I. The Most Underestimated Fact: Xinjiang's Food Industry Runs on Tomato Paste

Before discussing Xinjiang's food industry, one thing must be stated plainly: most people's image of Xinjiang food stops at raisins, walnuts, and red dates — yet the actual industrial scale of Xinjiang's food manufacturing is carried by tomato paste.

The numbers speak clearly. In 2023, Xinjiang accounted for more than 80% of China's processing tomato cultivation area and processed over 6 million tons of tomatoes for the full year. The resulting tomato paste represents approximately 15% of global production. This is a figure rarely highlighted in domestic media: China is the world's second-largest tomato paste exporter, and a substantial share of those exports originates from processing lines across the Tianshan corridor. Only with this number in view does Xinjiang's food manufacturing scale come into proper proportion.

This dominance was not accidental. Xinjiang's distinctive combination of long sunshine hours and large diurnal temperature swings produces processing tomatoes with higher sugar content and soluble solids than other growing regions in China — characteristics well-suited to high-concentration industrial tomato paste. Agricultural endowment, land scale, and irrigation infrastructure together made tomato processing the largest single-product cluster in Xinjiang's food industry.

II. Tomato Paste Leadership: Three Listed Companies, Three Different Paths

Xinjiang's tomato paste sector is relatively concentrated, with three publicly listed enterprises holding the top positions.

COFCO Tunhe is the largest. The tomato operations under COFCO Sugar Holdings (ticker 600737) produced 299,400 tonnes of tomato paste in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 17.56%; output reached 341,400 tonnes in 2024, setting historical highs across major operating metrics. COFCO Tunhe's advantages lie in its state-enterprise financial backing and global sales network, with European food processors and fast-food chains as key accounts.

Xinjiang Guannong ranks second by volume, focused on canned tomatoes and paste exports. In 2023, Guannong's tomato product revenue reached approximately 2.221 billion yuan, surging 110.74% year-on-year — the fastest growth among the three.

Zhongjian Health (formerly Xinjuji) operates nine factories and produced 173,600 tonnes of bulk tomato paste in 2024, up 49.78% year-on-year. As the smallest of the three by market share, Zhongjian straddles both chemical and food processing operations, facing greater cost pressure on its core business.

All three share a common structural weakness: heavy reliance on bulk commodity exports, with limited presence in consumer-facing products such as retail-packaged ketchup, tomato juice, or tomato powder. Bulk paste margins are constrained by international commodity pricing, and pricing power is limited when European or U.S. competitors expand capacity. Changji, Kuytun, and Korla are the three most concentrated zones for tomato processing plants, with proximity to growing bases directly determining raw material logistics costs.

III. Dried Fruits and Nuts: Strong Raw Materials, Weak Processing

The second track in Xinjiang's food manufacturing is dried fruit and nut processing — red dates, raisins, walnuts, and almonds.

The raw material story is compelling. Xinjiang is China's largest red date producing region; Ruoqiang dates are prized for their thin skin, thick flesh, and high sugar content. Turpan seedless white raisins are a historic Silk Road commodity — in 2023 they were listed under the China-EU Geographical Indications Agreement for protection. In 2023, Xinjiang produced approximately 12.49 million tonnes of orchard fruit and 1.45 million tonnes of nuts; total fruit exports reached roughly 200,000 tonnes valued at around 2 billion yuan, nearly doubling from 2022.

But "strong raw materials, weak processing" is the honest description of this track. The majority of Xinjiang red dates and raisins still circulate as raw or minimally graded packaged commodities. Value-added processing — date polysaccharide extraction, dried fruit baking ingredients, raisin-nut snack blends — has limited production capacity and brand presence in the region. Processing enterprises in Hotan, Turpan, and Aksu tend to be small in scale, lacking the capability to build proprietary consumer brands through national snack retail channels. Raw materials flow into wholesale markets in Yiwu or Guangzhou, get relabeled under inland brands, and sold onward — a structural phenomenon common across Xinjiang's agricultural processing sector, and one that cannot be resolved quickly.

IV. Dairy: Xiyuchun Expanding, Maiqurui Recovering

Xinjiang's dairy processing is the third substantive food manufacturing track. In 2023, the region produced approximately 880,000 tonnes of dairy products, predominantly liquid milk.

