Most foodies have tried flavored small fish, although they have similar shapes, they are commonly known as different types such as hairy fish, small fish fry, dried small fish, flavored fish fry, etc. There is no unified production standard, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the industry. Recently, the China Aquatic Products Circulation and Processing Association officially released the group standard for "Flavored Cooked Dried Small Fish", which is the first small fish snack standard in China and will be implemented from June 18, 2021.

The standard setter is none other than the first fish snack stock, Jinzai Food [003000. SZ], which went public in 2020. Its flagship product, Jinzai Deep Sea Small Fish, sold 1.3 billion packs a year and has maintained steady sales growth for three consecutive years, ranking first in the fish snack industry. On the basis of ensuring the safety and deliciousness of small fish snacks, this standard also makes small fish snacks healthier, in line with the trend of high-end and healthy development of leisure food, and conducive to the high-quality development of the industry.
 
Under the initiative and organization of Jinzai Food, 12 units and enterprises including China Aquatic Products Distribution and Processing Association, Hunan Food Quality and Safety Technology Association, Jiangnan University, Hunan Agricultural University, Hunan Food Safety Evaluation and Certification Center, and Yueyang Quality and Metrology Inspection and Testing Center Food Inspection Institute jointly formulated this standard.
 
Chinese specialty snacks are developing rapidly, and the demand for health is becoming increasingly prominent

In recent years, the development of leisure food in China has been rapid, and the industry scale has continued to grow. According to data from iMedia Consulting, the market size of China's leisure snack industry was 410 billion yuan in 2010, 1.12 trillion yuan in 2020, an increase of 710 billion yuan over the past decade, and is expected to reach 1156.2 billion yuan in 2021.
 
Behind the rapid growth of the trillion yuan leisure food market, we have also noticed that the growth rate of imported snacks has been continuously declining, with a negative growth rate of 2.5% in 2016, gradually giving way to local ethnic brands, and traditional Chinese flavor leisure food has achieved significant development.
 
Flavored small fish snacks are one of the traditional Chinese specialty foods, originating from the dining table and developed with the rise of China's food industry and the revival of Chinese specialty cuisine. They are made from small fish as raw materials, fried, marinated with multiple natural spices, seasoned, packaged, and sterilized. Its classic spicy braised flavor is rich in nutrients. In addition to containing a large amount of protein, unsaturated fatty acids, and amino acids, it also contains various mineral elements that the human body needs, such as potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc, which are deeply loved by consumers.
 
This time, Jinzai Food took the lead in formulating the group standard of Flavor Cooked Dried Small Fish, which further reflected the progressiveness technology, optimized the product quality characteristics, clearly regulated the water content, put forward healthier requirements for finished products, strictly controlled the salt content, and required that the salt content of the product should not exceed 3%, in line with the healthy diet trend of "reducing salt, oil and sugar".
 
Fish snacks have become an important dietary supplement with high compound growth rate, demonstrating great development potential
 
Industry data shows that the market size of fish snacks in China was 20 billion yuan in 2020, and by 2030, the market size can reach 60 billion yuan, with an average compound annual growth rate of over 11%. According to the statistics of business registration information, there are over a thousand certified production enterprises of cooked small fish jerky nationwide, accounting for half of the annual output value of fish snacks. The number and scale of enterprises have been increasing year by year. As a leading enterprise in fish snacks, Jinzai Food achieved steady growth in 2020, achieving revenue of 909 million yuan and net profit of 103 million yuan.
 
On the one hand, the per capita consumption level of leisure food in China is much lower than that in developed countries. According to statistical data from Frisia, the per capita consumption of leisure food in China is 2.15kg/year, which is less than half of Japan and one-fifth of developed countries such as the UK and the US, indicating a large market potential.

On the other hand, the National Health and Family Planning Commission's "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" states that the daily intake of aquatic products is 40-75 grams, which is the same as the intake of livestock and poultry meat. However, a dietary guideline research report released in January this year pointed out that less than one-third of adults can achieve an average daily intake of over 40g of fish and shrimp. It is recommended that Chinese residents optimize the consumption structure of animal based foods, change the relatively single consumption structure dominated by pork, and increase the intake of aquatic products rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, which can reduce the risk of all-cause mortality, stroke, dementia, and cognitive impairment in adults. Due to dietary habits and the difficulty of cooking fish, convenient and delicious fish snacks are gradually becoming an important source of seafood intake.