A bowl of crawfish. [Photo/VCG]

A popular snack in China, crawfish has spawned a new professional industry with an occupational school in Hubei province set to train students in all aspects of the crustacean, reported thepaper.cn.

The Jianghan Art Vocational College in Qianjiang city has enrolled 86 students in crawfish-related majors. From the fall semester, students will study 2-3 year courses on catering management, marketing, and cooking and nutrition.

The city is one of the major producers of crawfish in China. Cooking and exporting the freshwater crustacean is a main income source for local farmers.

In May 2016, the college set up a crawfish school, the only one of its kind in China, as the city aimed to boost the industry by cultivating more crawfish breeders, cooks and opening more crawfish restaurants.

"Despite the rapid growth of the crawfish industry, managerial professionals are still in shortage," Xia Zhizhong, a recruitment officer at the school, said.

China is the world's largest crawfish producer. By mid-2016, the number of restaurants selling crawfish was triple the number of KFC outlets in China.

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