Out of the oven to the entire nation

Over the years, Zhang's apprentices or bakers from Zixi and its neighboring regions have set up a number of Chinese-style baking enterprises. Leading among them are Bao's Pastry, Luxihe Pastry and Zhanji Pastry. Bao's Pastry, founded in 2004, had set up over 100 chain stores in more than 40 cities by the end of 2021.Luxihe Pastry has also opened over 360 bakeries across China.

Most baking entrepreneurs from Zixi make their fortune outside the region while the county itself remains one of the least developed regions in Jiangxi.

Since 2001, the local government has started guiding competent bakery owners to return to their hometown and help promote Zixi as a baked-goods brand.

In 2001, Zixi established the country's first county-level bakery industry association that offers legal aid, financial support and technical guidance to bakers from there who encounter difficulties setting up their own businesses.

The next year, a bakery training center was set up in Zixi to provide a local platform for local people and baking entrepreneurs migrating to other regions to sharpen their skills.

Xu Quanlong, the founder of the training center, began making and selling bread in 1994 and participated in various training programs such as for piping flowers, sculpting cakes and baking to enhance his skills. "After touring bakeries of fellow villagers in 1998, I found that their bread-making skills were relatively basic and outdated," he said."Thus I decided to return to my hometown and start a training center to help them improve their skills."

The local government said in March that it plans to invest 3 billion yuan to build a 333-hectare industrial park for baked products, focusing on production, product research and development, technical training and centralized procurement.

Rao Yuanzhong, head of the county, said that 60 percent of the net income of local farmers stems from the baked goods and pastries sector."The sector has become the pillar for us to strive for common prosperity and high-quality development," he said.