How millet flour is made into a big industry
Our reporter Tong Zheng, China County Economic News reporter Chen Zilin
On the afternoon of April 26, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Guangxi Liuzhou snail powder production gathering area to learn about the development of this characteristic industry.
After learning that the snail noodle industry had developed from millet noodles to a large industry with a scale of over 10 billion yuan, General Secretary Xi Jinping said happily: “It’s amazing! The millet noodle industry has made such a big move and made such a large scale. Come!"
How did the millet noodles, praised by General Secretary Xi Jinping, become a tens of billions of yuan industry?
On April 19, the front page of the Economic Daily reported a long survey report "Liuzhou Surprise" once introduced this: Liuzhou people love industry, understand industry, and fight for industry.
Relying on this love, this understanding, and this struggle, not only did it flourish in the field of traditional heavy industry, but also gave birth to the "Liuzhou" that has repeatedly appeared on the hot search lists and frequently appeared in major live broadcasts with industrial thinking. Snail powder".
Through the development of production lines, the formulation of industry standards, and the strengthening of the protection of geographical indication registered trademarks, the snail noodles have broken free from small workshops.
In just over 6 years, the bagged snail powder industry has emerged from nothing. In 2020, it will achieve sales revenue of nearly 11 billion yuan, driving the sales revenue of supporting and derivative ancillary products to exceed 13 billion yuan.
"Currently, the daily output of snail noodles is up to 3.25 million bags. The products are exported to more than 20 countries and regions overseas, and about 250,000 jobs are located in all links of the entire industrial chain." said Meng Qipeng, deputy mayor of Liuzhou.
Innovation, fitted with industrial engines
"Rice noodles are traditional foods in the Han area, while sour bamboo shoots are traditional foods in ethnic minority areas such as Miao and Dong nationalities. Snail noodles combine the dietary culture of Han and ethnic minorities to produce a wonderful taste of spicy, refreshing, fresh, sour and hot. ." said Ni Xiaoyang, president of the Liuzhou Snails and Noodles Association.
There is a folk saying "one bowl of snails and three bowls of soup", which shows the delicious taste of snails.
While snail noodles have become nostalgic memories of locals, they are also favored by more and more foreign diners.
Folk craftsmanship has consolidated the reputation of snail noodles.
In 2008, the folk art of "Handmade Snail Noodles" was selected into the Intangible Cultural Heritage List of the Autonomous Region, and it was announced to be shortlisted in the National Intangible Heritage List at the end of 2020.
However, the sales in stores are limited after all. Freshly cooked dine-in meals cannot meet the demand for authentic Liuzhou snail noodles.
Liuzhou people who are good at industrial thinking began to think: Can snail noodles be packaged for instant food, not only for large-scale production, but also to express the original snail noodles to diners?
The breakthrough lies in reform and innovation.
With the improvement of rice noodle production technology, physical sterilization, vacuum packaging and other food production and packaging technologies, breakthroughs have been made in the research and development of instant bagged snail noodles.
"Technological breakthroughs have accelerated the industrialization process of bagged instant snail noodles. The manufacturers of bagged Liuzhou snail noodles have grown from two in 2014 to 113 now." Ni Jiayang told reporters.
In addition, the content of snail noodles is constantly innovating.
A fresh soup made from pork bones and snails, with more than 10 kinds of natural spices simmered for several hours over a slow fire, is the main source of the deliciousness of snails powder and the essence of the snails powder making skills.
However, due to the African swine fever epidemic, the export of Liuzhou bagged snail powder containing pork was once blocked.
In order to solve this problem, the Liuzhou snail powder industry development leading group has studied countermeasures many times. One of the important measures is to use beef bones instead of pig bones to make soup.
"After repeated trials, the snail soup made with beef bones has no difference in taste from the snail soup made with the previous technology, and it is deeply loved by consumers." said Liu Qingshi, chairman of Guangxi Luo Zhuangyuan Food Technology Co., Ltd.
This innovation has further opened up the export market of snail noodles, and the products are exported to more than 20 countries. The total export value in 2020 will reach 30.38 million yuan, which is 35 times the total export value in 2019.
Standard, please come to the patron saint of the brand
To industrialize snail noodles, it means the entire process of quality control and standardized production.
As there are many brands of snail noodles in the market, the product quality is uneven and mixed.
"The long-term development of the snail noodle market is inseparable from standard norms and constraints." Meng Qipeng said.
In order to keep Liuzhou snail powder on fire for a long time, Liuzhou City has strengthened the protection of the geographical indication certification mark of "Liuzhou snail powder" and cracked down on infringement and counterfeiting.
In 2019, the city successfully declared the regional public brand of "Liuzhou snail powder" to the autonomous region, and has applied for the registration of the Liuzhou snail powder international trademark in 44 countries and regions.
On February 4 this year, the "Geographical Indication Certification Trademark Liuzhou Snail Powder" was released on the national group standard information platform and officially implemented on February 5.
The standard was jointly formulated by Liuzhou Snail Powder Association, Liuzhou Standard Technology and Intellectual Property Research Center, Liuzhou Quality Inspection and Research Center, and many Liuzhou Snail Powder Enterprises.
