Chapter 279 Development Use
The Daxin County factory of Hucheng Sugar Industry.
Although he purchased about 1,100 tons of jerky candy every day, the factory director Tian Huiwen was not very happy. He was a person with a very strong sense of crisis.
Since today is New Year's Eve, the factory was on holiday for three days, but as the factory director, he did not return to his hometown in Xiangxi, but took his wife and children over.
Opposite the factory is the employee community built by the company, but there are currently only 360 houses in this employee community, and the rest will be waiting for the second phase of development after the Spring Festival.
Tian Huiwen returned to her home in the employee community.
His wife Miao Cai'e has prepared the meal.
"It's time to eat."
After washing his hands, he saw that his son and daughter were already waiting for him by the dining table, and he smiled and said, "Come and have a meal!"
Chichi... Open a bottle of Kecheng Mucan Coke, everyone poured a cup, and this Coke is one of the products of their factory.
To be precise, it is a by-product.
Because the sugar liquid extracted from wooden cane contains a lot of natural flavor ingredients of sugar cane, these flavor ingredients are almost 99% retained in the dehydrated choy sugar on site.
After the factory pulls the jelly sugar back, most of the flavor ingredients will be separated during the production of white sugar and rock sugar.
The sucrose separation process of Hucheng factory is called the heat-free saturation separation method. It is to continuously dehydrate the choy sugar solution and concentrate the sucrose content of the solution to more than 67%. This concentration is the upper limit of the saturation of the sucrose solution at room temperature and pressure. As long as this upper limit is reached, sucrose will precipitate in large quantities and become crystals and deposited.
However, under normal temperature and pressure, the flavored substances in the choy sugar solution will not precipitate because the content ratio of these flavored substances is not high, and it is difficult to reach the upper limit of saturation and precipitation.
However, this process has one disadvantage, that is, the last 3% sucrose will contain about 95% of the flavor substance.
After discussing this concentrated sugar rich in flavor substances, Tian Huiwen did not continue to concentrate repeatedly, but used it as a flavor syrup to produce Hucheng Mucan Coke.
Mucane Coke is a trial product, so employees in their factory can get the trial product.
The sugarcane flavor of this cola is very obvious, and the taste and taste are natural than aspartame or sugar-free cola, but its calories are not high because Hucheng Sugar Industry uses rubber grass inulin recently produced by Mo Nan Branch as its core sweetener.
Inulin extracted from rubber grass is a natural sweetener, but this sugar cannot digest inulin because the human digestive system has no specific decomposition mechanism.
This makes woodcane cola a low-sugar beverage with a sucrose content of 5.5% per 100 ml. The rest is inulin, which provides half of the sweetness. Sucrose, woodcane flavor substances, and inulin will form a relatively fresh flavor without the strange and aftertaste like synthetic sweeteners.
After taking a sip of Coke, Tian Huiwen turned on the TV.
Miao Cai'e came over with a double pot: "Husband, please order the alcohol block."
"Okay." Tian Huiwen took out a solid alcohol like a candle, and then put it in the alcohol stove to light it.
The hot pot soup base that had been boiled began to boil slightly again under the heat of alcohol flames.
My son put down the Coke, picked up a hot pot meatball, and couldn't wait to put it in his mouth: "Wuwu...hehe...hehe..."
"Why are you anxious? Eat slowly. Eat too hot. It is not good for your health." Tian Huiwen said a few words, picked up a piece of morel, and blew it: "Huhh..."
"Dad, I want to eat lobsters." My daughter shouted.
"Okay, let's burn it for you." Tian Huiwen picked up a piece of fresh lobster meat with peeled shells, then put it in a colander, and boiled it in the clear soup.
Miao Cai'e put some cut snowflake beef into another colander, then soaked it in the sour soup on the other side, and scalded it for more than ten seconds: "Come and try it, this sour soup is made by your company's Qianzhou branch."
"Oh?" Tian Huiwen quickly ate a piece and nodded: "No, it tastes very good, it's comparable to the sour soup hotpot in your hometown."
"It was produced in my hometown." Miao Cai'e said with a smile, and then she took a sip of Coke: "Himmer... This Coke is good, it is much more natural than other Cokes. When will it be launched?"
