In Chongqing's Fengdu county, spicy chicken, a time-honored Chinese delicacy, has become the cornerstone of the county's economy.

Over the next three to five years, the spicy chicken business in Fengdu is expected to yield an output value of 5 billion yuan ($704.51 million), with over 10,000 stores across the country, according to the local government.

Fengdu spicy chicken is believed to have originated from the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties.

The snack, which is part of Sichuan cuisine, stands out for its distinctive flavor and features chewy boiled chicken meat aged for more than seven months with a blend of chilled seasonings.

Key ingredients like Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers infuse the dish with a mix of numbing and spicy flavors.

Tang Shouyuan, county magistrate of Fengdu, said there are 58 different spicy chicken brands in the county, with over 400 spicy chicken production enterprises and workshops. The number of stores selling the Fengdu snack is also rising rapidly nationwide.

In the first three quarters, the sector in Fengdu achieved a production value of 580 million yuan.

By 2025, an industrial park of spicy chicken will be launched in Fengdu, encompassing a food testing center and nurturing over 50 large-scale enterprises with total sales exceeding 3 billion yuan annually, Tang said.

According to Hou Dajun, a professor from the college of food science at Southwest University, as one of the most widely consumed meats, chickens hold a prominent position in the global market, particularly in developed countries. In 2024, China's total chicken production reached 21.52 million metric tons, with an annual per capita chicken consumption of 11.26 kilograms.

"Based on the sales performance and other data, we see the market demand for Fengdu spicy chicken standing at 8 million chickens per year at least, while the current processing capacity is only some 2 million," said Hou during a recent seminar.

A team led by Hou has cooperated with Fengdu County Spicy Brothers Food Co, a local spicy chicken company, to improve local production levels, including the introduction of a set of cutting-edge freezing equipment.

Currently, the company is supported by over 3,500 local poultry farms in Fengdu. Several of its peers have also established such ties with local farmers, which has helped improve their livelihoods.

"We process approximately 300,000 live poultry annually, relying not only on external procurement but also supplementing through the development of local farmers' breeding," said Yu Wenkang, vice-general manager of Fengdu County Spicy Brothers.

Yu said the company has distributed over 200,000 chicks to 3,500 households across 18 townships in Fengdu. Under the government's guidance, the company has organized training sessions for farmers participating in its spicy chicken production.

The Fengdu government has established a 20 million yuan fund for the local spicy chicken business. The fund aims to further raise sales by promoting processing efficiency and upgrading production equipment.

Apart from domestic business expansion, local enterprises are set to expand the number of Fengdu spicy chicken outlets to 1,600 in the rest of the world, covering an additional 30 markets overseas, and elevate imports and exports to keep a growth rate of over 15 percent annually.

In mid-August, the snack made a splash at a food expo in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as over 3,000 packs were sold on-site, which helped Fengdu companies garner many purchase agreements.

Fengdu is also improving the local food safety standard for spicy chicken, as a precursor to promoting large-scale business operations in the county.

According to a white paper released by market observer iResearch on leisure food, the size of China's snack market reached 1.17 trillion yuan in 2023.

It is expected that in the coming years, with the continuous growth in consumer demand for leisure food and the ongoing innovative development trend in the snack industry, the market size will continue to grow.

It is projected that by 2027, the market size of China's leisure food industry will reach 1.24 trillion yuan.