Pingjiang's latiao industry bounces back post-flood crisis

Manufacturing company Malawangzi, known for its popular spicy gluten strip, or latiao, said it plans to fully restore production on Friday after an unprecedented flood hit Pingjiang county, Hunan province, on Monday.

Latiao is a popular snack among many Chinese people, especially young people and children. Pingjiang is the hometown of latiao and houses 116 latiao enterprises, with an annual production value of more than 20 billion yuan ($2.75 billion). Three people from the county invented the snack in 1998, and more than 90 percent of the founders of latiao companies in China originated there.

The industry offers employment to 102,000 locals. The county's population is about 1.1 million.

As of 8 am on Wednesday, the flood had affected 436,000 people, with almost 76,000 urgently resettled, according to a thepaper.cn report, which cited local government authorities.

Based on preliminary estimations, the deluge has also caused widespread damage to poultry, crops, houses, cars and infrastructure throughout the county, leading to direct economic losses of over 2.5 billion yuan.

The report added that roads, power, communication and clean water have been partially resumed and authorities are working hard to resume life and production.

Founded by Zhang Yudong in 2009, Malawangzi is the county's biggest latiao company and one of the biggest in China. The company's sales value reached 1.09 billion yuan last year, and it has set the target of reaching 1.5 billion in sales revenue this year.

After the news of the unprecedented flood in Pingjiang broke out, netizens took to social media to ask how the latiao companies in Pingjiang were doing. Many have flocked to Malawangzi's e-commerce platform to show support by buying in bulk.

The hashtag "the Malawangzi factory was suspended" became the most trending topic on Sina Weibo on Wednesday, garnering hundreds of millions of views.

Li Manliang, a deputy general manager of Malawangzi, said that after suspending production for two days, two of their factories resumed production on Wednesday and another two resumed on Thursday.

All of its factories are expected to resume production on Friday, but it will still take about a week for all of its employees to return to work, he said.