"I'm still doing the flavor adjustment. There are currently five models, so I need to choose a better one." Tian Huiwen said while picking up a Chinese cabbage to burn the hot pot.
"How much do you plan to sell a bottle?"
"Coke is not valuable, the key is transportation."
"Don't your company have airships?" Miao Cai'e burned a piece of sour soup shrimp for her daughter.
"Aircraft can indeed reduce a lot of transportation costs, but transportation also requires road distribution." Tian Huiwen is very clear that transportation is the core factor of beverage products.
Although the transportation costs only account for 3% to 10% of the total cost, it is actually because many large beverage companies have adopted the construction of regional factories and controlled the transportation distance as much as possible to about 300 kilometers of the radius with the factory as the core, which is achieved at a low cost.
If the distance is too far, the cost will rise sharply.
Even if there is an airship, the distance can only be controlled within 1,000 kilometers.
Therefore, if Coke in Hucheng Sugar Industry wants to defeat other competitors, it is not enough to rely solely on low sugar, natural taste and safety. It must compete for cost-effectiveness and occupy the market through low prices.
To achieve low prices, it is necessary to make room for price reduction from all aspects of costs.
Essentially speaking.
Hucheng Sugar Industry has cost advantages in raw materials, and the costs of electricity and water can also be compressed. In terms of transportation costs, as long as the road distance is controlled as much as 300 kilometers as possible, it can crush other beverage companies at low prices.
Of course, other beverage companies will definitely not sit still and wait for death. They will definitely cooperate with other companies to establish an industrial chain against Hailufeng Company.
In the core production areas of the factory, it will definitely not be able to beat Hailufeng Company. In the non-core production areas, it is estimated that there will be a tug-of-war situation.
For example, in Hucheng, where Hucheng Sugar Industry is located, the cost of wooden sugar cola is very low. A bottle of 300 ml plastic bottle of Cola costs about 0.6 yuan, and the local road transportation cost is also relatively low, the wholesale price is 1 yuan and the retail price is 2 yuan.
Make two cents of gross profit per bottle.
This is also the core secret that large beverage companies can occupy the market, that is, low profits, forcing other competitors to enter this market, or they think it is difficult to do this market.
Don’t think that Hucheng Sugar Industry is deliberately killing prices.
Because the wholesale prices of the two major colas are almost the same.
If you want to compete with these beverage companies, you must have a low price to make the gross profit of a single bottle of Coke very low, otherwise it will be difficult to compete with other competitors.
In order to make this low price popular across the country, beverage factories must be opened nationwide.
For example, Kecao Company has 46 related factories in Greater China; PepsiCo and Kangbai Alliance have more than 70 factories.
In fact, Hailufenggong currently has many food-related factories. If the food factories of cooperative enterprises are added, the total number can reach about 150.
However, many of these food factories are single-category factories, which are factories that specialize in producing one or two products, and do not have branches or the like.
Tian Huiwen wants to do something, but he must not be self-confidence. He is very clear about the prospects of Hailufeng Company. On such a powerful platform, if he does not do something big, he feels sorry for himself and this platform.
Therefore, in addition to creating Mucan Coke recently, he is also thinking about other industries.
Suddenly he saw the solid alcohol block beside the table and was immediately trapped in thought.
"What's wrong?" Miao Cai'e suddenly stopped her chopsticks when she saw her husband.
"Oh?" Tian Huiwen, who came to his senses, smiled and shook his head: "It's nothing, I just thought of something."
"It's the factory's business again? Your general manager and factory manager are really dedicated." Miao Cai'e gave him a blank look.
Although my wife told me, he still laughed dryly: "Haha, the company has given such good conditions, I am unwilling to give up if I don't achieve any results!"
"Let's have a meal!" Miao Cai'e knew her husband's personality and didn't continue to say anything.
After dinner, Tian Huiwen sat on the sofa, holding the box of solid alcohol thinking, and did not watch the Spring Festival Gala program on TV.
Miao Cai'e and her daughter were still eating, while her son was full and was playing games with his mobile phone.