Xiyuchun Dairy holds the largest local market share — as of end-2022, its products accounted for over 40% of Xinjiang dairy shelf volume. In the first three quarters of 2023, Xiyuchun produced nearly 100,000 tonnes of dairy products with output value of approximately 850 million yuan, and has initiated IPO preparation work. Its strength lies in local channel depth and cold chain coverage; its limitation is national competitiveness — Yili and Mengniu already have substantial Xinjiang penetration, and Xiyuchun's home-market position depends on local loyalty rather than cost or product advantages that would translate beyond the region.

Maiqurui's situation is more complicated. In 2022, the company faced a serious trust crisis following a propylene glycol exceedance incident in its dairy products; 2023 dairy revenue fell 50.51% year-on-year to approximately 272 million yuan. Post-food-safety-incident recovery typically requires years, and Maiqurui remains in that process.

The region hosts 74 dairy processing enterprises with a designed daily processing capacity of 6,600 tonnes, against actual daily throughput of around 2,080 tonnes — a utilization gap indicating more significant structural oversupply than commonly recognized.

V. Beet Sugar: An Underreported Segment with Meaningful Scale

Xinjiang is one of China's most important sugar beet producing regions, yet beet sugar processing is almost absent from media coverage. In the 2023/24 crushing season, Xinjiang processed approximately 4.08 million tonnes of sugar beets, yielding roughly 468,000 tonnes of beet sugar. The Aksu and Yanqi Basin areas are the primary cultivation zones; Yanqi County has developed an early-stage full industrial chain in sugar production.

Beet sugar faces similar structural issues to tomato paste: virtually no consumer-facing brands, with output flowing almost entirely as bulk industrial sugar into the food processing supply chain. End-consumers have no awareness of origin. Sugar prices are subject to international market fluctuation, and local processors hold limited pricing power.

VI. The Shared Logic of Supply Chain Gaps

Across all three major categories, Xinjiang's food manufacturing exhibits a common structural fracture: the segment from raw material to bulk industrial commodity is solid; the segment from bulk industrial commodity to consumer product barely exists. Tomato paste is sold to overseas food processors; red dates and raisins are sold to inland traders; dairy is confined to the local market; beet sugar feeds the industrial sugar chain. In every category, consumer-side value capture does not stay in Xinjiang.

This is not simply a branding problem — it also involves supply chain infrastructure: cold chain coverage rates, mechanization levels in processing, e-commerce operational capability, and quality systems meeting international certification standards. These factors remain at varying degrees of gap in Xinjiang. The autonomous region's 2025–2027 three-year action plan for agricultural processing industry high-quality development explicitly targets increasing the proportion of deep-processed products — the strategic direction is sound, but translating it into outcomes requires time.

Sales teams supplying upstream to Xinjiang tomato paste producers, dried-fruit processors, or dairy manufacturers can use Tianxia Gongchang to filter factory directories and decision-maker contacts by region and sub-category, reaching the procurement side of the food manufacturing sector directly.

Xinjiang food manufacturing's competitive foundation is its rare and potent agricultural endowments. The real transformation question is whether it can build credible steps from those endowments toward consumer-facing products. That question has no certain answer yet — only a handful of categories, in a handful of companies, show developments worth watching.

Sources

  • Tianxia Gongchang (Xinjiang food manufacturing factory directory and industry data)
  • COFCO Sugar Holdings Co., Ltd. 2024 Annual Report (Shanghai Stock Exchange, April 2025)
  • Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region 2023 National Economic and Social Development Statistical Bulletin (Xinjiang Government, April 2024)
  • Xinjiang Forestry and Grassland Bureau: Xinjiang Fruit Exports Hit Record High in 2024 (January 2025)
  • Xinjiang Dairy Industry: Advancing Toward 30 Billion Yuan Full Industry Chain Output (Xinjiang Government, October 2024)
  • Tianshan Net: Full Supply Chain Drive for Xinjiang Dairy Products (November 2023)
  • Foodaily: How to Break the Tomato Industry Cycle (2024)
  • People's Daily Overseas Edition: Changji Tomato Industry Chain Report (September 2024)
  • Three-Year Action Plan for High-Quality Development of Agricultural Product Processing Industry (2025–2027), Xinjiang Agriculture and Rural Affairs Department (2025)