▲ The Landes goose, originally from France's Landes region, is now extensively farmed in Linqu, Shandong. Photo/ Xinhua News Agency

Who would have thought that the foie gras, caviar, and truffles, which have long been hailed as "the three great delicacies of the world," are becoming China's "new specialties"?

By 2025, China's total foie gras production is expected to reach 14,000 tons, with the two main production areas, Linqu in Shandong and Huoqiu in Anhui, each producing over 5,000 tons annually, bringing the industry scale close to the traditional benchmark of France; globally, for every three jars of caviar sold, one comes from Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang, and the domestic leading enterprise XUNLONG SCITECH has already passed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange hearing and is about to sprint for the world's first caviar stock; meanwhile, in 2024, China's truffle exports are expected to reach about 45.4 tons, further increasing by approximately 40% on the basis of nearly one-third of the global trade volume in 2023.

Once exclusive to the West, these top-tier ingredients are now taking root and being mass-produced in China, relying on a mature industrial chain to reverse export and supply the globe. This leapfrog development not only deeply concerns professionals in the French food industry but also allows us Chinese to witness the hardcore strength of modern agriculture—Chinese agriculture has long jumped out of the low-end track of traditional planting and breeding, entering a new development stage characterized by high technology, high added value, and globalization.

From Michelin-exclusive luxury items to national ingredients entering the public eye, from trial breeding to surpassing production and reversing the industry, the domestic transformation of these three high-end ingredients reveals the deep-seated secrets of Chinese agriculture breaking monopolies, overcoming barriers, and iterating upgrades.

Breaking the "Origin Myth"

The reason high-end ingredients are considered high-end is not only due to their exorbitant prices but also because of the stringent growth conditions, long cultivation cycles, extremely high technical thresholds, and long-established origin brand, which together create industry barriers formed by natural scarcity and artificial technological monopolies.

French foie gras relies on exclusive breeds and mature feeding techniques, making the breeding threshold extremely high; sturgeon has a growth cycle of 7 to 15 years, and the time to mature and spawn is lengthy; truffles, unlike ordinary fungi, must rely on the root systems of species such as Huashan pine, oak, and chestnut to obtain nutrients, spreading and reproducing through spores, with extremely harsh growth conditions that make large-scale cultivation naturally difficult.

For a long time, the global market has defaulted that such high-end ingredients are "exclusive specialties" of a few regions, with an unbreakable monopoly pattern of origin. However, China, with its unique ecological advantages, has repeatedly broken the "origin myth."

The vast territory, diverse topography and climate, and rich water and soil resources provide a foundation for the localized cultivation of high-end ingredients. Linqu in Shandong, located in the central mountainous area of Shandong and the northern foothills of Yishan, has soil and climate highly similar to that of the Landes region in France, making it an excellent habitat for Landes geese; the vast cold water resources across the country provide suitable growth environments for different sturgeon species, breaking the geographical monopoly held by Iran and Russia along the Caspian Sea; In the karst mountainous areas of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, "pig rooting fungus" is naturally produced, with a similarity to French black truffles reaching as high as 96%.

By precisely developing local ecological resources, Chinese farmers have transformed a scarce resource that originally belonged only to a few regions into a scalable domestic industry, causing the "origin-exclusive" label to lose its monopoly significance and reconstructing the geographical supply pattern of global high-end ingredients.

Turning Around the Agricultural Transformation Dilemma

The initiation of domestic high-end ingredient production began much earlier than the general public perceives.

As early as the 1980s, Linqu in Shandong started raising Landes geese with the funding of foreign non-governmental organizations. In the 1990s, a state-owned foreign trade company was established, importing 3,000 parent stock Landes geese and feeding machines from France, with the produced foie gras primarily intended for export. After the "SARS" outbreak in 2003, the overseas market contracted, and the foie gras industry shifted towards the domestic market.

Seeing domestic foie gras quickly open up the market due to price advantages, a large number of farmers followed suit, and Landes geese were raised everywhere, leading the industry into a predicament of chaotic expansion and low-price competition. This directly resulted in high-end ingredients not being able to command high-end prices, leaving both companies and farmers unable to make profits. This is actually a common dilemma faced by traditional agriculture transformation in China.

The key to breaking the deadlock lies in stepping out of the low-end processing track and upgrading to deep processing, branding, and diversification. Thus, some enterprises began to contemplate transformation, no longer focusing on primary processed products, but instead laying out plans in the deep processing field, innovatively launching differentiated products such as red wine blueberry foie gras, sake foie gras, cherry foie gras, and ice cream foie gras, which even foreigners found novel. Compared to traditional frozen primary processed products, the added value of deep-processed foie gras increased several times, reversing the downward trend of low-price competition in the industry.

Today, after more than thirty years of cultivation, Linqu has formed a complete industrial chain from goose breeding, large-scale farming to deep processing and foreign trade export. In 2023, there were 105 local processing and supporting enterprises, with an output of 5 million Landes geese and over 5,000 tons of processed foie gras, accounting for 70% of the national output and 20% of the global market, with an annual output value exceeding 8 billion yuan.

As a result, after localized production and research and development, French foie gras has carved out its own industrial path, not only firmly occupying the domestic consumer market but also significantly lowering the price of foie gras. What used to only appear in Michelin restaurants and high-end banquets can now be easily purchased by consumers in supermarkets and e-commerce platforms.

▲ Sturgeon raised at the Quzhou breeding base of XUNLONG SCITECH Co., Ltd. in Hangzhou's Qiandao Lake. Photo/ Xinhua News Agency

Breaking Through Core Technology Barriers

If ecological advantages are the foundation for the industry's comeback, then independent core technology is the confidence for China to seize the global high-end ingredient market.

