With a cup of mellow coffee, you can dispel the chill in winter, connect 9 urban areas in the Yangtze River Delta region, and experience the beautiful life of "a cup of coffee, multi-city life". On December 28, the award ceremony of the first Yangtze River Delta C9 Alliance Coffee Competition in 2023 was held in Shanghai Cultural Square. This is not only a showdown of baristas in the Yangtze River Delta, but also an innovative attempt to deepen the co-construction of high-quality consumption urban areas and deepen the coordinated development of regional economy with "coffee culture".
Founded in 2021, the Yangtze River Delta C9 Alliance is a high-quality development alliance of major cities in the Yangtze River Delta jointly established by Huangpu District as the leader and the central urban areas of the Yangtze River Delta trillion-level GDP cities. Among them, "C" represents the leading position of the core location, economic level, cultural development and resource agglomeration of the central urban area, and "9" represents the nine high-level member districts of the alliance - Huangpu District of Shanghai, Shangcheng District of Hangzhou, Gulou District of Nanjing, Yinzhou District of Ningbo City, Gusu District of Suzhou City, Luyang District of Hefei City, Shushan District of Hefei City, Liangxi District of Wuxi City, and Chongchuan District of Nantong City. With 0.5% of the Yangtze River Delta's geographical area, the alliance gathers 4% of the permanent population and contributes 5.9% of GDP, making it a core area with high economic and cultural development.
The reporter learned that the scope of the first coffee competition covers the entire Yangtze River Delta C9 Alliance region. Since its launch on November 18, a series of exciting activities have been carried out through online and offline linkage. Online, coffee stores, coffee industry professionals, and ordinary coffee lovers of the Yangtze River Delta C9 Alliance learned about coffee culture through the H5 mini program of the competition, posted coffee stories, and met friends with "coffee". In terms of offline, the pre-warm-up competition of the coffee competition went out of Shanghai and was held in the C9 alliance city one after another, and the organizer also provided three Yunnan Pu'er coffee beans to make limited edition Yunnan special coffee for the participating stores.
Yesterday, after more than a month of touring exchange competitions, the contestants from the C9 Alliance of the Yangtze River Delta finally met in Shanghai to participate in the finals of hand-poured coffee and coffee latte art. Although the winter is strong, the "fighting" atmosphere of the coffee competition makes the atmosphere on the field hot. The contestants have come up with their own "unique skills" and launched a fragrant battle for the top. It is worth mentioning that the designated beans for the competition are also from Yunnan Pu'er, which is supported by the counterpart in Huangpu District, and is a high-standard coffee bean of this year's Yunnan award-winning competition, helping Pu'er special agricultural products to go out of the mountain.
Behind the competition in full swing is the prosperity and growth of the coffee industry in the C9 central urban area of the Yangtze River Delta, which is becoming an important part and catalyst for the high-quality economic development of the Yangtze River Delta, creating a new chapter in coffee consumption. On the same day, the research team from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences released two white papers, "Report on the Development of Coffee Consumption Market in the C9 Central City of the Yangtze River Delta" and "Coffee and Huangpu: Exploring the Story Behind a Cup of Coffee", providing insight into how a cup of coffee can drive high-quality growth of regional and urban economies.
According to the "Yangtze River Delta C9 Central City Coffee Consumption Market Development Report", the scale of the freshly made coffee market in the C9 central urban area of the Yangtze River Delta has reached 3.752 billion yuan (as of the end of 2022), of which Hangzhou Shangcheng ranks first, followed by Shanghai Huangpu, and the scale of the ready-made coffee market is more than 600 million yuan. From the perspective of the total number, distribution and growth of coffee stores, as of the end of November 2023, the total number of coffee stores in the central urban area of C9 in the Yangtze River Delta reached 3,990, accounting for 16.10% of the total number of coffee stores in the cities to which each district of C9 belongs. Among them, Shanghai Huangpu coffee stores are the most densely distributed, with 24.81 coffee stores per square kilometer. In addition, the per capita consumption of freshly made coffee in the C9 central urban area of the Yangtze River Delta in 2022 will be 16.44 cups, which is 2.89 times the national average.
On the whole, many indicators of the development of the coffee consumption market in the central urban area of the Yangtze River Delta C9 are higher than the national average, not only the scale of users is huge, but also there is a mature intergenerational inheritance and user fission model. Coffee categories, coffee consumption formats and scenarios are the best in the country, and the market advantage is outstanding; Coffee consumption business model innovation is at the forefront of the industry with great potential, and is leading the new development of coffee consumption innovation in the country and even the world.
As the organizer of the first Yangtze River Delta C9 Coffee Competition, Huangpu has gathered many specialty coffee shops, and "turning the corner is my coffee life" has become a way of life. According to the white paper "Coffee and Huangpu: Exploring the Story Behind a Cup of Coffee", the integration of coffee and Huangpu is not only limited to different styles of cafes, but also runs through the daily life of Huangpu people. As of November 2023, the total number of coffee shops in Huangpu District has reached 509, accounting for 5.97% of Shanghai's total, and the current scale of coffee consumers exceeds 400,000, accounting for 78.87% of the permanent population.
The characteristics of Huangpu in the development of the coffee consumption market have been presented: in Huangpu District, coffee is entering the city's economic and social life in an all-round way, and the integration and development of coffee and commerce, fashion and art, and neighborhood urban areas are accelerating. The coffee development in Huangpu District not only adds new impetus to the regional economy, but also contributes a unique cultural charm to the development of Shanghai, giving the city more modern connotations.
With a cup of coffee, deepen the exchanges between the urban areas of the Yangtze River Delta, present the different urban "fireworks" of the Yangtze River Delta, and better promote the joint development of "urban coffee culture" and "regional industrial clusters". The organizers said that in the future, they hope to deepen the interaction and exchanges between the regions of the Yangtze River Delta C9 Alliance through the normalized competition exchanges in the future, further break down administrative barriers, give full play to comparative advantages, and strengthen coordinated development, so that the elements can flow smoothly in a wider range and gather a stronger development synergy.