The “Biggest Hot Pot in the World” exhibited at the 2nd China International Import Expo Became the Calling Card of National Food Culture
date：2019-11-15 views：2301From November 5th to 10th 2019, the 2nd China International Import Expo held in Shanghai brought together more than 3000 enterprises coming from 150 countries and regions around the world, including more than 250 of the 500 world top enterprises and industry leading companies. During this important global event, Chongqing Hot Pot has built a bridge to connect people all over the world using food as main means of communication and achieved remarkable results.
At the invitation of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China (MOFCOM) and Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce, Chongqing Dezhuang Group's "largest hot pot in the world", as representative of Chongqing Hot Pot, attended the 2nd China International Import Expo in Shanghai, showing the cultural charm of Chongqing Hot Pot to people of the whole country and the world. This was also an important opportunity for Chongqing to show its image of city which offers people a "journey to new accomplishments".
From the opening ceremony witnessed by important leaders of government as the Party Member of the Ministry of Commerce and Assistant Minister Mr. Ren Hongbin and the Vice Mayor of Chongqing Municipal Government Mr. Xiong Xue, to the four-day Chongqing Hot Pot Food Experience, the "largest hot pot in the world" has been put under the spotlight and national mainstream media as People's Daily news, Xinhua News Agency, China News, CBN (China Business Network), China Business News (comnews.cn) and Guangming Online competed with 5 big Chinese portal website that is Tencent, Phoenix, Wangyi, Sohu and Sina to report the current situation on site. The article published on Weibo intitled “The Biggest Hot Pot in the World” (# 天下第一大火锅开锅#) received many views and was listed in the top 20 most viewed posts in Weibo searches, giving rise to endless discussion among netizens on Chinese social media.
According to rough statistics, it has been reported that during the Import Expo the number of news concerning the "biggest hot pot in the world" was about 10 million, while the article posted on Sina reached 120 million views, the WeChat Official Account generated about 860 thousand views and video sharing websites reached about 9.6 million views. The number of visitors outside the place of the exhibition was equal to 25000, while the number of visitors entering the site reached a total of 4580 and the number of people tasting the hot pot was 1200.
At the same time, there were more than 20 broadcast media on the spot, including CCTV, two financial channels of CCTV, CCTV NEWS channel, Hong Kong TVBS, Shanghai TV, Shanghai Jiaoguang, Chongqing TV, Zhejiang TV, Guangdong TV, etc. More than 10 overseas important media, including International Business Daily, China Daily Global Edition, Macau "Sino-Portuguese Economic and Trade Journal" and China Global Television network (CGTN) were on the spot to report the display of the big hot pot.
On November 6th Chongqing Dezhuang Group concluded a purchase order of imported food ingredients for a value of 150 million RMB, including butter from German, tripe from New Zealand, chilli pepper from India, etc., which are going to enrich the category of ingredients to dip in Chongqing hot pot accelerating the internationalization process of Chongqing hot pot industry.
As Calling Card of Chongqing, Hot Pot has already become the main driving force of the "going out" development of Chongqing catering industry. In recent years, Chongqing hot pot enterprises, with Dezhuang as pioneer, have opened more than 200 restaurants in more than 20 countries overseas. Among them, Dezhuang hotpot has 16 restaurants in overseas stores. In addition, Dezhuang imports more than 200 million food ingredients every year, mainly for spices (including chili peppers around the world), frozen fresh beef tripe, beef and pork meat, seafood and other healthy ingredients; and its products also cover 16 countries, including Singapore, EU, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc., achieving nearly 20 million RMB of overseas sales in 2018.
Li Dejian, Executive President and President for Asia of the World Chilli Alliance and Chairman of Dezhuang Group, said that Chongqing hot pot needs to be supplied with more high-quality raw materials and food ingredients coming from all over the world. Chongqing hot pot has further blended into the international market by attending the 2ndChina International Import Expo which injected new energy into the international development of Chongqing hot pot.
The Vice Director of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce Mr. Song Gang stated that Chongqing hot pot is one of the top ten cultural symbols of Chongqing, represented at the 2nd China International Import Expo by the “biggest hot pot in the world” which has built a communication bridge to connect the world through the food culture. It is an important starting point for Chongqing to further accelerate the establishment of the city as an inland open highland and set up an international consumption center, showing Chongqing's new achievements in terms of reform and opening up in order to promote high-quality development, foster high-quality life and further demonstrate Chongqing's confidence and determination to expand its “opening up”.
In the future, Chongqing hot pot industry will continue to play the role of main driving force of Chongqing food industry, following the State guidance and making good use of the high-quality resources and the effect of its promotion provided by the international platform of this Expo, as well as adhering to the principle of “joint consultation, construction and sharing” and actively building a more dynamic domestic market. Furthermore, the industry will pay more attention to the role of imports and adhere to the concept of openness and investment on green, supporting the "Belt and Road " Initiative.
