When people think of Chengcheng, the first thing that often comes to mind is a bowl of water basin mutton with clear broth and fresh meat. In the past, this provincial-level intangible cultural heritage dish could only be enjoyed hot inside local restaurants. Today, with a simple twist of the bowl, a steaming bowl of self-heating water basin mutton is ready in just 8 minutes, bringing the flavors of Chengcheng to travelers and dining tables alike.
On the afternoon of October 12, an aerial photo captured the industrial park where Weinan Nongtou Qiantang Baiwei Food Co., Ltd. is located. As part of the "Shaanxi Shines in Rural Areas 鈥?Together We 'Rush to the County'" research and interview tour, artists, media hosts, and internet influencers visited the company under the theme "Into Chengcheng: Witnessing New Progress in Rural Revitalization." Inside the company's standardized production workshop, clean production lines operated in an orderly fashion, with bowls of water basin mutton being filled and sealed after high-temperature physical sterilization.
This state-controlled enterprise, established in 2024 under the Weinan Agricultural Investment Group, is starting from a single bowl of water basin mutton and packaging local specialties into portable meal boxes, allowing the "Chengcheng flavor" to expand beyond the county and reach the whole country. The water basin mutton produced by Weinan Nongtou Qiantang Baiwei Food Co., Ltd. represents this effort.
"Water basin mutton has two pain points: first, it doesn't keep 鈥?in summer, the shelf life is only five days; second, it must be eaten with hot broth, and after buying it you still have to add water and heat it yourself, which fails to satisfy the desire to drink a bowl of hot soup anytime, anywhere," said Luo Long, Chairman of Weinan Nongtou Qiantang Baiwei Food Co., Ltd. The company joined hands with the intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Chengcheng water basin mutton, adopting high-temperature sterilization technology and a self-heating patent to extend the shelf life to 12 months, with a clean ingredient list and zero additives, achieving a taste restoration of 95%. "It tastes almost exactly the same as what was served to guests from various countries at the Central Asia Summit."
But there are regrets as well. Due to the commitment to zero additives, the accompanying baked flatbread cannot reach a 12-month shelf life and had to be temporarily abandoned. "If we had to add additives, we would rather give it up than do that," Luo Long said. It is precisely this "stubbornness" about quality that underpins the brand's confidence. The company produces 6,000 bowls of water basin mutton per day and has successively appeared at the China International Consumer Products Expo, the China (Hangzhou) Food E-commerce Expo, and other exhibitions.
Media reporters and internet celebrity teams participating in the event were filming. After establishing its signature product, the company began to branch out into a broader product line. Closely following the concept of medicine-food homology, the enterprise turned a single food factory into a "Chinese-style food therapy workshop": five-black porridge suitable for men's nourishment and five-red porridge familiar to women were launched one after another; apple soup made from Baishui apples, lotus root pork rib soup, and other Chinese-style soups were also introduced; and in response to the high value of Chengcheng cherries, the company is also sampling canned cherry products.
From a single bowl of soup to a full table of "Weinan flavors," the products have moved from a single offering to diversified development. At present, more than 40 products have been developed and produced (or commissioned for processing), including self-heating water basin mutton, Weinan banquet steamed bowls, millet codonopsis porridge, and crispy pear snow fungus soup. Behind this product matrix lies the deep extension of the industrial chain.
Weinan is a major agricultural city. The original intention of the Weinan Agricultural Investment Group in establishing this enterprise was to give high-quality agricultural and sideline products a longer shelf life and a wider distribution radius through deep processing. The idea quickly turned into orders: millet codonopsis porridge has signed production orders of no less than 300,000 bowls for the whole year, and fruit-based products such as crispy pear snow fungus soup have delivered 450,000 bowls. In this way, standardized processing in the secondary sector connects the "local specialties" of the primary sector to the consumer market of the tertiary sector.
The crispy pear snow fungus soup produced by Weinan Nongtou Qiantang Baiwei Food Co., Ltd. At the same time, the company prioritizes the purchase of local mutton, crispy pears, and Chinese medicinal herbs as raw materials: the crispy pear snow fungus soup specifically purchases small fruits weighing 150 to 200 grams, solving the long-standing problem that fruit farmers "cannot get a good price for small fruits." "I can say with confidence that after the factory arrived, the price of these small fruits actually became higher than before," Luo Long said, adding that this is the social responsibility a state-owned enterprise should shoulder. Protected geographical indication agricultural products such as Pucheng crispy pears, Baishui apples, and Chengcheng cherries have seen their value multiply after standardized processing; the establishment of the production line has also driven employment for surrounding local residents, realizing "workshops connected to fields, industry driving farmers."
"You can drink hot mutton soup in 8 minutes. The mutton's gamey smell is well handled, and the soup is fresh," said internet celebrity "Yiqi" after tasting it, describing it as stunning. "Taking a box along for camping or travel, or mailing it to friends in other places, is very suitable. As a food blogger, I am willing to share this authentic Shaanxi intangible cultural heritage flavor with more people."
A clean and tidy production line. A bowl of water basin mutton carries the rich heritage of the countryside; a production line supports a new track for county-level revitalization. From workshop-style dining to standardized, branded food industry, from a single delicacy to a product matrix of "water basin mutton + medicine-food homology," Chengcheng uses a state-owned platform enterprise as the starting point to empower the primary sector, strengthen the secondary sector, and connect the tertiary sector, turning distinctive county resources into monetizable brand assets and using a bowl of "small food" to cook up a "big industry" full of flavor, color, and prosperity.
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