Ice lollipops a hot commodity in cold Harbin

Harbin, Heilongjiang province — one of the coldest places in China — may be this winter's hottest travel destination. It is seeing sales spike in several related sectors, including food products from local brand Modern.

During the three-day New Year holiday, for example, more than 100,000 Modern ice lollipops were sold at a food shop located on the city's Central Avenue.

The large sales volume kept workers busy at a Modern Co food factory in Quzhou, Zhejiang province, local media in Zhejiang reported.

"The production base of Modern started operating in 2016 in Quzhou," said Wang Deping, director of the factory. "We have six production lines whose core equipment is all imported from Denmark and Germany."

"Modern has three food production bases across China, with the other two located in Beijing and Harbin," he said. "Our factory has the only refrigeration storage in the country with carbon dioxide freon."

Wang added that the ice lollipops produced in Quzhou account for 70 percent of the company's total production.

Wu Enguang, director of the Modern's special sales channels department, said the good water quality, location advantages and a favorable business environment in Quzhou are what attracted Modern's investment of 700 million yuan ($97.26 million).

"The products of Quzhou are also exported to overseas markets, including New Zealand and the United States," Wu said. "We will also sell them in Korea in the future. ... And we will enhance the digitalization and intelligent construction of the Quzhou base to maintain the quality of our products."