Chinese Shaxian delicacies ready for overseas palates

FUZHOU -- China's restaurant chain serving Shaxian County cuisine has opened its first eatery in the United States.

Located at 818, 60th St. Brooklyn, the restaurant, which opened Monday, presents overseas foodies with traditional Chinese snacks, including peanut butter noodles and pork wontons.

Originating in Shaxian County in east China's Fujian Province, the snacks spread as locals traveled afar for work.

"In my childhood, food stalls could be seen everywhere in my hometown in Fuzhou," said the chain owner, Shao Binfang, a 34-year-old Chinese American born in the provincial capital. "But this is just a small step for the company, Shaxian Delicacies, to go global."

In June, the company set up its first overseas chain-eatery at Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo, Japan.

As of the end of September, the 80-square-meter restaurant had sold around 5 million yen ($44,563) monthly. About one third of their customers are the Japanese residents.

"Our second eatery is to be open soon, and we plan to have 30 chains in Tokyo in the long run," said Wang Yuanyao, the owner of the Shaxian Delicacies eatery in Tokyo.

According to the industry development center of the brand, overseas Chinese in over 10 countries including the United States, Britain, Argentina, Australia and Canada, have shown their interest in joining the chain plan.

Representatives from France and Malaysia even came to China for further training.

With the help of modern commercial operations, the center hopes to bring fresh energy to Chinese traditional snacks.

"We will try our best to make Shaxian Delicacies an iconic Chinese brand with world-wide influence," said Zhang Xin, deputy director of the center.

Providing customers with snacks of good quality at competitive price, Shaxian Delicacies has become a local pillar industry, with over 10 billion yuan ($1.44 billion) turnover annually.

Over the past decades, there are over 60,000 restaurants serving Shaxian snacks nationwide, but only about 1,800 of them are the brand's authentic chain restaurants.

In order to prevent counterfeit restaurants and provide customers with authentic Shaxian foods, the Shaxian Delicacies trade association, founded in 1997, registered its trademark in 2014.

Shaxian County is also building a "central kitchen" for distributing semi-finished products to its franchises worldwide, according to Zhang.

"The standardized Shaxian Delicacies improved customer impressions of traditional Chinese snack stalls," Shao said.

Shao adopted the design of an open kitchen to create a clean and brightly-lit environment in her restaurant.

"When the customers can see the cooking process, it puts them at ease over food safety," Shao said.