Francoise SABBAN (EHESS-Paris)

With the beginning of the Reform and Opening Period, at the end of 1978, the different food sectors began to be revived, foremost among, them the food industry which had been developing very slowly after 1949. While in fact, the awareness of the importance of the food industry for a developed society had only gradually emerged, a number of high officials in the Chinese Communist Party quickly understood its relevance. By 1981, the issue of the food industry was openly addressed in an editorial in the People's Daily on October 18. It announced the directives of the Central Committee and the State Council on the need to develop a Chinese food industry worthy of the name. A National Association of Food Industries had been created in the spring and a first draft of a development program had been presented to its members at its meeting in October. It would serve as a framework for a profound evolution of minds in terms of food, both daily and festive.