Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 169 Food Processing (To make up for yesterday's)
"Hey, there are everywhere on the roadside. If you want to eat whatever you want, how much do you want?" Apricots are everywhere in Luxiang, and the local villagers don't take it seriously at all.

"Uncle, smoke!" He said so, Li Lei couldn't force the money, so he gave him a cigarette, and then stood under the tree and picked the apricots.

"Hey, it's still a filter. It's a good smoke!" The uncle took a look at the cigarette, and was reluctant to smoke it on the spot, so he clipped it to his ear, ready to go back and show off to others.

"This apricot is good!" Li Lei picked a yellowish red apricot, wiped it casually, and stuffed it into his mouth. There are very few pesticides in the fruit forest nowadays, and there are no polluting enterprises nearby, so just eat it directly .

"Bah, bah, bah!" I just spit it out after taking half a mouthful. There were worms in it, but luckily it wasn't half of it.

"Haha, when we eat apricots, we break them apart and eat them only when they see no insects!" The uncle was delighted to see it, and he picked one and broke it in half, "Well, this one can be eaten without insects!"

"Apricots are delicious, but I love long worms too much!" Li Lei followed suit and broke one. Unfortunately, he was unlucky, this one also had worms, and it was not delivered to his mouth until the third one. The taste was really good and soft. Sweet and slightly sour, it tastes very appetizing.

"Isn't it? That's why it's not easy to sell. You can only sell almonds, but the medicinal material company only charges a small amount every year. If you don't mind, they don't want to send them to your door. Such good apricots can only be watched as they rot!" the uncle sighed. He took a deep breath, it seemed that he was the kind that didn't matter, so he didn't bother to care about so many apricot trees near his home.

"It's such a pity that there are so many apricots that rot every year. No one opened a factory?" Li Lei lit another cigarette, then took out a lighter to help light it.

"I'm so poor, how can I still have the money to open a factory? I dare not open it again. The whole county raised funds to open the fertilizer factory in the past few years. If we raise funds now, we can't live well?" The uncle complained a series of complaints. Li Lei was speechless.

I picked another pile of apricots to eat on the road. Before leaving, I stuffed a pack of cigarettes for the uncle, and thanked the uncle happily. This pile of apricots is worthless in the local area. big.

The car restarted, and while eating apricots, Li Lei asked Li Xin'an and the others, "This apricot tastes good, why are they not easy to sell?"

"If you buy it expensive, no one will want it. If you buy it cheap, you won't make money. Besides, apricots are hard to keep. If you give them to me, I won't sell them!" Li Xin'an got to the point right away.

In fact, even in later generations, apricots are rarely seen in fruit shops. Peach, plum and apricot are the first three kinds of fruits domesticated in China. Peach and plum can be seen everywhere in supermarkets and fruit shops. Why are apricots missing?
The reason is actually not complicated. The benefits that apricots can bring to merchants are not great enough, so they are gradually eliminated by the market and become less and less.

In the past, there were few fruits that could be eaten in the late spring and early summer in the north. As one of the earliest ripe fruits, apricot was people's favorite fruit.

In the future, as the transportation and logistics become smoother and people's lives become more and more prosperous, more expensive fruits such as cherries, lychees, bayberry, etc. will be sold all over the country as soon as they are ripe. Running out.

At the same time, compared with peaches and plums, the storage time of apricots is too short. Apricots that are not fully ripe and too hard are not tasty, and customers are unwilling to buy them. Ripe soft apricots will go bad if they are not sold within three to five days. Supermarkets , The fruit shop is naturally reluctant to enter.

In addition, transportation is also a very troublesome thing. Apricots are similar to tomatoes, and the soft ones are the best, but soft fruits are easy to bump due to bumps during transportation. Once bumped, they are easy to rot. It was difficult to transport it to another place, but after unloading the truck, it was found that a lot of it was rotten, and the business was lost.

Therefore, the tomatoes that can be bought in supermarkets and fruit stores in the future will be hard and easy to transport. As for the taste, it will not be as good as the original heavy soft tomatoes.

It is the same reason that local cherries cannot compete with imported cherries. In fact, local cherries taste quite good, but unfortunately, they are very troublesome to transport, so they can only be sold near the place of origin; It can also guarantee lower loss, so there is no way to compete.

