The significant growth trend of puffed leisure snacks drives the increasing demand for puffing machinery.

According to online information, in 2014, Wanda Cinemas' merchandise sales revenue, including popcorn, was approximately 631 million yuan, with a gross profit margin as high as 68.85%; although box office revenue reached 4.105 billion yuan, its gross profit margin was only 19.58%.Last year, Wanda Group once announced on its website that Wanda Cinemas' revenue from popcorn alone reached 390 million yuan in 2013, accounting for 72% of total concession revenue, ranking first among national cinema chains.If the proportion remains unchanged, Wanda Cinemas' revenue from popcorn alone last year reached 450 million yuan.From Wanda's popcorn revenue of 450 million yuan, it is not difficult to see that consumers have great potential for spending on leisure and entertainment food.In addition, a study released by the China National Food Industry Association at the end of 2014, titled 'Research on the Development Status and Trends of Traditional Chinese Specialty Snack Foods (2014),' shows that snack foods have become a new favorite in people's daily food consumption.From 2004 to 2014, the annual output value of the national snack food industry increased from 193.138 billion yuan to 905.018 billion yuan, with a net increase of 711.880 billion yuan over the decade, and an average annual compound growth rate of 16.70%.

It is predicted that in the next five years, China's snack food industry will continue to maintain a growth trend, reaching 1,992.528 billion yuan by 2019. As for the demand for food processing equipment, the improvement of people's living standards has greatly stimulated China's snack food market. In the coming years, the snack food industry will usher in a golden period of rapid development. These market development information provide rare market opportunities for China's food processing machinery. For example, food drying equipment, frying machines, pastry equipment, baking equipment, food packaging machinery, puffed food machinery, food puffing machines, etc., will all see demand from snack food enterprises.

First, the demand for vacuum packaging machines has significantly increased. The packaging of snack foods often involves small individual vacuum packs, which are convenient to carry, easy to eat, and hygienic. Moreover, these foods are usually processed with broth, which imposes higher requirements on packaging machinery. If the packaging machinery technology is inadequate, juicy snacks like small fish and dried tofu can easily break through the packaging, causing unnecessary trouble for businesses and merchants.

Secondly, the demand for food drying equipment is also considerable. Freeze-drying and vacuum drying technologies in food drying equipment are widely used in the processing of dried fruits and vegetables. In the past, people bought fresh fruits from fruit stalls, but these are not easy to preserve. Nowadays, snack shops generally have individually packaged dried strawberries, dried pineapples, and other dried fruits and vegetables, which are delicious and convenient to carry and store. Moreover, dried fruits and vegetables produced through freeze-drying and vacuum drying technologies can better preserve the nutritional content of the fruits. Additionally, there are frying equipment, pastry equipment, baking equipment, puffing equipment, etc., which I will not list one by one here. Snack foods are a major category of food, including various types of snacks, with pastries being one of them. The overall market for snack foods in China is developing well, with a clear growth trend, which naturally drives the demand for related food processing equipment to also become robust.

However, from the current technological development of domestic food processing equipment, there is still a certain gap to meet the current food market demand, forcing some domestic food companies to choose foreign processing equipment with better technology. In my opinion, this is very regrettable. Therefore, China's food processing equipment enterprises should increase product technology development, strive to narrow the gap with developed countries, and strive to gain more market share.