After thinking for a while, Tian Huiwen frowned because he didn't think that Hucheng Sugar Industry could enter the entry point of the alcohol industry.
Because Hailufeng Company has special regulations, that is, it does not produce and sell cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, or betel nut products, such foods that are clearly listed as first-class carcinogens.
Due to this special limitation, Hucheng Sugar Industry cannot produce high-value-added fermented wine, which has cut off a large part of the application of the alcohol industry.
The remaining application directions of the alcohol industry are fuel, chemical auxiliary materials, cosmetic auxiliary materials, etc. In these application directions, sugar fermented alcohol is rarely used in China because the cost is too high. Instead, coal chemical industry uses industrial ethanol, and the cost is about 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per ton.
If sugar is used to produce ethanol, even at the cost of 2,000 yuan per ton of japonica sugar, the raw material cost will be 4,500 yuan. With other costs, it will be directly worth 6,000 yuan per ton. This is definitely a dead end.
You should know that Mo Nan Branch plans to convert inulin into electricity, methane, alcohol and organic fertilizer through the multi-fermentation technology of rubber grass.
That's because Mo Nan Branch can produce millions of tons of inulin every year in the future, so this special co-production can be carried out.
The sugar in Hucheng Sugar Industry is the main product, and it is definitely not possible to convert sugar into alcohol, as it will lose money if you do so.
After a while, he took his mobile phone and used AI to analyze the current situation to see if there was any plan to break the deadlock.
Soon he saw a general direction of utilization.
Polylactic acid plastic (PLA).
This is a completely degradable bioplastic.
After reading the AI analysis report, Tian Huiwen's eyes suddenly flashed: "Polylactic acid plastic, this thing is a bit messy."
Because there are already companies abroad that are doing it, among which Amika's companies use corn syrup to produce polylactic acid plastics, while Siamese companies use sucrose. The processes are similar, and 1.6 tons of sugar produces 1 ton of polylactic acid plastics.
After looking at the cost analysis, the cost abroad is about 13,000 to 15,000 per ton of polylactic acid plastic.
At present, the cost of plastics such as polyethylene is around 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per ton.
The purchase price of 2,000 yuan per ton of japonica is about 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per ton of polylactic acid plastic.
As long as the cost can be leveled with traditional plastics and can be completely degraded, large-scale production can basically be achieved.
Thinking of this, he picked up the phone and called Zhang Chengdong, the head of the scientific research department.
Doudu…
"Hey? Who?"
"Manager Zhang, I am Tian Huiwen, general manager of Hucheng Sugar Industry. We had dinner together in the headquarters before."
"Oh, it turns out it's Mr. Tian."
"Happy New Year's Eve, Manager Zhang."
"Mr. Tian has fun together."
"This time I called, I mainly wanted to ask Manager Zhang about something."
"Please say it."
"We plan to develop the polylactic acid plastics industry, and I wonder if there are any related projects in the scientific research department?"
"Polylactic acid plastic? I'll check it out and wait."
"It's okay, take your time."
After a while.
"Hey, Mr. Tian, the polylactic acid plastic you mentioned does have related projects, but it is not a scientific research project at the headquarters, but a project at the Monan branch. They are studying the use of inulin to produce lactic acid."
"So that's it. I wonder how they are going?"
"The technical verification has been almost completed. After all, their inulin fermentation technology is very mature. At present, they can produce 1 ton of PLA at 1.43 tons of inulin."
Tian Huiwen was very surprised: "So high? I see that only 1.6 tons of sugar is converted into 1 tons of PLA abroad."
"Haha, you have to know what our company started with. Biotechnology is our key skill, and Monan's scientific research strength in biological breeding is no worse than the headquarters."
"I don't know how effective the conversion efficiency will be after changing to sucrose?"
"It shouldn't be too high, because their lactic acid bacteria are specially cultivated for decomposition of inulin. This strain may not have a good conversion efficiency for sucrose."
"Is that true? It seems that we can only find the headquarters to provide technical support."
"Yes, this project is very good. The domestic sugar production capacity will definitely be over the top in the future. At that time, so much sugar will definitely require a consumption direction. Degradable plastics are a better consumption direction."
