How will Taizhou make breakthroughs in creating a "World City of Gastronomy"? Six Major Projects to Assist, Promoting the High-Quality Development of the "Taizhou Cuisine" Food Industry

After years of accumulation and never abandoning inheritance and innovation, Taizhou has finally leapt from being non-mainstream to one of the top trends in contemporary Chinese cuisine, thanks to the breakout success of "Xin Rong Ji". Eating "Taizhou Cuisine" has become a decidedly upscale thing to do, both nationally and globally. Against this favorable backdrop of timing, location, and popular support, Taizhou has started its journey towards becoming a "City of Gastronomy". Starting from April 20th, our newspaper launched a series of reports titled "What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Taizhou Cuisine?". Over three months, we deeply explored topics related to "Taizhou Cuisine" with 23 Taizhou food experts, renowned chefs, and gourmets. Today, this series concludes, and we will review what these experts discussed and the good opinions and suggestions they offered for "Taizhou Cuisine". But before that, let's first understand the newly released "Taizhou Municipal People's Government Implementation Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the 'Taizhou Cuisine' Food Industry (2023-2025)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"). Six projects related to cuisine will further explore and leverage our city's culinary resource advantages, protect, inherit, and innovate "Taizhou Cuisine" culture, build the "Taizhou Cuisine" brand, use culinary creativity as a driver, advance the application for "World City of Gastronomy", promote the effective integration of industries such as catering, culture and tourism, marine fisheries, planting and aquaculture, and food processing, accelerate the high-quality development of the "Taizhou Cuisine" food industry, and promote the sustainable development of Taizhou city. The goal is that by 2025, our city will have fostered a group of renowned "Taizhou Cuisine" enterprises, chefs, dishes, and restaurants; established over 10 "Taizhou Cuisine" food clusters; built a "Taizhou Cuisine" chef training system led by the Xin Rong Ji College; formed a "Taizhou Cuisine" brand characterized by integration and innovation; and used the "World City of Gastronomy" application to drive the high-quality development of the "Taizhou Cuisine" food industry.

A responsible person from the Taizhou "World City of Gastronomy" Application Task Force stated that the city will next formulate a high-quality development plan for the "Taizhou Cuisine" food industry, draft a "World City of Gastronomy" creation plan, accelerate "World City of Gastronomy" project construction, and form a new pattern where "World City of Gastronomy" development leads the food industry, aiming to make "Taizhou Cuisine" a "golden name card" for Taizhou's city image.

● "Taizhou Cuisine" Culture Research Project

Food is the paramount necessity of the people, and a region's cuisine contains its culture. A single dish can make a city famous. "Taizhou Cuisine" is no exception; history, stories, and legends are all important elements that enhance it. The "Opinions" propose to define key research topics focusing on the origin, evolution, development, and formation of "Taizhou Cuisine" culture, with at least one research outcome on "Taizhou Cuisine" culture published annually, aiming to form an influential system of "Taizhou Cuisine" cultural research achievements by 2025. "We will build a 'Taizhou Cuisine' museum integrating functions such as exhibition, education and training, cultural research, and consumer experience, creating an influential base for the inheritance, display, and experience of 'Taizhou Cuisine' culture, and an important tourist attraction," said a responsible person from the Taizhou Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau. They also stated continued support for the research, development, and innovation of "Taizhou Cuisine" and strengthening its standardization.

● Taizhou Ingredient Brand Enhancement Project

High-quality ingredients are the foundation and essence of Taizhou cuisine. Whether mountain delicacies or seafood, Taizhou people's pursuit of ingredients is almost demanding. To this end, Taizhou will build high-quality "Taizhou Cuisine" ingredient bases, adhering strictly to both "producing well" and "managing well", focusing on both standardized production and law enforcement supervision, steadily advancing the construction of an agricultural product standardization system, and establishing a quality and safety supervision system covering the entire process. A responsible person from the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs stated that they will guide and promote public brands like "Tai Jiu Xian" and geographical indication with agricultural subjects to obtain green food certification, accelerate the construction of a high-end ingredient market system in Taizhou, and provide sufficient, high-quality, and safe ingredients for the development of the "Taizhou Cuisine" food industry. Taizhou leads Zhejiang in offshore fishing and mudflat aquaculture; Taizhou seafood is exceptionally fresh. Therefore, regarding promoting the supply of high-quality aquatic products, the "Opinions" propose vigorously developing deep-sea aquaculture, focusing on expanding and enhancing deep-sea farming such as large yellow croaker in Jiaojiang's Dachen and Yuhuan's Zhonglu Island. Simultaneously, efforts will be made to improve the "Taizhou Cuisine" food safety supervision system.

