I'm incredibly ambitious after being reborn.

Chapter 33 Snack Workshop
"Boss, I estimate that two or three more batches should be enough. We can conduct research on the new dishes at 'Shizipo' and 'Zhangjia Canteen'. Of course, we can also try to get feedback from the streets."

"These past two days, I've been using the excuse of providing assistance to several villages around here. I've been giving away some free food and ordering the dishes."

When testing the large pressure cooker, Zhang Daxiang specially invited Guan Zhu, a food development engineer from Binhu Light Industry, to give him some suggestions.

These are all past experiences. Although Guan Zhu has become an associate professor at "Binhu Light Industry", he has been doing some side jobs for a long time. In addition to the regular food and catering industry companies, he also does renovations of canteens of some large units.

With an annual income of around 20,000 yuan, there are opportunities to leave and start a business or work for a company, with a salary of 50,000 yuan per year, which is not very attractive.

Now Guan Zhu has come to Zhang Daxiang's place for two reasons: firstly, Guan Zhu's great-uncle is from Zhangshi Village; secondly, Zhang Daxiang pays him 80,000 yuan a year and provides him with a decent hatchback for transportation.

Other miscellaneous services such as meals and accommodation are standard operating procedures. There is also a milestone promise that after one year, the performance will determine whether to provide Guan Zhu with a house in the city center of his hometown.

Guan Zhu also has a house now, but it's very small. It's his father's old wedding house, just a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and no toilet.

Zhang Daxiang recruited him with minimal effort, and in no time at all, he got him to come with his family to report for duty.

Now his wife has been introduced to work as a temporary worker in the printing room of the Second Chemical Plant, and his child has transferred to Beimen Primary School. They eat lunch at "Zhang's Canteen", and if his wife doesn't want to cook dinner, they can continue to eat at "Zhang's Canteen" with their child.

Therefore, Guan Zhu is quite serious about industrialized food production, after all, his wife and children also eat it.

Guan Zhu and Zhang Daxiang cooperated very well in technology development. The main reason was that Zhang Daxiang could draw up the blueprints for the equipment Guan Zhu needed. As long as there were no rare or unusual parts, it was just the work of a machinist, fitter, and electrician.

Just have hands.

"Wouldn't it be better if we added a washing tank here, and then used a basket to suspend the pot?"

"Are you making beef dishes or something else?"

"Where are the nuts?"

"Nuts are definitely a good option, but what kind of nuts are you looking for?"

“Traditional roasted nuts and seeds are generally not moisture-resistant, so I plan to use the method of making salted peanuts in Tingjiang to make sunflower seeds. There are a lot of goods from Huaibei Road in the 'Shizipo' storage yard now, and I think I can make good use of it to set up a nut processing plant.”

"Oh... the boss is talking about the salted dried peanuts from Tingjiang that are first boiled and then sun-dried. This method really works, and they're very flavorful. Except for the texture being a little worse than roasted peanuts, they're easier to dehydrate."

Salted dried peanuts from several counties along the Tingjiang River are very famous, and they are also well-known in Gangnam East Province, but they are not so famous outside of Gangnam East Province.

When it comes to scenarios where people need to pass the time, such as traveling or staying at home, sunflower seeds are still the best-selling item.

Roasted nuts and seeds are the best, especially freshly roasted ones, which are top-notch, even chestnuts.

The taste and aroma of Tingjiang salted dried peanuts cannot compare with freshly roasted peanuts. However, while roasted peanuts become soggy quickly, Tingjiang salted dried peanuts are much more durable.

This is also related to the geographical environment. The southernmost part of Jiangnan East Road is a typical southeastern hilly area. It is described as having eight parts mountains, one part water, and one part farmland, which is an understatement. Geographically, it is a place that is not contested by military strategists, and every year there is also the need to deal with the typhoon season.

In addition, the high humidity year-round makes it unavoidable that roasted nuts and seeds are not popular. So our ancestors racked their brains and came up with various methods to store as much food as possible.

Whether it's staple food or miscellaneous grains, as long as they can be stored for a longer period of time, that's fine.

In a stage where the commodity economy was not developed, this craft lacked channels for the spread of personnel and materials, had no absolute technological advantage to seize the market, and lacked capital intervention to promote it. Therefore, it could only be produced and sold locally on both sides of the Tingjiang River, and it would be good if it could be sold to Jiangnan West Road.

However, the geographical disadvantages of the Tingjiang River are completely different when compared to the Yangtze River. Even though Jiyang City is a small city within a small city, it can still benefit from its geographical advantages. Zhang Daxiang's only regret is that he still doesn't have enough capital. If he had 30 or 40 million, he could directly purchase sunflower seeds from Northeast China from Andong Road.

In China, apart from staple food and sugar production, the level of technology in large-scale modern agriculture is generally higher in the north than in the south.

Among them, the two major regions of Andong and Ande-do stand out even more. In terms of purchase price, because they can guarantee timely and concentrated delivery while having a large volume of goods, the price can be much cheaper than that of Huainan and Huaibei provinces.

If Zhang Daxiang has enough capital, the cost won't be too high. In addition, there are already thirty or forty registered truck drivers from Northeast China at "Shizipo," and there are bound to be one or two willing to drive more than two thousand kilometers.

Unfortunately, we can't do that kind of business right now; we'll have to wait.

"Let's try to make a salted peanut and melon seed flavor first. A daily output of two or three hundred catties should be enough."

"Is this production volume for free snacks?"

"Do you think there's any potential in closing down the project?"

"Have."

Guan Zhu nodded. He was rather thin, always wore black-rimmed glasses, and his stubble made him look even older, giving him the air of an old scholar.

But in reality, he's only in his forties this year, and he's long since given up on becoming a full professor. He's been busy making all sorts of extra money, which is quite exhausting.

When discussing the plan with Zhang Daxiang, he became spirited again: "I have a junior brother who is from Zhaluo County, Tingzhou. He did some research on local specialty snacks for a while. I'll just ask him to give me a few recipes."

"Five hundred yuan for one prescription."

"Let's add two more packs of cigarettes, so he can come over and have some fun when he's on vacation."

"Isn't it still summer vacation? Isn't he on vacation?"

"He's no longer in that line of work. He sits in an office writing materials, collecting local traditional snacks and such, and then writing reports for archiving."

"We'll see what kind of person he is. If he's a decent person and he's not doing well right now, we'll bring him over to join us."

"..."

Guan Zhu's body trembled as he pondered what "joining the group" meant.
However, after having a general idea, the first formal food production workshop with a complete production process was set up.

There are no automated or semi-automated devices; it's still mainly done by human labor.

This is because it's a "Shizipo" and "Zhangjia Canteen" nut snack production workshop, with various large pots and hanging baskets, plus washing pools, conveyor belts, drying boxes, and packaging rooms.

The few high-tech components are probably just a salinity meter, a thermometer, and an electronic timer.

We haven't yet opened up the capacity for wholesale distribution, but it's enough to give customers at "Shizipo" and "Zhangjia Canteen" a taste of something new.

What Zhang Daxiang didn't expect was that before he even planned to sell sunflower seeds and peanuts, a truck driver from his hometown of Huating City planned to buy several hundred kilograms of them from Zhang Daxiang and take them back to Huating to test the waters.

This experienced driver said that the salted melon seeds from Xiang Shi Er Jia are really good, with a great taste.

(End of this chapter)