A simple crunchy candy has managed to travel thousands of miles to sweeten the world. Recently, a heartwarming story about "cross-border treats" went viral online: a front desk clerk at a hotel in Milan, Italy, who fell in love with the Hsu Fu Chi crunchy candy gifted by a Chinese tourist, immediately asked, "Could you bring me some next time?" After the post was shared, the comments section quickly turned into a "mass team-building event for Chinese netizens," sparking a tacit "cross-border treat relay." How can a small piece of candy bridge such vast distances and win hearts globally? The answer may lie in its birthplace—Dongguan, Guangdong.
When the New Year firecrackers sound, the richest memories of festive flavor often revolve around that deeply sweet taste of candy. Wrapped in golden foil, Chinese candy contains not just sweetness but also circulating blessings and auspiciousness. This year, this "festive flavor" has not only unexpectedly gained popularity in Milan but is also reaching broader horizons in a new form. Behind this, CHINA UNICOM is leveraging digital power to equip this traditional sweetness with wings of efficiency and quality, helping Chinese candy deliver blessings to millions of households swiftly in the spirited Year of the Dragon.
Abundant blessings originate from the "craftsmanship" and "wisdom" of smart factories. Inside Hsu Fu Chi’s festively decorated factory, rich milk aromas blend with fresh fruit scents. Every piece of candy produced here undergoes precise boiling, molding, cooling, and packaging. In the past, this "sweetness" heavily relied on the experience of master craftsmen. Today, the high-speed, stable 5G enterprise private network deployed by CHINA UNICOM acts as an "information highway" for the factory, making every detail on the production line visible and controllable in real time.
Hundreds of core candy-making equipment units are fully interconnected with CHINA UNICOM’s support. Key parameters affecting taste—such as temperature, humidity, and mixing speed—are accurately monitored and automatically adjusted, ensuring each batch of syrup reaches optimal condition. This allows traditional recipes to be revitalized through digital means, preserving their lasting appeal. This "stability" is the foundation of Hsu Fu Chi’s consistently high-quality, blessing-filled candies and the confidence behind winning the taste buds of the Milan clerk.
"Blessing-delivery ponies" shuttle tirelessly, as smart logistics ensure timely arrival of festive flavors. With Spring Festival orders flooding in, how can blessing-filled candy gift boxes be efficiently and accurately delivered across the country and overseas? In Hsu Fu Chi’s smart warehouse, several AGV intelligent handling robots work around the clock, shuttling along planned routes to deliver raw materials to production lines and transport finished gift boxes to storage. Like obedient "blessing-delivery ponies," they enable internal logistics to flow as swiftly and precisely as galloping horses.
This smart logistics system significantly enhances Hsu Fu Chi’s ability to respond to peak-season orders. Whether fulfilling enthusiastic online "treat requests" or supplying physical store gift boxes, items can be prepared and shipped immediately. This ensures that distant travelers—and even friends abroad—receive this sweet taste of Dongguan’s New Year festivities on time.
With eagle-eyed precision, AI safeguards every "sweet blessing." The appearance of candy is the most direct reflection of its auspiciousness. At the end of the high-speed packaging line, CHINA UNICOM’s AI visual inspection system acts as a "modern master craftsman." Using high-definition cameras, it performs "health checks" on each candy in milliseconds—inspecting shape regularity, wrapper integrity, and color brightness. Any minor flaw is instantly identified and automatically removed, guaranteeing that every crunchy candy traveling across oceans represents Chinese brands flawlessly.
AI is also deployed to detect foreign objects in juice gummies. This invisible quality checkpoint protects not only Hsu Fu Chi’s reputation as a premium "Guangdong product" but also upholds the wish for every consumer to have a "sweet, flawless New Year." Traditional craftsmanship thus gains technologically empowered "sharp eyes," making every Hsu Fu Chi treat a trustworthy New Year’s blessing.
From the Milan clerk’s lingering memory to the internet’s resonant response, a single candy’s "cross-border journey" has sweetened the world. CHINA UNICOM, using next-generation information technologies like 5G, AI, and IoT, has built a "digital foundation" for traditional food enterprises, enabling smarter production, more efficient logistics, and superior quality. Moving forward, CHINA UNICOM will continue to deepen the integration of digital and real-world processes, empowering intelligent manufacturing upgrades with solid actions. This will help more time-honored and specialty brands break through spatial and temporal boundaries, accelerating transformation amid digital trends, and allowing Guangdong’s iconic products—carrying craftsmanship and culture—to reach nationwide and global prominence.
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