Chapter 111 Red Pigment
Gangu, after Tianhe’s demonstration base achieved initial results in 2003, the county urgently applied for a national pepper standardization demonstration zone construction project.
With the promotion of all parties,
Gangu’s pepper planting area soon exceeded 35,000 acres in 2004, far exceeding the planned area.
And not only Gangu, other counties and cities in the province that lack pillar industries have also rushed to launch pepper planting projects.
The rapid expansion of production capacity has put pressure on sales of fresh peppers, and expectations for dry peppers are also declining.
The County Agricultural Bureau quickly grasped this information, so it made many trips to participate in various agricultural product fairs and expos to connect with markets in various places.
Fortunately, the Tianjiao No. 1 brand was launched early, and its excellent flavor and taste won unanimous praise from customers.
There is an endless stream of merchants coming to purchase.
But compared to the planting area, it is still a drop in the bucket.
The old car was driving on the winding mountain road. From the appearance of the car, it could be seen that the car was driven hard, the kind that even used car dealers would not accept.
From one hilltop to another, Yu Qi could no longer remember how many farmers planted peppers along the way.
His name is also written on the signboard of the ‘National Chili Standardization Demonstration Zone’ on the roadside. It was like a time bomb, constantly alerting him.
Yu Qi is a technician at the county agricultural technology station, and most of the peppers in the demonstration area are under his technical guidance.
Technically speaking, pepper cultivation has been successful, but a single variety has also brought other troubles: concentration during the maturity period, and serious backlog during the peak period of raw materials.
Compared with a bumper harvest, he hopes farmers can actually make money!
In the small town of Panshan District, a chili purchasing station has been spontaneously formed.
Yu Qi checked the fresh peppers packed in the farmers’ baskets one by one. They were all in good quality,
“How is the market today?”
“It has fallen again. Today it’s 3 cents per catty.”
"I'm still thinking about 3 cents. It's already here now. It will be good if I can sell 2 cents later."
"Why do I still pick two or three cents?"
Yu Qi asked in confusion, 2 cents is probably the cost price for farmers. If you are a large grower, including labor, you will already lose a lot.
The expression on the farmer’s face is indescribably complicated.
“We have not signed an order with Quanwang Company, and the price of dried peppers is not guaranteed, so we can only sell some fresh peppers first.”
Yu Qi couldn't help but contact Quanwang Company again. To his surprise, Quanwang Company no longer resisted the temptation this time.
“The trading company’s cold storage has been fully launched, and the purchase of fresh peppers is increasing.”
“Quanwang Company is also developing new technologies for deep processing. If successful, it will also be used for dry peppers. The consumption capacity will reach a new level.”
……
The main processed products of Quanwang Company are dried chili peppers, chili sauce and chili powder.
After Tianhe acquired Quanwang, it transformed the original factories and equipment and also merged some small factories.
Production capacity has been greatly improved.
The order contract signed with growers reaches 130,000 acres, but the planting area of Tianjiao No. 1 may reach 250,000 acres.
Coupled with other horn pepper varieties, as well as line pepper and green pepper varieties, the province's pepper planting area is likely to be close to or exceed 500,000 acres!
Fortunately, both local governments and farmers are aware of the huge expansion of planting area this year.
In addition to strengthening the opening of the fresh pepper market and improving storage and logistics, more pressure is coming to processing companies.
As the leader, Quanwang Company is the first to bear the brunt!
In the production workshop of Quanwang Company, the pungent smell of solvent seems to have not completely dissipated, and a key debugging is underway. "Will it be successful this time?"
"How can it be so easy to extract red pigment? I have been busy for more than half a year, but the purity of the extraction has never been enough, the impurity content is high, and the refining cost is too high. ”
"This time is different. The group company provides technical support. Its Fengkai agricultural machinery R&D and production equipment is personally watched by the chairman of the group."
"It looks decent."
Several technicians in the experiment are still doing the final equipment debugging. These complete sets of equipment were brought by Fengkai Agricultural Machinery, a subsidiary of the group company.
Yu Qin, general manager of Quanwang Company, still had deep suspicion in his eyes.
“Can peppers really be extracted and purified with their handles?”
Guan Cheng, the leader of Fengkai Agricultural Machinery this time, smiled and said: "Mr. Yu, are you still struggling with the extraction of pepper stalks?"
Yu Qin said: "This is very important to us. It is very important, not only to extract red pigments, but also to make chili sauce, chili noodles, chopped peppers, etc., we all need to remove the chili stems by manually twisting them or cutting them with scissors, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive and inefficient
Every production season, people sit around and pick peppers by hand in the drying field. The scene is spectacular, but it consumes a lot of labor costs.”
Hearing this, Guan Cheng also became serious. .
“We tested this set of capsanthin extraction equipment when we were in Shandong Province. It can not only extract and purify pepper stalks.
Moreover, the eight independent links in the pretreatment process, including drying, crushing, drying, seed skin separation, grinding, screening, fine grinding, and granulation, can also be achieved through this set of equipment. Continuous production can be achieved with one complete machine every day. Process 100-120 tons of dried chili peppers. ”
Everyone who knew anything about the experiment was surprised. 120 tons per day, this efficiency increased by almost 30 times!
And capsaicin can really be extracted without a handle, so every ton The cost saved by just removing the stems of the peppers is nearly 1,200 yuan.
Is this equipment really so advanced?
Guan Cheng said with an apology on his face: "Mr. Yu, come here. Before, we did not consider that chili sauce processing also requires the removal of chili stems. It was my negligence. Later, I set up a research and development project for a chili stem removal machine. When the product comes out, I will definitely send someone to install it as soon as possible. ”
There was silence for a while in the experiment, and someone whispered: "Can we use machinery to remove pepper stalks?"
"As long as there is demand, we can develop it. No matter how niche the agricultural machinery is, as long as the internal companies of the group have it If you need it, you can ask for it!”
“That’s great. Manual removal of stems is not only expensive, but also harmful to the human body. Every year, workers suffer from burns, stings, and even skin ulcers.”
< br>The equipment was quickly debugged and put into operation.
Yu Qin looked at the scene in front of him in disbelief. The processing of pepper stalks, powder granulation and extraction technology, all the processes were connected together.
Quanwang’s employees were also a little confused.
Plant pigment extraction generally adopts the small workshop-style production method of traditional vertical tank extraction. The production efficiency is extremely low and the output is not high.
But inexplicably,
Quanwang Company has a continuous and large-scale pepper processing and extraction production line, and has also made a breakthrough in production technology.
At this time, another employee responsible for monitoring shouted.
"The speed is so fast. The key is that the solvent consumption is too little."
Guan Cheng smiled slightly: "The solvent consumption has been reduced from 300 kilograms per ton of material to 3 kilograms, and the pigment yield has also increased from 85% to 98 %."
"Production efficiency has increased by hundreds of times."
Yu Qin calculated in his mind that only two sets of production machines would consume nearly 300 tons of dry matter every day. chili.
It will undoubtedly provide strong support for the price of excess peppers.
(End of this chapter)