Text: Kang Chengang Photo source: Photo by Huang Mingtang
It has been sold for 45 years in TaiwanHappy New Year Egg Rollbegan to enter Costco in the United States last year, and can be seen from San Francisco to New Yorkhappy new yearClassic red tin box. Overseas sales have exceeded expectations, making Xi Nian spend NT$1.2 billion, expanding the factory again after more than 30 years, and want to deliver classic Taiwanese flavors to more corners of the world.
“I saw Xi Nian selling in Costco (Costco), I was really happy,” Ms. Zhang, who lives in Pittsburgh, USA, said excitedly. It is the greatest happiness for overseas travelers to taste the taste of Taiwan from snacks to adults. .
Established in 1977happy new yearAt the beginning of its establishment, it introduced the handmade omelet method from Hong Kong. Unexpectedly, the apprentice won the master. The improved version of Xi’an New Year swept the market. It has been sold for 45 years, and even developed the world’s first automatic omelet machine.
“To be honest, we didn’t expect to sell so well,” Wang Haihu, the general manager of Xilinian, said with a smile. The US market has a large volume of goods. It is estimated that 20 containers were shipped last year, which is about 100,000 sets of tin boxes. Become the largest export market in the New Year.
The classic formula remains unchanged, and the Taiwanese flavor is highly praised
Walking into Xilai’s factory located in Nangang Industrial Zone, Nantou City, since September last year, 48 automatic egg roll machines in the factory have been running non-stop every day, grouting, frying, and rolling, and a finished egg roll is completed in more than 20 seconds , the production process must be exact, otherwise it will be undercooked or burnt.
“Our utilization rate is more than 100%. If I take this order, I may have to abandon others. There has never been enough egg roll production capacity for a year.” Wang Haihu said, especially from the first three to four months of the lunar calendar every year, To start producing products for the Lunar New Year schedule, this year, due to the surge in demand in the US market, the production line started preparations one month earlier than in previous years.
Egg rolls are the star product of Xi Nian. Compared with other products such as golden ox horns and salty crisp biscuits, the classic taste has been sold for more than 40 years. Since 5 years ago, a trader came to Shangxi Nian and exported the egg rolls to local Chinese supermarkets in the United States. Although the sales volume was not large, it was stable, and then entered South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and other markets one after another.
“Our initial thinking was that wherever there are overseas Chinese, there must be Xi Nian. When people are overseas, this is a kind of Comfort Food (healing food).” What is even more surprising is that after Xi Nian was sold in Costco, the original Being psychologically prepared will have a crowding out effect and affect the sales of other channels. Unexpectedly, the sales volume of the Chinese supermarket channel has not decreased but increased, and the order volume has increased by 20% last year.
Observed by local industry players in the United States, Chinese and Asians are still the main customer groups for New Year’s Egg Rolls in the United States, but since they were sold in Costco last year, the proportion of Europeans and Americans has begun to rise.
Moreover, unlike the Taiwanese market, consumers mostly buy them for their own consumption, rather than as gifts, which shows that the taste is recognized by consumers.
Spend 1.2 billion to expand new factories and attack Asian and North American markets
Xi Nian spent a lot of money to expand the new factory, behind which lies the ambition to expand overseas markets. In addition to satisfying the huge American market, Xi Nian is also aiming at new goals. The next step is to export egg rolls to Vancouver, Toronto, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and other places. At the same time, we are also optimistic about South Korea, which has already achieved preliminary results. , Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and other markets’ future potential.
In Vietnam, which attaches great importance to traditional New Year festivals, you can see the New Year egg rolls from the AEON department store in the city center to the offerings to the Buddha in temples; while in South Korea, there are office workers who serve the New Year egg rolls with coffee or Milk for a convenient and refreshing breakfast.
Xi Nian has stepped out of different product positioning in the Southeast Asian market, and is no longer a snack. Last year, Xi Nian’s annual revenue was approximately NT$600 million, which was comparable to the revenue growth driven by housing demand due to the epidemic in 2021. Among them, overseas markets supported quite strong demand.
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