Tomatoes can be used as both fruits and vegetables. With a large market and a large number of consumer groups, agricultural practitioners are willing to invest a lot of energy in research and development of new varieties.

However, the use of apricots is relatively single, the market is small, and the premium is not high. There are relatively fewer research institutes willing to invest in the development of new varieties, and even fewer can be accepted by consumers.

When Li Lei went to fruit shops and supermarkets in later generations, he could only see apricots for sale during the short few days of the apricot ripening season every year, and he could not find them at other times.

Apples, grapes, citrus, pears and other fruits that are resistant to storage and easy to transport are the most common in the fruit section and fruit shop of supermarkets.

Even if it is grapes, the most common ones in supermarkets and fruit stores are red grapes, green grapes, and black grapes that are relatively hard and durable. Appears on shipping and storage times.

It will be better until new varieties such as Hutai No. 100 come out, but grapes can continue to breed new varieties because this kind of fruit has a wide audience, can be bought at a high price, and has a short planting cycle. It's different, peaches, three apricots and four pears for five years, and wanting to eat ginkgo for [-] years.

Long-term benefits are low. As an economic fruit, the value of apricots is really not high, so they gradually disappeared from supermarkets and fruit shops.

This is the case in the commercial society. Whether a fruit has economic value is not enough to look at the taste alone. The premium, transportation, storage and other factors must be considered. Therefore, the varieties of fruit shops all over the country are becoming more and more single. The fruit is also getting harder.

"There are so many apricot trees, it's a pity to let the apricots rot in the mountains." The car circled several mountains in a row, and you can still see apricot trees all over the mountains and plains on both sides of the road. These are precious resources.

After the apricot forest, the tree species on the mountain was replaced by hawthorn. Hawthorn usually blooms in May and June, and bears fruit in September and October, so candied haws are mostly sold in winter.

At this time, the hawthorn flowers have begun to wither, and the fruit has just formed, and it will take a few months before it matures. But only seeing these, Li Lei feels that this trip is worthwhile. With such rich resources, it is just right to build a food processing plant.

The problem of apricots is that they are not resistant to storage, and the problem of hawthorn is that they are not suitable for eating as fruits. Building a factory for deep processing can solve these two problems, and at the same time increase the added value of the product and earn more profits.

Li Lei has also thought about what product to process into. Hawthorn can be processed into Danpi, which is a precious childhood memory of countless post-[-]s generations.

At that time, the pocket money given by the parents was not much, and they couldn’t afford too many snacks, so everyone spent the money on the most satisfying food. The fruit skin was dry and hard, chewy, sweet and sour, and the price was not expensive. , A small piece can be chewed for a long time.

Parents are not too opposed to children eating Guodanpi. They still understand the principle of hawthorn for digestion and appetizers. Children will not eat well when they eat other snacks, but Guodanpi does not have this problem. After eating it, they can often eat half a bowl more. Parents also like to buy for their children.

The uses of apricots are even more extensive. In addition to being used as medicine, almonds can also be used as beverages. Is there anyone who hasn’t drunk Lulu almond milk?
Apricot meat should not be wasted. Europeans and Americans like to spread jam on bread, and apricot meat can be used to make apricot jam, whether it is sold to bakeries or restaurants, it can be sold.

Many factories in XJ in later generations did this. The almonds were sold to beverage factories, and the apricot meat was made into jam and sold overseas, which greatly promoted the local economic development.

As for almonds, many people think they are almonds, but they are not. Almonds are actually almonds. There are more than 300 million acres of almond orchards in California, which accounts for 80.00% of the world's production.

The importer purposely named it "American Big Almond" in order to increase the price and satisfy the Chinese people's preference for xenophobia, and it has been selling well for more than ten years since then.

In fact, almonds and almonds are not only different in appearance, but also have different nutritional value and pharmacological functions. Almonds are slightly poisonous and should not be eaten too much. Almonds do not have this problem.

The California Almond Chamber of Commerce held a press conference in BJ in 2012, announcing that the "American Big Almond" in the Chinese market will be renamed "Almond", and the organization will use this name in marketing, publicity and other materials in the future. So far, the fake name "American Almond" that has fooled Chinese consumers for many years has just disappeared.

