The Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province recently organized a review and identification process for provincial-level clusters, strong counties, and strong towns with distinctive local features and advantages in the food industry. Seven clusters, including the Dong'e County Ejiao characteristic advantageous food industry cluster, were selected, along with 13 strong counties such as Sishui County which has a characteristic advantageous leisure food industry, and 26 strong towns including Da'an Town in Yanzhou District, Jining City, known for a characteristic advantageous food industry based on its strength in grain and oil deep processing. Additionally, 199 products were included in the 2024 Shandong directory of high-quality characteristic foods.
Selected clusters, strong counties and towns need to continuously improve and upgrade the public service system, increase technological transformation and R&D efforts, and continue to improve the level of industrial digitization and intelligentization. Meanwhile, it is also necessary to fully implement the responsibility of local departments and the major role of enterprises in food safety, safety production and environmental protection, actively build a green manufacturing system, and promote the high-quality development of the food industry.