Cantonese chicken dish drives Fengkai's rural revitalization

In Cantonese culture, no feast is complete without a chicken dish.

For Chen Yanying, local Xinghua Chicken is more than a classic Cantonese dish served at banquets and local dining tables during traditional festivals and special occasions, it is also her company's flagship, profit-generating product.

"Xinghua chicken is one of the major products that is helping rural households increase their incomes and escape poverty," said Chen, a manager at Guangyuan Poultry Breeding Co, Ltd in Fengkai, a rural county in western Guangdong province, bordering the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Xinghua Chicken is a national geographical indication product, ranked alongside Qingyuan Partridge Chicken and Longmen Bearded Chicken as one of Guangdong's three most famous chicken breeds.

In addition to more than 200,000 chickens used in dishes across Chen's three restaurants each year, her company ships another 1.8 million cooked chickens by courier to destinations across the country annually, Chen said.

"Many tourists from the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong and Macao travel here especially to taste Xinghua Chicken dishes," she said.

Meanwhile, Chen's company also gives chicks away free of charge to more than 2,060 local households and shares chicken-farming techniques with them.

Each household can earn an extra 30,000 yuan or more per year by raising Xinghua chickens, she added.

Mai Yinhui, head of the Fengkai Xinghua Chicken Industry Special Task Force, said the county markets more than 17 million chickens annually, generating an output value exceeding 2.34 billion yuan.

Chicken farming now plays a big part in the county's agricultural development, boosting rural revitalization, he said.

According to Chen Yanying, white-cut chicken, wuzhimaotao, or five-finger fig chicken, and soy-sauce chicken are among her company's best-selling products.

Chen said the company plans to expand further in the coming months, developing egg cakes, pancakes, egg crisps, biscuits, and other chicken- and egg-related products, along with seasonings for cooking chicken and condiments to serve alongside it, to meet the growing market demand.