Chongqing Flavors Find Their “International Face”: China-Singapore Design Collaboration Empowers “Xiangliao” Brand’s Global Expansion, Creating an International Packaging for Chongqing Noodle Sauce

Editor’s Note: Chongqing noodle sauce brand “Xiangliao” has completed the initial draft of its international packaging design in collaboration with Singapore’s Pinch Design. The project blends Bayu culture with global aesthetics, focusing on visual enhancement, functional adaptation, and social communication, empowering the brand to expand into Southeast Asian and European markets.

CHONGQING, March 30 (CNS) — China News Service reporter Liu Xinyu learned from the Singapore Design Council’s Chongqing Representative Office that, facilitated by the office, the international packaging design collaboration between Chongqing noodle sauce brand “Xiangliao” and Singapore-based design firm Pinch Design has completed its initial draft and entered the prototyping stage. By leveraging Singapore’s international design expertise, the brand is crafting an “international face” for Chongqing flavors, enhancing product competitiveness through design innovation and empowering its global expansion into international markets.

Xu Fei, General Manager of Chongqing Xiangliao Brand Management Co., Ltd. and founder of the “Xiangliao” brand, told CNS reporters that the brand’s overseas business currently operates through two primary channels. The first is direct exports to Southeast Asian markets and European foodservice businesses, which currently generate several million yuan annually and maintain rapid growth. The second is overseas consumers purchasing directly through the brand’s e-commerce platforms, and the brand is accelerating its expansion into cross-border e-commerce and related foreign trade operations.

“The international perspective of the Singapore design firm and its understanding of the Southeast Asian market are precisely what our brand urgently needs for going global,” Xu Fei said. Although the brand has its own excellent local design team in Chongqing, it chose to collaborate with a higher-cost Singapore design firm primarily for its “overseas market consulting capabilities, insights, and research capabilities.” Through this collaboration, Xu hopes to align the product packaging with the visual aesthetics, brand perception, and consumer habits of overseas markets represented by Singapore, while maintaining core product strengths such as authentic Chongqing flavor, ease of use, and adaptability across various scenarios, ultimately helping the world fall in love with Chongqing flavors.

According to Xu Fei, the collaboration with Singapore’s Pinch Design began with online communication in late 2025. The Singapore design team not only conducted dedicated overseas market research for the brand but also purchased “Xiangliao” Chongqing noodle sauce products through various overseas channels in Singapore to experience the actual overseas consumer journey, broadening their approach to enhancing the product’s international image.

In March 2026, three designers from the Singapore team traveled specifically to Chongqing to visit time-honored noodle establishments and community noodle shops. They documented the flavor characteristics, production processes, consumption scenarios, and shop owner stories of Chongqing noodles, uncovering the local culture and design heritage to gather authentic material for the packaging design. This effort aimed to seamlessly integrate local Bayu elements with Singapore’s international design aesthetics.

“Through field research and multiple rounds of discussions, we adopted a design concept centered on internationalization, digitalization, industrialization, and a premium feel. We aim to break away from the original regional image of Chongqing noodle sauce and build a high-quality product packaging system that combines cultural richness with modern aesthetics, adapting to global consumption trends,” Leeyau Chun Chuan, Senior Brand and Design Consultant at Pinch Design and Honorary Treasurer of the Singapore Design Council, told reporters. He noted that the team focuses on core areas such as visual design and functional adaptation to enhance aesthetics, meet convenience needs, and ensure social media appeal. Through design innovation, they aim to translate Chongqing’s authentic flavors into a brand story easily understood by international markets.

As a key platform for international exchange in the design sector under Chongqing’s “City of Design” initiative and the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Strategic Connectivity Demonstration Project, the Singapore Design Council’s Chongqing Representative Office was officially inaugurated in December 2025. Located in the Chongqing Industrial Design Headquarters Base, it is currently the council’s only representative office in China.

Chongqing Industrial Design Headquarters Base. Photo by Liu Xinyu

“Good design should lead to good business,” Li Xiaomeng, Chief Representative of the Singapore Design Council’s Chongqing Representative Office, told reporters. He emphasized that Chongqing, as a significant manufacturing base in China, provides a solid foundation for transforming Singapore’s design concepts from blueprints into tangible products. The design journey of a single packet of sauce reflects a new trend of deep integration between Chongqing’s manufacturing sector and high-end productive services from Singapore, jointly exploring regional markets.

Reporters learned that the “Xiangliao” brand and Singapore’s Pinch Design will also jointly participate in the upcoming Chongqing Food Packaging Design Competition. Simultaneously, the designed products will be displayed in supermarkets and other retail locations in Singapore and elsewhere, achieving the dual goals of brand exposure and market testing, thereby completing a closed loop from design to competition to market.

An official from the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology explained that the 2026 Chongqing Food Packaging Design Competition, as a key event in advancing the quality construction of Chongqing’s “City of Design,” will integrate top-tier international resources to create a global platform for project incubation and results transformation. It aims to drive design innovation from concept to practice, fostering a virtuous cycle where “design empowers industry and industry supports design.” In the future, Chongqing will promote the internationalization and upgrading of more specialty food brands, using design innovation to empower Chongqing brands as they expand into global markets.

Source: China News Service
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