Recently, Jingzhou Pre-made Food Industry Federation was officially established. More than 130 pre-made food processing companies, cooperatives, logistics companies, e-commerce companies and financial institutions joined the federation. This marked a new stage for the pre-made food industry in Jingzhou with a shift of its development model from isolated development to synergetic collaboration.

In recent years, in order to ride the wave of rapid development of the pre-made food industry, Jingzhou presented the strategy for the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. An industrial system with four major categories and more than 20 varieties was initially established. In 2022, there were 69 pre-made food companies above designated size in Jingzhou, which altogether contributed an output value of RMB12.076 billion. In general, the pre-made food industry is well-established in Jingzhou, but each part is independent of each other. This not only deprives the industry of cluster-based strengths, but also leads to the possibility of vicious competition.

Element integration and information sharing have driven the efficient development of the pre-made food industry. The establishment of the federation made Wang Fang from Jingzhou Yuxiang Food Co., Ltd see new opportunities.

Wang Fang, Director of the General Manager Office of Jingzhou Yuxiang Food Co., Ltd., said, “Because we specialize in food products, especially frozen products. We need the cold chain industrial park or something like that. In the past, we did not have such a platform, but now the federation coordinated a lot of aspects, such as the logistics port.”

There were eight distribution companies joining the federation. Among them, JD Logistics also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Jingzhou, and planned to carry out all-round cooperation in eight major aspects, including fostering local high-quality product brands, establishing an exclusive channel for agricultural and sideline products to JD.com, and developing a local specialty section for Jingzhou on JD.com.

As a city with a strong agricultural industry, Jingzhou is known as the “land of milk and honey, China's granary.” Its eight major strengths include massive output of high-quality agricultural products, a wide variety of high-quality ingredients, seasoning with a long history and characteristics, the integration of cuisines of northern and southern China, robust logistics integrating “railway, highway, water and air transportation,” strong intellectual and human resource support, the Chu culture, and the culture of the Three Kingdoms with a long history, and government support. At present, Jingzhou is shifting its development focus to pre-made food, revving up efforts to build a RMB50 billion industrial cluster during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, and build the hub of pre-made food in Central China.