'Beverage capital' making itself tastier

As Foshan's homegrown beverage manufacturer, Foshan Sanshui En-Snow Foods Co has been developing its own product brands and leveraging technology to produce alternative offerings for new markets.

Among the products is a canned coffee that contains actual coffee beans, amplifying the flavor while giving it an authentic touch. The company also uses aseptic cold filling technology to ensure a longer shelf life while preserving the quality and taste of its drinks.

En-Snow was founded in 2001 in Foshan's Sanshui district. The district, covering 874 square kilometers and named after the confluence of the Xi, Bei and Sui rivers, has attracted many beverage enterprises because of its excellent water quality, comprehensive food-and-beverage industry chain, and proximity to major markets in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen. China's first sports beverage, Jianlibao, and the country's first canned fruit drink, Konli Mango Juice, originated here.

Sanshui also enticed a number of international F&B brands, such as Red Bull and Yakult, to set up factories here, with some local avenues bearing their names - like Cola Road and Budweiser Road.

In 2023, the area's F&B sector generated a total output value of over 71.5 billion yuan ($9.95 billion), accounting for more than 15 percent of the district's total industrial output value.

Known as the "beverage capital of China", Sanshui has witnessed domestic beverage makers' transformation, with En-Snow being one of them.

Boasting 20 years' experience as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with extensive partnerships at home and abroad, the company, which operates 18 specialized production lines capable of producing nearly all types of beverage and manufacturing 500,000 metric tons of drinks annually, is gradually shifting toward an original design manufacturer to counter stiff competition from Indonesia and Vietnam, where labor costs are much lower, according to Qiu Ziping and Qiu Zi'an - En-Snow's production general manager and sales general manager respectively.

Highlighting the importance of originality, the Qiu brothers, whose family is at the helm of the beverage-maker, say OEM profits are razor-thin, and without transformation, "we'll be stuck at the bottom in pricing".

After two decades' development, En-Snow has amassed prowess in research and production, enabling it to deliver products within 15 days after receiving a client's order.
The canned coffee, En-Snow's flagship drink, exemplifies the company's technical edge.

Launched last year, the product is the only canned drink containing real coffee beans in the market. The manufacturer uses a patented in-can extraction technology to preserve the beans' freshness while preventing them from turning sour, helping it sell 120 million cans so far.

During this year's Dragon Boat Festival, En-Snow even made a step forward by partnering with Foshan Media Group to launch a cobranded version for that drink, featuring motifs of Lingnan cultural elements like Foshan kung fu, local delicacies, lion dances and dragon boats.

The Qiu brothers say that with China's coffee market worth over 20 billion yuan and capturing a significant share of the functional drinks sector, the coffee industry will be a key growth area in the next decade.

Make it smarter

Besides fostering originality, Sanshui is also making strides in modernizing the beverage-industry operation and building a more comprehensive ecosystem.

AS Watson Industries inaugurated its smart factory for beverages in the district in February. Spanning over 80,000 square meters, the factory — the company's largest manufacturing hub on the Chinese mainland — is expected to yield an annual production value of 1 billion yuan when fully operational.

Carlsberg Group has set up its first research and development center outside of Europe in San-shui, covering services like product development, trend analysis, flavor research, brewing techniques, packaging design and specialized testing.

Up to 60 percent of enterprises at Sanshui's Foshan Shuidu Beverage and Food Industry Park have so far completed, or are progressing, in digital transformation.

In the park, Jianlibao Group's industrial internet platform now enables real-time production, energy, and logistics monitoring, increasing production efficiency by 25 percent, reducing energy use by 3 percent, and enhancing quality traceability by 60 percent. Its fully automated Sanshui facility produces up to 2,000 cans per minute across eight lines. Budweiser's unmanned factory uses a central control room to streamline operations, and it reduced the water usage ratio — the proportion of the hectoliters of water required to make a hectoliter of a beverage - from 2.77 in 2017 to 1.68 in 2024, while generating an annual output equivalent to about 20 percent of the brand's global production.

Looking ahead, Sanshui also plans to expand artificial intelligence integration, industrial data sharing, and the adoption of photovoltaic and energy-storage systems.

Since the start of this year, the industry park has seen the signing of four major projects. The Susa Food Co's plant-based protein beverage project, with an extensive investment of 1.5 billion yuan, has begun at the park, and a project by Mission Foods Co, which invested 600 million yuan, is finished.

The Sanshui district government has played host to a diverse range of events to fuel the development of the F&B sector and local economy. The Foshan "La Liga" Football League held last year attracted 1.46 million spectators, while themed activities, such as a liquor feast, drew over 950,000 visitors, generating sales exceeding 22 million yuan.

Contact the writer at atlasshao@chinadailyhk.com