"Thank you, Manager Zhang for your answer."
"You're welcome."
"After the Spring Festival, I went to the headquarters to visit Manager Zhang, and I won't bother now."
"Okay, goodbye."
After hanging up the phone, Tian Huiwen's mood suddenly improved. He didn't want to achieve the high conversion efficiency of Monan Branch. As long as it can achieve the efficiency of 1.6 tons of sugar to 1 tons of PLA, it can basically be leveled with the cost of ordinary plastic.
The inulin of Monan Branch is a by-product of rubber production, while the sugar of their Hucheng Sugar Industry is the core product. The difficulty of expanding the capacity of the two is different.
To expand the inulin production capacity, it is necessary to expand the rubber production capacity, which leads to the inulin polylactic acid plastic of Monan Branch being only a by-product and cannot become the main product.
It is very easy to expand sugar production capacity.
Nowadays, as long as the large-scale use of sugar can be developed in China, let alone millions of tons of sugar, even tens of millions of tons of sugar can be produced.
This is the same as the application of soybean oil and soy protein.
As long as you can find an application direction, you don’t have to worry about raw materials at all.
Compared with traditional plastics that are difficult to degrade, polylactic acid plastics can completely degrade and degrade very quickly. This is simply a derivative industry tailor-made for sugar.
After all, it can be completely degraded quickly, which means that the products produced by this material have a very short service life and will not be used for a plastic bag for several years. This will increase the customer repurchase rate and keep the entire industry in a stable production state at all times.
White sugar is a renewable resource. Unlike oil, natural gas and coal, it is difficult to regenerate quickly after use. Neither Western biological generation theory nor Lucia's underground inorganic generation theory, there is no way to regenerate oil, natural gas and coal quickly.
The underground oil, natural gas and coal will definitely run out. After all, the scale of human use is too large. Even if it can be regenerated, its generation speed will definitely not be as fast as human consumption.
You should know that the depth of many oil fields in China has generally exceeded 5,000 meters, and there are even oil and gas fields with a depth of 10,000 meters underground.
This makes mining costs increasingly high and the difficulty of mining becomes increasingly greater. Instead of squeezing non-renewable resources in the underground, it is better to replace biofuels, bioplastics, natural rubber, etc.
Nowadays, the production cost of biodiesel in China is generally lower than that of ordinary diesel.
Although polylactic acid plastics are defective and cannot replace all types of plastics, they can at least replace a large part of disposable plastic products, which are also the main source of microplastic pollution.
In fact, the domestic microplastic pollution is not serious.
Because the domestic garbage recycling industry is relatively comprehensive, plastic products that can be recycled and reused have been recycled. Many of them are taken away by the garbage combustion power station to burn and generate electricity.
Microplastic pollution abroad is really serious.
Especially after the import of foreign garbage in China was banned, a lot of garbage in Europe and the United States accumulated into mountains. It was used to be exported, but now it can only be digested by itself, or secretly transported to some backward areas and oceans to dump.
Tian Huiwen thought of the agricultural plastic film problem that made the company very troubled, because traditional plastic plastic film will remain microplastics in the land after use. Therefore, for safety reasons, the company does not allow self-operated farms and cooperative growers to use traditional plastic film.
This requirement can be barely solved in other ways south of the Qinling Mountains and Huai River.
However, when we arrived at the North China Plain, Northeast and Northwest, we encountered great trouble and resistance.
If polylactic acid plastic film can be used comprehensively as agricultural plastic film, many problems can be avoided.
As for the plastic film in the plastic greenhouse, this thing can actually be replaced by another thing produced by Hailufeng Company, which is a single-layer silicon carbide nanotube woven film. This thing can transmit light and has a service life of about 20 to 30 years.
In addition to the special hollow nanostructure, it has special insulation properties. Of course, in order to avoid the good thermal conduction characteristics of silicon carbide nanotubes, the heat inside the greenhouse will be transmitted out, and a layer of thermal insulation coating must be applied inside.
Although the cost of silicon carbide nanotubes is relatively high, it is still used for braiding into a single-layer film, and the materials are still used. Coupled with its long service life, it can offset the initial one-time investment cost.
(This chapter ends)