Customers wait in line at a Bao's Pastry outlet in Beijing in March.

Bakers prepare products at a Bao's Pastry outlet in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, in February.

If it's 3 pm on a weekday, then you will find Chen Xinxin, a Beijing-based human resources manager and self-acclaimed pastry aficionado, gorging on a tennis ball-shaped cake from Bao's Pastry — a Chinese chain bakery. That's one of the guilty pleasures she allows herself.

"Every ingredient of this item -from the crunchy pork floss and seaweed crumbs, the cake base and a decadent layer of salad dressing that glues everything together -hits the right note," the 32-year-old said. "Even its size is just right for an afternoon snack, enough to satisfy my craving while not killing my appetite for dinner later."

This mini cake apart, Chen buys a variety of other baked goods and snacks from Bao's Pastry.

"I made my first purchase about six years ago when I first started working in Beijing, and am still a loyal customer," she said.

But it was not until July when Chen discovered that Bao's Pastry was founded in Zixi, a mountainous county surrounded by dense forests, in Jiangxi province. She got to know of it when she came across an online video promoting the county on the microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

"It's hard to imagine that a remote county where people's staple food is rice has now been crowned 'the land of bakeries' in China," she said. "Little is known about this place."

Chen is not the first person to be surprised at Zixi's knack for making pastries. The remote county is gaining nationwide attention for its bakery franchises, with people from Zixi opening branches across China and local authorities making dedicated efforts to help bakery brands from Zixi build modern bakeries.

Around 40,000 people from Zixi, which has a total population of around 130,000, work in the bakery industry, said Cai Qing, vice-mayor of Jiangxi's Fuzhou city, which administers Zixi.

"They have opened about 16,000 bread or pastry stores in more than 1,000 cities across the county, which is responsible for an annual output value of 30 billion yuan ($4.11 billion)," she said during a recent news conference.

The city does not have natural advantages that make it suitable for making pastries. Nestled amid mountains in southeastern China and with nearly 88 percent of its area covered with forests, it has never grown wheat extensively and does not have a single flour mill.

"Zixi's bakery lineage can be traced to two veterans from the county, who made use of baking skills they picked up in the army to start a bakery in a region near Zixi," said Cai.

Zhang Xiewang, one of the veterans born and raised in Zixi, joined the military in 1984 and was assigned catering duty. "To this day, I remember the first time I tasted buttery toast," he said, adding that he tried to make bread for his fellow soldiers as breakfast once a week and got a chance to learn baking skills.

Zhang set up his first bakery in Yingtan, a city neighboring Zixi that is more accessible by train, after retiring from the military. By 1990, his business had expanded to other cities in Jiangxi and places in Jiangsu province.

Zhang's business gradually caught the attention of fellow inhabitants in Zixi who hoped to learn baking skills from him. During busy days, Zhang said that his bakery spanning 40 square meters had more than 10 apprentices. "As a veteran, I feel like it is my obligation and responsibility to help more villagers earn a living," he said.

Over the years, Zhang's apprentices or bakers from Zixi and its neighboring regions have set up a number of Chinese-style baking enterprises. Leading among them are Bao's Pastry, Luxihe Pastry and Zhanji Pastry. Bao's Pastry, founded in 2004, had set up over 100 chain stores in more than 40 cities by the end of 2021.Luxihe Pastry has also opened over 360 bakeries across China.

Most baking entrepreneurs from Zixi make their fortune outside the region while the county itself remains one of the least developed regions in Jiangxi.

Since 2001, the local government has started guiding competent bakery owners to return to their hometown and help promote Zixi as a baked-goods brand.

In 2001, Zixi established the country's first county-level bakery industry association that offers legal aid, financial support and technical guidance to bakers from there who encounter difficulties setting up their own businesses.

The next year, a bakery training center was set up in Zixi to provide a local platform for local people and baking entrepreneurs migrating to other regions to sharpen their skills.

Xu Quanlong, the founder of the training center, began making and selling bread in 1994 and participated in various training programs such as for piping flowers, sculpting cakes and baking to enhance his skills. "After touring bakeries of fellow villagers in 1998, I found that their bread-making skills were relatively basic and outdated," he said."Thus I decided to return to my hometown and start a training center to help them improve their skills."

The local government said in March that it plans to invest 3 billion yuan to build a 333-hectare industrial park for baked products, focusing on production, product research and development, technical training and centralized procurement.

Rao Yuanzhong, head of the county, said that 60 percent of the net income of local farmers stems from the baked goods and pastries sector."The sector has become the pillar for us to strive for common prosperity and high-quality development," he said.

Contact the writers at wangxiaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn