pickled mustard is 1.5 times and 2 times that of Chinese cabbage, respectively. Whether in nutrition or taste, it is very suitable as a side dish appetizer.

**Latitude 30 Degrees North, Adhering to Quality**

Wujiang pickled mustard is produced in the mysterious latitude 30° north origin, belonging to a subtropical monsoon climate with distinct seasons, abundant rainfall, and rich products; at the same time, it selects high-quality mustard heads before the February rain solar term, undergoing 16 selection criteria, giving the pickled mustard a better fresh and crispy texture.

The competitive logic of the above four dimensions, as emphasized by Zhou Binquan, chairman of Fuling Zhacai Group: **"The food industry is a moral industry. As a food manufacturing company, we must be a moral industry and a conscience industry."**

For the pickled mustard category, the upgraded light salt product has brought Wujiang into another competitive track—the light salt food track—establishing an incremental model based on product iteration.

Clearly, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard is highly anticipated. Indeed, for any company, there are always two problems to solve: survival and development. A common mistake many companies make is that when survival becomes a habit, development is easily overlooked, but in fact, development is a long-term undertaking. How to develop long-term? The answer is **continuous growth.** Therefore, Wujiang is advancing on two tracks simultaneously. At the same time, the light salt track is becoming increasingly lively. Other brands have entered the market, with soy sauce brands such as Haitian, Lee Kum Kee, Liuyuexian, and Jiajia all launching products labeled as salt-reduced, light salt, low salt, or thin salt.

A new track in its infancy, with various merchants and food industry giants rushing to "enter the market," means the light salt food trend has arrived.

**Launching the "Dual Expansion" Strategy to Achieve Brand Growth**

At the launch conference, Chairman Zhou Binquan mentioned: "Wujiang" has to some extent become the "spokesperson" for pickled mustard, and how to upgrade from "small Wujiang" to "big Wujiang" is a question the group has been thinking about in recent years. The "small Wujiang" and "big Wujiang" mentioned here can be seen to some extent as a brand's life cycle, roughly divided into two stages. **The first stage is the brand growth period**, where the product is verified as successful, the market is broad, and the breakthrough from 0 to 1 is completed. The core of this stage is expanding awareness. **The second stage is the brand maturity period**, where awareness reaches a certain saturation point and enters the expansion period from 1 to 10. At this time, repeated dissemination of old information cannot achieve new growth or expand new consumers. Clearly, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard is the new growth in the second stage.

Thus, with pickled mustard as the origin, Wujiang has launched the **"dual expansion" strategy.**

**First is the category expansion strategy**, expanding from the pickled mustard category to the coordinated development of Wujiang side dishes, Wujiang seasoning vegetables, Wujiang pickled vegetables, Wujiang rice sauce, leisure snacks, and Sichuan-style doubanjiang. **Second is the market expansion strategy**, expanding from the household consumption market to the catering market and food industry consumption market, forming crossovers between pickled mustard, side dishes, leisure snacks, and sauces, meeting the new generation's demand for convenience, deliciousness, and diverse experiences.

Let's analyze the significance of the "dual expansion" strategy. Category expansion is essentially product extension, and Wujiang's new categories have not stepped out of the side dish category. It seems like several product lines have been added, but they meet the different needs of the same group of consumers. Market expansion is essentially an extension of consumption scenarios. Different consumption scenarios meet different consumption needs, but they still cover the same group of consumers. So, both are essentially tapping into the multifaceted needs of users. The significance of the "dual expansion" strategy is that **product extension broadens the business, achieving a product-centric growth logic; scenario extension deepens the business, achieving a people-centric growth logic.** In this way, a brand moat is established, finding increments in existing stock, and breaking the growth ceiling through the "dual expansion" strategy.

Let's look at a set of data: In 16 pre-sale cities across the country, Wujiang Light Salt Pickled Mustard had already sold 200 million packs before its official launch. It is evident that accurately capturing and expanding consumption scenarios has a visible effect on a brand's breakthrough growth. Looking to the future, under the guidance of the "dual expansion" strategy, Wujiang's strength as an industry benchmark will be greatly unleashed, and "100 billion Wujiang" may be within reach.

**Final Thoughts:**

Standing at the window of China's consumption upgrade, the huge demand generated by the massive market group brings enormous opportunities for the future development of the pickled mustard industry. Especially under the influence of the pandemic, this trend is becoming more apparent. As Janek Bergs said, only when consumers gradually adapt to low-salt tastes can salt reduction further develop. To help consumers form new taste habits, all our suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers need to work together and learn from each other. In this complementary cooperation, **the Wujiang brand, known as the "little Moutai of the pickled mustard industry," once single-handedly drove the industry into the small packaging era, and now it can still lead the industry into the healthy quality era.**

**Are you "watching" me?**


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671