Abstract:Dingxing County in Hebei does not grow a single coffee bean, yet coffee has become a new member of its food industry cluster. Hebei Hongkun Food, rooted in Dingxing for more than a decade, runs intelligent production lines with over 30 product lines and peak daily capacity of 6 tonnes, supplying more than a thousand partners nationwide; its new “Rwanda” coffee has quickly found a market. Local government’s “chase the enterprise with services” approach is the engine behind the growth.
Green coffee beans from far away lose their raw edge in the roaster and open into a rich, full aroma. In Dingxing County, Hebei, which grows not a single coffee bean, that aroma has travelled across mountains and sea to become a new member of the county’s food industry cluster, taking root and growing vigorously in well-developed local industrial soil.
Recently in the livestream studio of Hebei Hongkun Food Co., Ltd. (Hongkun), coffee beans, drip-bag coffee, roast-and-ground coffee and instant black coffee were lined up on the display table while the host explained the roasting process and flavour of each. On the big screen, orders for the newly launched “Rwanda” coffee kept popping up. Released not long ago, it has a clean taste with layered flavour and has quickly opened a market on quality.
A host introduces product flavours in Hongkun’s livestream studio
Hongkun has been rooted in Dingxing for more than ten years. Relying on intelligent production lines, it now offers more than 30 product types with peak daily capacity of 6 tonnes, supplying more than a thousand partner businesses nationwide. As sales channels opened and demand began to outrun supply, expanding the plant, adding lines and lifting capacity became urgent. But site approval, drawing submission, construction permits and inter-departmental procedures left the company at a loss.
“We have deep experience in coffee production and R&D, in manufacturing, technology and sales, but when it comes to government processes like land approval and project filing, we are complete laymen,” says Liu Yingtao, factory head of Hebei Hongkun Food. “Who draws the construction drawings, who handles qualification approval, what materials each step needs, which department to approach and when, what order the steps run in — we knew none of it. We were afraid of delaying the build and missing the market window, so the expansion plan sat on the shelf and we dared not break ground.”
Coffee products on display in Hongkun’s livestream studio
The government saw the difficulty and took it to heart. To address the company’s unfamiliarity with approval procedures and lack of specialist liaison staff, the county assigned a professional agency service to provide round-the-clock, all-item, full-cycle, fully online and fully rated “five-all” agency service — handling drawing review, qualification filing, construction approval and follow-up, answering questions the whole way.
Dedicated service and precise support removed the company’s worries. With the agency team’s help, all approvals were completed efficiently with no sticking points and no delays: Hongkun’s new factory went from approval to groundbreaking in just 50 days. The project is now 60 percent complete, with production expected to start in March 2027 at an annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes.
“Government service here is genuinely thoughtful and efficient. With this kind of backstop, our confidence in putting down roots in Dingxing and going deeper into coffee is much stronger,” Liu says. With that confidence, the company began mining new coffee consumption formats and tourism scenes, putting the “Eight Views of Dingxing” — historic landmarks such as “Stone Pillar in the Clouds” and “Autumn Wind over the Yi River” — onto its coffee packaging. Visual beauty and taste reinforce each other, and the line was well received as soon as it launched.
“We are here to be the enterprises’ attendants and escorts, taking on every tedious government procedure and approval step,” says Liu Jingjing, deputy director of the Dingxing County Administrative Approval Bureau. “Our core goal is clear: let companies drop the burden and travel light, putting all their time and energy into production R&D, market development and quality upgrades, without spending one extra minute on approvals and procedures.”
Zhao Hui, general manager of Mena Equation Coffee Baoding, watching beans during roasting
This warm business environment of “government chasing enterprises with services, surrounding them to solve problems” has become the core code behind Dingxing’s coffee growth, attracting more coffee companies to settle, develop with confidence and focus on innovation.
Mena Equation Coffee Baoding Co., Ltd., which had spent more than twenty years in the coffee business in Beijing, needed a new production base as its market and capacity needs grew. “It is less than 100 km from Beijing, right next to the core Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei consumer market — the location advantage is unique,” says general manager Zhao Hui. The well-connected transport network was a major reason for choosing Dingxing, and the high-quality, warm business environment was the accelerator that sealed the move and its stable development.
Since settling in, Mena Equation has enjoyed full-chain service and has not had to spend energy on administrative chores, focusing entirely on technological innovation and product upgrading, and going deeper into fine roasting and specialty R&D. “Traditional coffee roasting relies heavily on human experience, so quality can drift. Our equipment is fitted with Siemens and ABB AI and big-data hardware that monitors and precisely controls roasting temperature, time and heat in real time, locking in the craft and optimal flavour parameters that used to take roasters years to accumulate, and reproducing the best roast consistently so that every batch tastes and smells the same,” Zhao says, pointing to the intelligent displays showing live temperature, time and roast parameters.
Focus on innovation and the specialty track has paid off. In July, at the IIAC International Coffee Tasting Competition — known as the Oscars of coffee — Mena Equation’s “Dou Shu Orchid Huacai” won 2026 IIAC Golden Bean, the second time the company has taken the title after “Vincent’s Sunflower” last year. Mena Equation now sells 400 tonnes of specialty coffee a year, with quality among the industry’s best, breaking the old assumption that “there is no specialty coffee in the north and the coffee industry does not cross the Yellow River”, and taking specialty coffee from a small northern county to the whole country.
Zhao Hui checks roast status on the production floor
As one of Hebei’s 107 characteristic industry clusters, Dingxing’s snack food cluster follows a path of chain development, cluster empowerment, quality branding and safety-first production. It has gathered 335 food and upstream/downstream companies with 2025 output value of RMB 14 billion, and has won honours including national pilot area for regional brand building in the snack food industry, Hebei snack food county and Hebei strong food industry county. That mature industrial base has let coffee, the newest member, grow across boundaries.
To date, Dingxing’s annual coffee roasting capacity exceeds 5,000 tonnes, with products reaching major chain coffee brands and supermarket channels across China and exported to many countries and regions. A hundred-million-yuan characteristic coffee industry has taken shape, realising the industrial marvel of “specialty coffee without beans, big business in a small town”. Riding the coffee “traffic”, the atmosphere has thickened: latte-art competitions and coffee industry creative contests have been held, while talent training, technical exchange and brand promotion advance together, steadily raising the industry’s soft power.
“Dingxing’s coffee industry is now in a fast-growth phase of leading-enterprise drive, accelerated clustering and iterative upgrading, with strong momentum and broad prospects,” says Zhao Liang, deputy director of the Hebei Dingxing Jintai Economic Development Zone Management Committee. Dingxing will keep deepening its coffee track, improving the full chain from raw-material processing, intelligent roasting and new product R&D to e-commerce sales, tourism experiences and brand operation, and actively absorb quality resources spilling over from Beijing’s coffee innovation and supply chains, so the aroma travels further and the industry shines brighter. (Text and photos by Liang Jie)
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