The three of Li Lei stayed in Luxiang for three days. Apart from studying the site selection of the farm, the rest of their energy was spent on the investigation of hawthorn and apricot.

Li Xin'an asked two local friends to help introduce him, invited the cadres of the agricultural port to have a meal, and got the information in this regard.

According to the data, the resources of hawthorn and apricot trees in Luxiang City are very rich, which can fully support a food factory. Moreover, when the production is contracted to the household, the mountain forest is also distributed to the local farmers. The property rights are relatively clear, and it is easy to purchase in the future. convenient.

This is especially important. If the ownership of these fruit trees is still a mess, then Li Lei will never open this factory until the property rights are clarified. Otherwise, the local people will definitely make a fuss. The ownership rights are fought.

Fighting with weapons in rural areas is very common these days. Dozens or hundreds of people are considered rare, and it is not uncommon for thousands of people to go into battle together. Moreover, guns have not been confiscated now. There are militia organizations in every town. If you lose your life, there is no way to end this matter.

Xing Shuwang will also be unlucky. He encountered such a thing when he first took office, and someone will definitely blame him. Li Lei set up the factory to help him, not to trouble him.

Now that the property rights are clear, it's easy to handle, just collect it directly from the common people. Even if there is an occasional dispute, it is an isolated phenomenon and there will be no big disturbances.

At the end of the inspection, Li Lei did not report the good news to Xing Shuwang immediately, but called Ma Tianyou and asked him to collect relevant information to see the acceptance of almonds and apricot jam in overseas markets, and where they could be sold. to the corresponding production equipment.

Ma Tianyou quickly obtained the materials Li Lei wanted through European and American commercial research companies, and personally sent them to Heyang with the materials and samples.

Apricot jam is indeed very popular in Europe and the United States. Many countries have implemented the principle of zero-tariff preference for the import of such products, and many countries have their own brands.

Li Lei looked through the samples brought by Ma Tianyou, including those from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Austria, the United States, Switzerland and even Yugoslavia.

Opened and tasted one by one, the tastes are all the same, mainly the original flavor of apricot meat, mixed with some unique secret recipes of various brands.

"Yugoslavia exported such a large amount of apricot jam to Europe?" Li Lei found a strange place while browsing the materials.

"I was also curious at first, so I asked specifically. A business research company told me that the Croatians in Yugoslavia are very good at making a kind of pastry called Breskovice, which is a peach-shaped biscuit consisting of two biscuits. Contains a filling made of dark rum, crushed walnuts and apricot jam, then the cake is dipped in peach liqueur with a reddish or yellow food color and covered with sugar." Tianyou Ma pulls out a box of peach-shaped pastries , please Li Lei and Yu Jingshu to taste.

"Because of this tradition, the Croatians are very capable of producing apricot jam, and their apricot jam has been welcomed by many European countries."

"So that's how it is." Li Lei recalled a little, "Well, the apricot jam from Yugoslavia just now tastes better than those from other countries."

He also had other ideas because of this, and told Ma Tianyou about these ideas, and asked him to start preparations immediately after returning.

After reading these materials, Li Lei became more confident about the food processing factory project, and immediately began to write a business plan.

After finishing all this work, it happened to be the weekend. Early on Sunday morning, Li Lei took Yu Jingshu to Xing Shuwang's house. Qiao Aizhen was very happy to see them coming, and hurriedly prepared breakfast for them.

"Auntie, no need, we brought some good things today, please try it with Uncle!" Yu Jingshu took out the jam and bread from the net bag, spread the jam evenly on the bread slices, and asked Qiao Aizhen and Xing Shuwang to taste it.

"It's interesting, but I'm not used to eating sweets early in the morning. Aizhen, please help me order some noodles!" Xing Shuwang is a staunch salty party, so just eat one piece and forget it.

"You won't enjoy even if I give you good things. Look clearly, this is imported!" Qiao Aizhen muttered, and went to work in the kitchen.

After dinner, Yu Jingshu took Qiao Aizhen to go shopping together. She knew that Li Lei and Xing Shuwang were going to have a serious talk, so she left room for them.

"Uncle, I went to Luxiang a few days ago, and I gained a lot." Since getting married, Li Lei also changed his address.

　The next chapter strives for six points

　　
　
(End of this chapter)