As different snail powder products may have quality differences due to different raw material ratios and processes, the unique flavor and characteristic quality of the products are difficult to control. At the beginning of this year, Liuzhou snail powder association proposed and managed the Liuzhou snail powder group standard.
This group standard clearly stipulates the raw material requirements, processing technology requirements and quality requirements, including boiling technology, fermentation technology, and the net content of soup bag, sour bamboo shoot bag, and ingredient bag.
The group standard also requires that the sourness of the sour bamboo shoot package and the umami component of the soup package be tested to determine the specific indicators and values of the sour bamboo shoot and soup package, so as to ensure that the flavor and taste standards are unified.
Relying on the Liuzhou snail powder inspection and testing center workstation, Liuzhou Municipal Market Supervision Bureau has integrated the Liuzhou snail powder engineering technology research center, Guangxi Liuzhou snail powder quality inspection center and Guangxi specialty Liuzhou snail powder traceability testing center technical functions to create Liuzhou snail powder quality service" The "one-stop" platform can provide enterprises with inspection and testing, business consulting, and handling services directly on site. The testing capabilities cover the whole industry chain of snail powder products.
At present, Liuzhou City has basically realized Liuzhou snail powder from raw materials to finished products, including nine categories, 172 sub-categories, 173 products, and 2303 items, including main products, raw and auxiliary materials, and toxic and hazardous substances.
The parameters cover 806 national, departmental and local standards, and the coverage rate of the entire industry chain is nearly 90%, which effectively guarantees the factory quality of Liuzhou snail powder pre-packaged products.
Network, plug in wings to take off
In interviews in Liuzhou, reporters often heard from the producers of snail noodles that without a fast-developing Internet economy, there would be no rapid development of snail noodles today.
It smells stinky and tastes delicious-Liuzhou snail noodles have carried the "net celebrity" gene since they were "born".
Affected by the "home economy", Liuzhou snail fans have repeatedly appeared on the hot search list of Weibo, and the whole network has been urging orders to be shipped. Many web anchors rely on snail fans to "suck fans".
As early as 10 years ago, the Liuzhou Municipal Government made great efforts to promote the "Snail Noodles in Beijing" project, with the purpose of making Snail Noodles "to be a business card for the promotion of Liuzhou's city image."
The bagged snail powder was born and became a "net celebrity", which is deeply favored by consumers.
On December 18, 2020, Liuzhou City held the Liuzhou Ten Billion Industry Summit with the theme of "Strong Platform Empowers and Cultivate Liuzhou Snail Noodle Ecological Industry", inviting domestic top Internet platform company entrepreneurs to communicate with Liuzhou Snail Noodle Internet industry Development experience, explore the development direction of Liuzhou snail powder Internet, gather new ideas and new kinetic energy for industrial development, deepen the new model of online and offline integrated sales of Liuzhou snail powder, realize the quality and upgrade of the entire industry chain, and help Liuzhou snail powder move towards a 50 billion industry .
Online sales are booming, and offline physical stores are becoming increasingly popular.
Driven by the popular bagged snail noodles on the entire network, Liuzhou snail noodles stores are blooming all over the country.
According to a conservative estimate of the Liuzhou Snail Noodles Association, there are currently more than 30,000 Liuzhou Snail Noodles stores, and every store with the word "Liuzhou" has become a window to promote Liuzhou.
Integration, accumulate "Changhong" kinetic energy
In the growth process of Liuzhou bagged snail noodles, industrial integration is a notable feature.
With the development of the snail meal industry, more stable quality raw materials are needed.
At this time, the snail meal production enterprises gradually extended to the cultivation of raw materials, creating a whole industrial chain integrating the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
In 2019, Guangxi Luobawang Food Co., Ltd. took the lead in establishing the Liuzhou (Luobawang) snail powder industrialization consortium. The consortium is led by the leading snail powder enterprises, based on farmers, cooperatives as the link, and market-oriented, forming a multi-party interest connection Mechanism, division of labor and collaboration, so that farmers can share more economic development achievements through the platform of bases and cooperatives.
As a product that deeply integrates the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, the bagged snail powder industry has participated in the entire process of poverty alleviation in Liuzhou City, forming a "snail powder +" industrial chain, achieving industrial development and driving poverty alleviation in the process of decisive victory over poverty alleviation. A win-win situation.
The country's first characteristic town with snail noodles as the theme, the small town of snail noodles, the National Modern Agricultural Industrial Park, and the National Rural Industrial Integration Development Demonstration Park have successively settled in Liunan District.
The establishment of the demonstration park has laid a solid foundation for solving upstream supporting industries.
Relying on the superior resources of its jurisdiction, Liunan District has successfully established a national modern agricultural industrial park and a demonstration park for the integrated development of the snail flour industry. It has now built 14 snail flour raw material planting bases with a total area of about 26,000 mu, and the production scale has continued to maintain Guangxi Forefront.
With the continuous expansion of the snail meal raw material planting and processing base, Liuzhou's snail meal raw material planting and breeding scale has reached more than 500,000 mu, driving 250,000 farmers, including more than 4,500 registered poor households and about 23,000. The per capita annual income increased by more than 9,000 yuan.