An aviation food processing plant costing 1.2 billion yuan ($165.85 million) broke ground in the Xinghua Economic Development Zone, located in Xinghua city, East China's Jiangsu province, on Feb 16.
It's designed to produce 36,000 metric tons of frozen noodles and other products annually and is being funded by Shanghai Zhaowei Industrial, located in Shanghai and Jiangsu Xinlei Food Technology, situated in Xinghua.
The plant will mainly produce Laobanzhai-labeled food, a time-honored brand in Shanghai that was developed by Shanghai Zhaowei Industrial.
An artist's impression of the Laobanzhai-labeled aviation food processing plant. [Photo/WeChat account: tzfabu]
Wang Shaodong, chairman of the Shanghai company, said the plant was originally destined to be erected elsewhere, but the Xinghua investment team impressed him with its detail.
"They came to visit my company, but after leaving, they turned back after a while. Originally, they came up with some project parameters for reference halfway through, so they came back specifically to inform us," Wang said.
As a result, Wang began to consider the professional thinking and sincerity of the Xinghua team, as well as the city's business environment.
Xinghua EDZ's strengths, including having high-quality wheat resources and having a developed inland port, made the Shanghai company determine to settle its project in the Xinghua zone.
In addition, the Xinghua zone's excellent business environment also surprised Wang.
"Our project construction requires high standards and we never expected that it would take only one month from design and planning to obtaining the construction permit, which is difficult to achieve elsewhere," Wang added.
Moving forwards, plans are for the Shanghai company to add a second phase investment in the future, fully expanding its industrial scope in areas such as personalized customization and overseas markets.
