Wangkou town's roasted nut industry generates over 10 billion yuan annually

Known as "China's Hometown of Roasted Nuts", Wangkou town in Tianjin's Jinghai district houses more than 290 roasted nut enterprises, generating an annual output value of over 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion).

The town demonstrates how China's traditional snack industry has been transformed by digital manufacturing, partnerships between industries and universities, and expanding global exports, local officials said.

With a 600-year-long history of roasted nut production, Wangkou has phased out outdated earth-kiln workshops in favor of highly mechanized and digitalized production systems, according to Yan Yan, Party secretary of Wangkou.

Tianjin Yuecheng Food, winner of the "High-quality Tianjin Agricultural Product" honor, runs mostly automated assembly lines. X-ray inspection devices, color sorters, and robotic packaging equipment run through the full manufacturing workflow, according to Ma Jun, quality control manager at Yuecheng Food.

"With only four operators, each line can turn out 25 to 30 tons of finished roasted nuts every day. A complete whole-industry-chain system covering crop cultivation, machinery manufacturing, deep-processing, and cold-chain logistics has formed here, benefiting from the well-developed local industrial cluster," he said.

Enterprises have partnered with Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Tianjin University of Science and Technology to develop health-conscious, TCM-inspired snacks and baked goods and extend shelf life to reduce seasonal inventory losses.

Local brands are making steady headway into international markets according to the local government. For example, Little Donkey, under Tianjin Huafuyuan Food, sells its products across more than 40 countries and regions.

Ma Qiran and Liu Zhenyi contributed to this story.