Food industry enters "Internet plus" era

How to transform and upgrade the traditional food industry by taking advantage of the Internet development is not only a problem of industrial development but also a matter of peoples livelihood. At the 2015 China Food Forum held on November 13, experts and scholars, government officials and industrial insiders carried out a discussion on the new path for the food industry in such an "Internet plus" era.

As the food safety strategy was proposed at the 5th Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the "Internet plus" has become a major starting point for promoting food safety and safeguard innovative development.

According to Ning Jiajun, Member of the State Information Expert Advisory Committee and Deputy Director of the Expert Committee for the State Information Center, "Internet plus" is the integration of the object system, governance system and the public management system. Since several years ago, China has started the construction of the food safety information program. Despite some progress, the information at all levels and for the departments concerned is isolated and lack of real sharing. Ning Jiajun believes, in such an "Internet plus" era, it is possible to realize the big data collection for planting, production, circulation, research, management and demand, and the decision made relying on the data can lead to innovations in food industry and food safety.

"The food industry has a long industrial chain and a complicated production procedure, including the ingredients and further processing." said Feng Bing, a contract research fellow of Jiangxiang Think-tank. The "Internet plus" aspect is a major node of the food chain, which can promote the food safety strategy and supervise the whole food production chain and control the whole market procedure.

Internet plus has also brought new opportunities for the food sales. According to Xu Gaochun, Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, during the 13th Five-year Plan period, the development focus of E-commerce will be put on rural E-commerce, cross-border E-commerce and service E-commerce. All the three sectors are closely connected with the food industry, like the farm produce, the imported food and the catering industry. The E-commerce should emphasize brand developing and quality improvement.

Lin Dong, President of the Greenfull Group, elaborated on the importance of "Internet plus" with his own experience. In 2006, the group cooperated with an online game called "Legend of Tang Dynasty". The game was printed on the package of the groups products, and the "beef jerky" produced by the group was integrated into the game as an important life element. That year, the group achieved a total sales volume of 320 million yuan. "It is a shame that the online payment system was not as developed as it is now, otherwise we would have a much large sales volume." said Lin Dong. In 2015, the group launched a campaign of collecting good wishes online from consumers and print their on the product packages and sell them online. The result is an increasing number of orders. " We have seen the real impact of the Internet plus on our group." claimed Lin Dong.

Then how to explore the new paths for food industry in the "Internet plus" era and how to innovate the commercial model by taking advantage of the Internet? According to Lin Dong, in addition to the new sales channels, the Internet can lead to the integration of large-scale production and customized production, and the development of new products by the new community distribution, convenience shops and even public-fund raising.

LINK:	http://en.nbwh.gov.cn/art/2015/11/16/art_1325_76658.html...
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