What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Hangzhou cuisine?

West Lake Fish With Vinegar Sauce?

Katakawa?

Do you think Zhejiang cuisine and Hangzhou cuisine are delicious?

Recently, the news that "Hangzhou is offering a reward of 1 million yuan to get rid of food deserts" went viral on the Internet. Netizens started arguing in the comment area. Some old Hangzhou residents supported Hangbang cuisine, "Since I was a snack, Hangbang cuisine is delicious"; another part

However, he said that he could not find delicious food in Hangzhou. The top three food rankings were: KFC, McDonald's and Babi Steamed Buns.

So, are the officials really offering a reward?

The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce responded to an upstream news reporter: "The so-called 'Hangzhou offers a reward of 1 million for ideas to get rid of food deserts' and other falsehoods are caused by the self-media's ignorance, taking quotes out of context, and spreading rumors." Screenshot source: Zhejiang Daily Hangzhou offers a reward of 100

Escape from a food desert?

Relevant person in charge: The online text is inaccurate. According to upstream news reports, on March 29, the Hangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau held a "special meeting on promoting the high-quality development of the catering industry and publicity work."

It was proposed at the meeting to organize the formulation of Hangbang cuisine standards, encourage relevant industry associations and Hangbang cuisine master studios to participate in the formulation of cuisine standards, and encourage relevant social groups and enterprises to formulate Hangbang cuisine group standards and enterprise standards.

For units that take the lead in formulating international standards, national standards, industry standards and group standards for Hangbang cuisine, after the relevant results are released or filed by the standardization administrative department, they will be given no more than 1 million yuan, 300,000 yuan, and 200,000 yuan for each item respectively.

A one-time reward of RMB 200,000 and RMB 200,000.

At the same time, we will strengthen the transformation of Hangbang cuisine's classic dishes into pre-made dishes and Hangbang cuisine's innovative works into catering products, encourage catering companies and food companies to increase research and development efforts, build product matrices, and sell Hangbang menus to companies registered and operating in Hangzhou

If the annual sales of a product exceed 50 million yuan, 100 million yuan, or 200 million yuan for the first time, rewards of no more than 250,000 yuan, 500,000 yuan, and 1 million yuan will be given respectively.

In terms of specialty snacks, we will create strong IPs such as cypress buns wrapped with green onions, Dingsheng cakes, spring rolls, and Hangzhou steamed buns to form a Hangzhou specialty food landmark and create a new consumer brand that young people will remember and be willing to share.

Leverage Hangzhou’s advantages as an “e-commerce capital” and “live broadcast base” to carry out regular publicity through media platforms.

However, relevant content has been labeled with labels such as "1 million yuan reward" and "get rid of food desert" on the Internet, which has attracted widespread attention and heated discussion.

Regarding the statement that "Hangzhou is offering a reward of 1 million yuan," the head of the relevant departments of the Hangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau responded to reporters: "This is the content of the draft for comments. We did mention this idea at the special meeting." The person in charge said:

"This award standard comes from the 2022 "Hangzhou Standardization Project Funding Management Measures", which mentions that units that take the lead in formulating and completing international standards, national standards, industry standards, "Made in Zhejiang" standards and group standards will be given no higher rewards respectively.

On the other hand, according to the procedures, the draft for comments needs to be completed and approved by the municipal government before it can be officially released online.

The written description is inaccurate and obviously misleading. "However, Zhejiang really organized a research group to eat rice noodles and drink milk tea in Hunan, Jiangxi. According to Zhejiang News, after the government organized a group to go abroad to grab orders, Zhejiang made another surprise.

For example, a group went to Jiangxi and Hunan to eat rice noodles and drink milk tea.

This has to remind people of another name given to Zhejiang on the Internet - "food desert", in addition to ridiculing "boss per capita".

Is Zhejiang dissatisfied and going to fight back?

The relevant person in charge of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce readily admitted that the Zhejiang cuisine industry is indeed not strong enough.

The main problem is that the play style is scattered, not uniform enough, and the impression is not deep enough.

"There are many famous dishes and snacks, but if you try hard enough, it's like clenching a fist, all five fingers are working hard, and there is nothing inside." Take the famous Hangzhou dish West Lake Vinegar Fish, for example, what should be used?

For this kind of fish, it’s up to the merchants to figure out what the cooking steps are.

If a foreign tourist by the West Lake is unfortunate enough to enter a restaurant that has not done much research on this dish, then from now on, one more person will say that this dish is "unpalatable".

Therefore, this research trip was mainly to study articles about how other people eat, and to clean up the "grievances" of Zhejiang cuisine.

Someone expressed that "Hangzhou is not a food desert" but was criticized by thousands of comments. A fan left a message saying that she briefly expressed "Hangzhou is not a food desert" on Xiaohongshu, but she did not expect to receive more than a thousand comments.

Head-on head-on approval.

She helplessly laughed at herself and said: "I actually found the traffic password." Regarding the "food desert" remarks, the relevant person in charge said: "Hangbang cuisine originated in the Song Dynasty and has a history of nearly a thousand years. It is not a matter of starting from scratch.

It’s a question of how to improve it. Hangbang cuisine has a long history and inclusive urban characteristics, and is the foundation and signature of Hangzhou’s catering industry.