Qinghai hand-pulled noodles have begun to undergo "de-Lanzhouization".

According to Xihai Metropolis Daily, the Market Regulation Administration of Qinghai Province has recently formulated and released three local standards, namely the *Quality Guidelines for Qinghai Lamian*, the *Specifications for Qinghai Lamian Event Activities*, and the *Guidelines for the Cultivation and Construction of Qinghai Lamian Regional Brand*, marking that the Qinghai Lamian industry has stepped into a new stage of standardized development.

Among them, the *Quality Guidelines for Qinghai Lamian* focuses on the access and exit links, clarifying "what Qinghai Lamian is" and "what kind of quality can be regarded as Qinghai Lamian" to set the bottom line for quality. The *Guidelines for the Cultivation and Construction of Qinghai Lamian Regional Brand* solves the problems of how to build and manage the brand, standardizes the whole chain from brand cultivation to protection and management, so that Qinghai Lamian can be supported by clear brand rules and available standards. The *Specifications for Qinghai Lamian Event Activities* points out the direction for brand promotion, taking event activities as the platform to make the brand promotion of Qinghai Lamian standardized, path-supported and carrier-based.

A western province has spent nearly 40 years opening more than 30,000 catering stores in over 330 cities across the country, with 203,000 employees and an annual revenue of over 24 billion yuan. However, the signboard of this industry has always been printed with other people's names. This is the awkward situation of Qinghai Lamian.

In the 1980s, farmers from Hualong, Xunhua and other areas in Haidong City, Qinghai Province went out to make a living, and used the reputation of Lanzhou beef noodles to put up the signboard of "Lanzhou Lamian". Relying on the mode of "relatives helping relatives, neighbors helping neighbors", it kept expanding its influence, and was known as the "three giants of national fast food" together with Shaxian Snacks and Braised Chicken Rice with Brown Sauce.

But what is borrowed must be returned after all. As Lanzhou beef noodles spread out of Gansu, the saying that "there is no Lanzhou Lamian in Lanzhou" also made the Lanzhou Lamian that actually originated in Qinghai and Lanzhou beef noodles inevitably fall into the "authenticity" dispute. As early as 2018, Gansu Province issued the *Opinions on Promoting the Development of Lanzhou Beef Noodles Industry*, proposing to vigorously implement the brand strategy and continuously expand the Lanzhou beef noodles brand cluster.

Qinghai also wants to "establish its own independent brand". Also in 2018, it launched the "Qinghai Lamian" regional public brand strategy, promoting the industry to turn to the stage of clustered development. In the same period, the *Implementation Plan of Haidong City for Accelerating the Brand Construction of Lamian Economy* was issued to support and cultivate leading enterprises of the "Qinghai Lamian" brand.

At present, this signboard that has been used for nearly 40 years is being replaced in batches. Not long ago, 72 Lamian restaurants in Tianjin were renamed "Qinghai Lamian" uniformly, and implemented the "three-store-in-one" transformation, that is, the integration of Lamian operation, local specialty exhibition and sales, and cultural tourism display, realizing the transformation from a single catering format to a composite business format. According to local industry insiders, more store renovations are planned to be completed through bidding within Qinghai Province this year.

In order to avoid the uneven taste of stores in different regions and the difficulty of forming a unified brand recognition, Qinghai also specially learned experience from Guangxi: it held a special meeting on the standardization of Qinghai Lamian, focused on the actual development of the Qinghai Lamian industry, analyzed the successful experience of Guangxi in using standardized technical means to help the development of Liuzhou Luosifen industry, and discussed the standard formulation needs of each link of the industrial chain.

The three local standards successively released by Qinghai this time are precisely to achieve comprehensive upgrading in quality control, brand premium, market promotion and other aspects. It not only aims to give Qinghai Lamian a unified quality scale, but also promotes the industry to transform from "extensive development" to "standardized development" through the "standard first" mode, helping it upgrade from a "local snack" to a "regional public brand with national influence".

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Evolution Theory", written by Yang Huan, and authorized for release by 36Kr.