The word "Hextech" (海克斯科技) has become a hot trend in Chinese social media. On October 6th and 11th, two "Hextech" related topics reached Weibo's top trending ranks, #1 and #6. However, it was not about League of Legends but a food safety crisis that caused the largest soy sauce maker in the world to lose over 5 billion USD in market value overnight.
Hextech is a fictional technology powered by magic in the popular video game League of Legends. Since "tech" and "magic" are both slang related to "hack" or "cheat" in Chinese gaming culture, "Hextech" quickly became a famous catchphrase for hacking programs and illegal gameplay exploits.
For whatever reason, Chinese food content creators adopted the term and used it to refer to all sorts of modern chemical additives that have crazy effects. For example, one content creator made a "raw cut" beef steak with minced meat and additives. Another one showed how to create a pure white "lamb stock" that normally takes a few days to cook in two hours by adding carnation milk. And they call this kind of processing "Hextech".
A content creator faking premium steak with cheap ground beef using "Hextech".
Despite additives being safe and common practice in the food industry if following proper guidelines and standards, the dramatic effect still feels shocking and unnatural to most average viewers. The word "Hextech" went viral on social media and stirred up concerns about artificial additives and, eventually, a heated public debate on food safety.
The ongoing "Haitian incident" is merely the icing on the cake. Haitian is the most popular soy sauce brand in China, with its owner, Haitian Food, being the largest soy sauce manufacturer in the world. In September, a popular "Hextech" food streamer Xin Jifei (辛吉飞), uploaded a video about creating a bottle of soy sauce with only food additives. He claimed it tastes and looks very similar to regular on-shelf soy sauce, with his most popular quote, "It is all about tech and hex."
The streamer did not mention any names in his video, but people started to link it with big brands. Later, several people uploaded pictures of Haitian soy sauce showing that only the ones sold in China have artificial food additives in the ingredients list. And some of the food additives are the same ones used by the food streamer in his video.
The Caramel is one of the ingredients shown on both sides.
The video painted a giant target on Haitian Food. Some were joking that Haitian Soy Sauce should be called "Hextech Soy Sauce."
Haitian Food made two official announcements saying all the food additives in the ingredient list fall within the Chinese National Standards. They also mentioned that food additives are essential in the modern food industry and criticized that someone may intentionally overreact for other purposes.
The screenshot of the announcements.
The announcements did not stop people from being concerned. On October 10th, the first trading day after the Chinese National Holiday, Haitian Food suffered a 36 billion CNY loss (equal to 5 billion USD) of its market value.
The distrust of major food companies among Chinese people has its reasons. In 2008, Sanlu Group, the most popular infant formula brand in China, was found to have illegal additives that would cause permanent kidney damage in their milk sources. Some 294,000 Chinese infants were affected, and six passed away. In March 2022, the supplier of the two largest instant noodle producers had a serious hygiene issue, where workers were found smoking and walking around barefoot on the stacked pickles.
The video shown on 315 Gala reveals the workers were stepping on the vegetables with uncleaned bare feet.
Meanwhile, a crisis could be an opportunity for others. Tianyancha.com shows that "Hextech" is becoming popular as a trademark. For example, a flavor company in Shangdong just registered 4 "Hextech" food type trademarks, and 117 companies were founded in 2022 with "Hextech" in their names.
Source: Weibo