An emerging industry

With the emergence of a fast food industry in the 1990s, the Chinese government included it in the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1991-1995) in 1994. In 1996, the government issued Fast Food Development Guidelines, defining "fast food" as delicious and nutritious food that could be delivered in a short period of time.

The guidelines set an annual growth rate target of five percent for the national fast food industry during the 1996-2000 period, with expectations that this sector could contribute 25 percent of restaurant industry revenues by the year 2000.

Stimulated by this national policy and a growing market for fast food, homegrown chains began to spring up during this decade. Many set their sights high, trying to compete with the foreign fast food giants, but most ended in failure.

Ronghua Chicken, the first Chinese fast food chain, was one of them. The chain was launched in December 1991 by the Shanghai Xinya (Group) Co Ltd two years after KFC opened its first Shanghai store.

Prior to establishing Ronghua, its president, Jiang Wei, visited a local KFC to take stock of how fried chicken products were made. He then developed the Ronghua Chicken and designed a fast food package of chicken, fried rice, borscht and salted vegetables with green soybeans.

From the beginning, the chain competed with KFC, with the slogan: "Wherever there is KFC, there is Ronghua".