● Taizhou Chef Training and Quality Improvement Project

In April this year, Taizhou Vocational & Technical College, in collaboration with the Xin Rong Ji Food Group, established the Xin Rong Ji College. Primarily operating as a three-year higher vocational college, it will successively offer majors like Culinary Arts and Nutrition, Chinese and Western Pastry Arts, and Hotel Management and Digital Operations over the next two years. Starting in 2025, it will cooperate with local Taizhou secondary vocational schools to enroll students under an integrated secondary-vocational model. This is a major move by Taizhou to strengthen talent cultivation in the catering industry, encouraging vocational colleges to conduct various forms of "Taizhou Cuisine" skill training, and entrepreneurship training for the society, focusing on cultivating a group of high-skilled culinary talents. It also guides catering enterprises to establish and improve employee training systems, organize employees to participate in job training and continuing education, and enhance the overall quality of the workforce.

● Taizhou Food Enterprise Cultivation Project

Not to mention the countless local "Taizhou Cuisine" businesses in Taizhou, there are over 1,300 Taizhou restaurants established in Shanghai alone. A responsible person from the Taizhou Municipal Commerce Bureau stated that they support leading "Taizhou Cuisine" enterprises in actively expanding beyond Taizhou, polishing their brands, scaling up, and quickly forming a group of large food enterprise groups with high status and international competitiveness. They will also actively revitalize "time-honored" catering enterprises, promote the integration of traditional culture with modern life, and strive to form a development pattern where "protection and development are equally emphasized, inheritance and innovation are both pursued, and economy and culture prosper together." Simultaneously, the city will vigorously build three pre-made food industry chains for aquatic products, rice-vegetable, and meat-poultry pre-made food, striving to construct a safe, trustworthy, complete-chained, high-quality, diverse, and well-supported pre-made food industrial system.

● Taizhou Cuisine Agglomeration Project

At the construction site of the Jiaojiang Xinhai City Shared Space project, south of Yijiangshan Avenue and west of Central Avenue in Jiazhi Sub-district, Jiaojiang District, the Taizhou Chinese Food Street is rising from the ground. In the future, this will become a high-end catering cluster integrating dietary culture, leisure vacation, and commercial entertainment, a dissemination site for Taizhou food culture, and a display site for urban micro-tourism. The "Opinions" propose to accelerate the planning and construction of "Taizhou Cuisine" food streets, gather commercial resources, expand industrial scale, enhance market vitality, and promote the agglomerated development of the catering industry. Simultaneously, certification work for model food streets will be carried out, gradually cultivating a batch of characteristic shops primarily focused on catering while integrating leisure and entertainment experiences, striving to create food streets with a strong culinary culture, complete supporting facilities, and standardized management, forming an agglomeration effect.

● Taizhou Cuisine Festival Marketing Project

In recent years, as "Taizhou Cuisine", characterized by " fresh and savory, soft and chewy, sweet and delightful.", has gained popularity, renowned food bloggers and influencers have continuously made special trips to Taizhou. In terms of traffic flow, "Taizhou Cuisine"'s ability to attract attention is remarkable even on a national scale. Promoting the integration of "cuisine + culture and tourism" and strengthening the external promotion and exchange of "Taizhou Cuisine" are crucial for building "City of Gastronomy". Therefore, the "Opinions" propose strengthening the construction of festival platforms and carriers, successfully hosting the Taizhou Donghai Culture Tourism Festival, continuously building the brand of food festivals like the Sanmen Green Crab Festival, Huangyan Citrus Festival, and Xianju Waxberry Festival; organizing the distribution of "Taizhou Cuisine" food consumption vouchers in conjunction with related festival activities; continuously deepening the "Hundred Counties Thousand Bowls·Fresh in Taizhou" brand project; and organizing events such as "Taizhou Cuisine Hong Kong-Macau Tour", "Taizhou Cuisine Fragrance Drifts to Beijing", and "Taizhou Flavor · Taizhou Cuisine" Shanghai promotion.

Translator：Jiayang Lin