Hsu Fu Chi banking on sweets to crack a tough nut

With Spring Festival around the corner, Dongguan, Guangdong-based snack and confectionery maker Hsu Fu Chi unveiled its plan for the festival, giving a sweet taste for people to spend the biggest celebration with.

For the first time, it launched a gift box which combines nuts and confectioneries, looking for a breakthrough point in the nut consumption sector.

Data from CBNData, a Shanghai-based market data analytics provider, showed that between 2018 and 2019, China's high-quality nut consumption sector grew at an annual compound growth rate of 20 percent.

"In the recent years, the nut consumption market has reached a relatively saturated level, and simple nut products in the market are nothing new now. Based on our business observation, we found that compared to simple nut products, to mix and match nuts with other snacks may win the favor of customers," said Seon Tsai, deputy marketing director of Hsu Fu Chi.

"Therefore, based on our multi-category advantage, we launched nine types of comprehensive gift baskets, combining five types of nuts with different kinds of our classical confectioneries, to meet the diversified needs in families. The package of the gift baskets contains the auspiciousness moral, indicating a lucky new year," he said.

To meet the demands of the rising millennial and the generation Z, the company integrated the "blind boxes" element － the recently popular play method created by Chinese toy maker Pop Mart － into its snacks.

Inside its Dubai KitKat chocolate gift basket is a golden folding fan. The folding fan is randomly written with the "lucky", "auspicious ", "fortunate", and "rich" characters. Buyers don't know which character they are going to get, generating an extra thrill of mystery for buyers.

The company also cooperated with Pop Mart to create a toy candy box, combining fashionable element with classical delicacy.

"The generation Z is fond of culture clashes and is willing to pay for the inspiration. With the help of Pop Mart's fashionable inspiration, we also demonstrated the company's brand attitude of 'constantly staying tuned to young consumers and closely following the trend'," said Jamie Zhu, head of Hsu Fu Chi's e-commerce department.

Tsai said that for the upcoming Spring Festival, the company will try its best to offer its tasty snacks and confectioneries to bring happiness to consumers.

"Based on market demands, we aim at constantly bringing surprises to consumers, becoming one of their favorite New Year delicacy," he said.