摘要：谁 could have imagined that "天水麻辣烫", a humble street food costing no more than a tenner, could become the catalyst for a local econ

谁 could have imagined that "天水麻辣烫", a humble street food costing no more than a tenner, could become the catalyst for a local economic transformation after racking up a staggering 2.34 billion views on short video platforms? This seemingly ordinary administrative meeting on May 6th, where the Tianshui Municipal Market Supervision Bureau summoned 67 local vermicelli producers for a three-and-a-half-hour policy cram session, revealed the underlying logic of upgrading local specialty industries: behind the carnival of the traffic economy, quality control is the real MVP.

"Our inspection pass rate must jump from the current 89.3% to over 95%." The figures announced at the meeting were a wake-up call. In the first four months of this year, Gansu Province's "You Click, We Inspect" campaign revealed that 76% of non-compliant vermicelli samples contained excessive additives, with the highest sodium metabisulfite residue exceeding the national standard by a whopping 5.7 times. These numbers reflect a harsh reality: as "Tianshui Mala Tang" welcomes over 100,000 tourists daily and Ma'anshan Village's handmade vermicelli workshops see a 300% surge in monthly production, quality risks on the production side are becoming the biggest bottleneck. Just like Wang Ke, vice president of the China food Industry Association, put it: "The 180 days following a local delicacy's rise to fame is the critical window that determines whether it becomes a shooting star or a fixed star."

The regulatory crackdown was foreshadowed. The success of Liuzhou's luosifen industry, which exceeded 50 billion yuan in output value in 2023, has provided a textbook example for local governments. This industry, once embroiled in controversy over "foot-treading pickled bamboo shoots," successfully upgraded its small workshop model to industrialized production by establishing 185 industry-wide standards. Tianshui is clearly following suit: the meeting mandated electronic traceability systems for all enterprises and specified that the margin of error for vermicelli production ingredients must be within ±2%. These standards, comparable to those in the pharmaceutical industry, are reshaping the rules of the traditional food processing game. My visit revealed that "Longxiangyuan," a leading local enterprise, has invested 1.2 million yuan in a Brabender starch analyzer from Germany. Their technical director frankly admitted: "The days of relying on a master's intuition to mix alum are over."

So, who's footing the bill for this transformation? The anxiety among SMEs is palpable. The owner of a vermicelli factory with an annual output of 500 tons broke it down for me: just establishing a raw material batch testing archive will add 23,000 yuan in monthly expenses, which eats up 15% of the company's net profit. But the market offers a more compelling argument – "Ganweifang" brand vermicelli, which adopted the HACCP certification system, has seen its wholesale price jump from 4.8 yuan to 6.5 yuan per jin, yet it's still being snapped up by chain mala tang brands. This divergence confirms the latest assessment by the Renmin University of China's Business Environment Research Center: with consumption upgrading, compliance costs will translate into brand premiums, forming a virtuous cycle where "good money drives out bad money."

Smart regulatory tools are accelerating this process. At the command center of the Qinzhou District Market Supervision Bureau, I witnessed real-time production footage from 32 large-scale enterprises streamed into the "Longshang food safety" platform. AI algorithms can automatically identify 15 types of risks, such as workers not wearing hairnets and deviations in additive measurements. This "off-site supervision" model has increased inspection frequency from quarterly to weekly, while the annual service fee for enterprises is a mere 8,000 yuan. As Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Team pointed out in their "Food Industry Digitalization White Paper": "Every 10% increase in production transparency boosts consumer confidence by 23%."

The capital market always has its finger on the pulse. Since news of the meeting broke, the share price of "Huace Testing," a listed company specializing in food testing, surged by 7.2%, while "Chenguang Biotech," which produces compliant food additives, saw continuous net buying by northbound funds for five consecutive days. These signals reveal the underlying logic of industrial transformation: with the central government allocating 250 million yuan to support Gansu's characteristic industries, a value-added revolution centered on quality is unfolding, from the fields to the livestream e-commerce studios. I noticed that Tianshui City has planned a 200-mu Mala Tang Industrial Park, where the food safety testing center will be equipped with a 30 million yuan liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry instrument – this "sword of technology" is aimed squarely at achieving an annual output value of 10 billion yuan.

Standing on Minzhu West Road, lined with mala tang shops, watching tourists filming the "vermicelli pulling" performance with their phones, I couldn't help but wonder: what will Tianshui retain its customers with after the traffic dividend fades? The answer may lie in the Market Supervision Bureau's rectification list – the 36 specific requirements for raw material traceability and process improvement are weaving a safety net that will transform "internet famous" into "long-lasting fame." Just as Liuzhou spent a decade turning luosifen into "deliverable nostalgia," Tianshui's ambition clearly extends beyond the fleeting spectacle of short videos. After all, on the strategic chessboard of building a unified national market, every bowl of mala tang that meets national standards is a profound activation of domestic demand potential.

Every practitioner feels the pains and opportunities of this transformation. Liu Jianjun, the third-generation inheritor of the time-honored "Liu Ji Vermicelli Workshop," donated his thirty-year-old wooden mold to the Food Museum and switched to producing standard-width vermicelli using German Coperion templates. He said: "Customers can now scan the QR code on the packaging to see which village the sweet potatoes were purchased from and their starch content. This is a level of trust our ancestors couldn't have imagined." This accumulated trust is reflected in the calculations of Tsinghua University's Institute of Public Welfare and Economic Research: a 0.1 point increase in the regional food safety index can drive a 2.7% increase in per capita consumption expenditure. The data is cold, but it reveals a simple truth – within the hustle and bustle of clinking bowls and chopsticks lies the code for China's economic transformation and upgrade.

Looking at the mala tang shops still bustling with queues under the night sky, I recalled the underlined sentence in the meeting document: "Protect the 'Taste of Tianshui' with the most stringent standards." This might be a microcosm of China's manufacturing transformation: when we adhere to weight tolerances on the production line and meticulously control concentrations in the lab, what we ultimately serve is not just a steaming bowl of vermicelli, but also an economy's commitment to high-quality development. After all, in this era where "every industry deserves a reboot," even mala tang is learning from luosifen's standardization playbook – who says this isn't the most down-to-earth supply-side reform?

来源：你好同学一点号