Walking on Huaihai Road, you’ll find countless cafes and bakeries that are always filled with the tantalizing aroma of cream. Shanghai Harbin Food Factory is one example of these Shanghai-style pastry houses that never fail to attract customers to stop by.

Shanghai Harbin Food Factory, namely Shanghai Harbin Food Factory Co., Ltd. ever since its restructuring in 2016, has long been dedicated to satisfying the discerning tastes of Shanghainese about pastries. One of the most popular products presented by the company is Hadou, a Shanghai-style chocolate Éclair. As a well-loved dessert in Shanghai, Hadou even made a strong impression on the then U.S. President Richard Nixon visiting China in February 1972.

During President Nixon’s visit to Shanghai, China and U.S. issued the first joint communiqué, known as the "Shanghai Communiqué". A batch of Shanghai specialties including creamy pineapple-filled chocolates, creamed walnut chocolates, coconut-filled sweets, and peanut pastry sweets were prepared by Shanghai Harbin Food Factory to entertain President Nixon and his party. Nixon complimented all those wine-filled chocolates and exquisite pastries, as well as Hadou, the favorite of many local residents in Shanghai."Compared to traditional Chinese pastries which are harder in taste and larger in size, Hadou is moderate in size and relatively soft," said Chen Yifeng, general manager of Shanghai Harbin Food Factory, in an interview with a reporter from Eastday.com recently.

　　Shanghai Harbin Food Factory in the 1970s and 1980s （Photo: Shanghai Harbin Food Factory）

People’s love for Hadou can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s. Back then in Shanghai, daily necessities or consumer goods were so scarce that it would be a grand pleasure to have a creamy pastry for the ordinary citizens. With the mixture of inner layer of white and delicate butter, crisp and hard puff pastry in the middle, and the outermost chocolate hard shell, it encapsulated all the longings for sweets and pastries. In terms of taste, the sweetness of the outer layer, the toughness of the middle layer, and the smoothness of the inner layer are subtly blended. It is also known that the Eclair produced by Shanghai Harbin Food Factory is the typical Shanghai-style. The crispy choux dough is covered with a layer of imported chocolate sauce, and the filling is made from New Zealand butter through a special process to create a thick creamy taste.

　　（Photo:Shanghai Harbin Food Factory）

Many may wonder why the Shanghai time-honored brand is named after "Harbin"? Started in 1936, the Shanghai Harbin Food Factory with its original name "Fuli Bakery Factory", was famous for making Russian-style pastries and carried the memories of Shanghainese for many generations. The owner Yang Guanlin from Shandong Province used to make bread in Harbin, the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, and Vladivostok, Russia, when he was young. After Yang came to Shanghai, he used his bakery skills and hired famous bakers to make Russian-style bread, cakes and biscuits. After he renamed his factory the "Harbin Food Factory" and gradually merged Shanghai-style with Russian-style pastries, creating various kinds of pastries with Shanghai tastes.

In recent years, many domestic and foreign pastry brands have been established in Shanghai, and the market has become more competitive than ever. Although the Shanghai Harbin Food Factory has a long history and a good reputation, it is also faced great challenges. Therefore, even the star products from the past have been improved quite a bit today. According to Chen Yifeng, the Shanghai Harbin Food Factory has followed a process of "improved inheritance" for the products. For example, margarine, once widely used in many products, has been replaced by New Zealand cream to further improve the quality and taste of the products. Through research and feedback on the consumer market, the sugar content of all products has been reduced by 10% year by year. In addition, through the "May 5th Shopping Festival", crossover new products of intangible cultural heritage, and live broadcasts on the Douyin platform, the Shanghai Harbin Food Factory has turned crisis into opportunity by embracing a new economic model and rejuvenating both its brand and product quality.

From being a "China’s Time-honored Brand" enterprise recognized by the Ministry of Domestic Trade to being among the first batch of "Shanghai Time-honored Brand" enterprises, today's Shanghai Harbin Food Factory is glowing with ever increasing vitality.