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Shengzhou, a county-level city in Shaoxing, will see the addition of 13 new frozen small steamed bun production companies, with two new businesses already completing registration this year, according to Pan Rugang, director of the food production department of the Shengzhou Market Supervision Bureau, on Feb 18.

From scattered street stalls and small family-run businesses, the small steamed bun industry has grown into a wealthy industry worth 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) a year and providing employment for over 80,000 people.

Workers on the assembly line of Yuxian Food Co in the Jintiande E-commerce Industrial Park are busy making small steamed buns, including making the dough, putting the filling in, and steaming,

"Our monthly salary is over 5,000 yuan," says worker Wang Haijiang. Working close to home is not only convenient, but also pays well.

"We produce nearly 500,000 small steamed buns a day," says Zhang Gang, general manager of the company. Since entering the industrial park, online orders have been booming, with over 3,000 parcels being sent to all parts of the country every day.

Shengzhou authorities have been unifying the signs, production processes, clothing and tools of snack shops and promoting the use of the Shengzhou snack standard language system to upgrade roadside shops with modern enterprise management techniques.

To date, 3,512 stores meet unified standards, and the upgraded stores have seen an average increase of over 20 percent in business compared to the previous year.

Over 30,000 Shengzhou snack shops are scattered throughout the country. Authorities in Shengzhou have organized 197 training sessions, training over 10,000 snack technicians and professionals and recommending over 8,900 people for employment.