Compared to the more than 100 days of breeding cycle for Landes geese, the industrialization difficulty of caviar and truffles is extreme, long-term restricting the development of the global industry The growth cycle of sturgeon, which produces caviar, lasts from 7 to 15 years. If any issues arise during this period, previous investments may be in vain. The long growth cycle and extremely high farming risks together form the entry barriers of the caviar industry, which is thus referred to as an industry that "rich people do not want to engage in, and poor people cannot afford to."

Truffles, on the other hand, are a typical "heaven-dependent" species. They grow naturally in the wild and are influenced by weather, environment, and other factors, resulting in scarce and unstable yields. Achieving large-scale production is very difficult.

However, to date, domestic caviar production accounts for about 60% of global output, and truffle exports once reached the world's highest, which is attributed to accurate judgments of the global market and the rise of China's biotechnology.

In the past, global caviar production and processing relied entirely on wild sturgeon fishing. Due to rampant illegal poaching, by the 1990s, wild sturgeon resources had sharply declined. Consequently, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora listed it in Appendix II for trade control, and in 2006, international trade in wild sturgeon caviar was completely suspended. Major consuming countries also issued bans, leading to the exit of wild caviar from the regular market and ushering in a disruptive transformation window for the industry.

At the same time, the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences launched the "North Sturgeon South Farming" project in 1996, achieving breakthroughs in full artificial breeding technology in 2002 and overcoming the international technical challenge of "sub-cold water fish summering in the south" in 2005. China's breakthroughs in biotechnology, coupled with the timing of the industry's transformation window, created opportunities for Chinese companies to enter the caviar market.

The industrialization breakthrough of black truffles, allowing them to enter the international market, also stems from hardcore technological innovations. The domestic industry has conquered the artificial inoculation symbiotic cultivation technology, which involves artificially infecting sterile seedlings. Once the truffle mycelium fully integrates with the seedlings, the infected seedlings are transplanted to forests for growth, breaking through the natural limitations of "heaven-dependent" cultivation. This technology has significantly shortened the truffle growth cycle to 3 to 5 years, increasing the yield per acre from 10 kilograms to 20 kilograms, effectively doubling production.

At the same time, breakthroughs in preservation technology have extended the shelf life of fresh truffles to 45 days. Coupled with a mature national cold chain logistics system and a well-established production and sales network, this has further opened up the entire pathway from forest to table, allowing the originally delicate and difficult-to-store truffles to stabilize in both domestic and international markets.

It is these key technological breakthroughs, one by one, that have gradually dismantled the barriers to large-scale farming of these high-end ingredients, transforming China from a follower in the high-end ingredient sector to a market leader.

▲ This is fresh truffles harvested by farmers in Yongren County, Yunnan. Photo/ Xinhua News Agency

Opening the market relies on hardcore strength

The core of the high-end ingredient market has never been "good quality at low prices," but rather "high quality." Therefore, to gain recognition in the global market, relying solely on "large quantities and low prices" is not feasible. High-end ingredient customers are not sensitive to price; instead, they place greater importance on product quality and brand reputation.

The overseas journey of the domestic leader XUNLONG SCITECH is a microcosm of the breakthrough in the quality of China's high-end ingredients. When the company first ventured into overseas markets, it was repeatedly shut out by international high-end supply chains. It wasn't until 2011 that XUNLONG SCITECH participated in Lufthansa's bidding for caviar suppliers and unexpectedly defeated competitors from Russia, France, and Iran in a blind selection, ranking first among 25 samples from ten suppliers, thus entering the first-class menu of Lufthansa.

With exceptional quality and stable quality control, domestic caviar has successively penetrated top supply chains such as Singapore Airlines, the Oscars banquet, and over thirty Michelin three-star restaurants, gaining recognition in the world's most discerning markets.

In fact, China's agricultural transformation goes far beyond these luxury items on the palate. Today's Chinese agriculture has long surpassed traditional planting and breeding boundaries: the hot and dry Gansu province is becoming a new production area for wine and olive oil, the export volume of deep-sea farmed salmon from Yantai, Shandong is steadily increasing, and dozens of Wagyu beef farms are emerging on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and Jilin...

This series of industrial transformations relies on the government's policy support for high-value-added agricultural products, continuous empowerment of agricultural technology, upgrades in the domestic consumer market, and the practical spirit of Chinese farmers who dare to explore, tackle difficulties, and work diligently over the long term—opening up differentiated competitive new paths beyond traditional agriculture.

Of course, beneath the rise of the industry, shortcomings cannot be ignored. Currently, China's high-end ingredient industry still faces the problem of strong production but weak branding. For instance, XUNLONG SCITECH's overseas revenue from its own brand is only 117 million yuan by 2025, while third-party brand OEM contributions amount to 527 million yuan. OEM production accounts for 68.6% of total revenue.

Moreover, the Landes goose, originally from France, has begun to show signs of breed degradation after several generations of breeding, which may be a common challenge faced by the entire foie gras industry, still relying on continuous breakthroughs in goose breeding technology. Transitioning from an "industrial powerhouse" to a "brand powerhouse," China's high-end agriculture still has a long way to go.

However, it is undeniable that from introducing and imitating to independent innovation, from extensive farming to full-chain upgrades, and from low-end OEM to quality breakthroughs, China has completed in decades what took the West a century in high-end agricultural industrialization. It is believed that in the future, more "imported products" will become "local specialties" in China, flying into the homes of ordinary people while allowing the world to taste the good flavors from China.

Written by / Xu Qiuying, commentator of the Beijing News

Edited by / Chi Daohua

Proofread by / Zhao Lin