In Xinping County, Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, the wolf trees planted on the hillside are growing gratifyingly, and the branches are covered with yellow fruits, and the mountains are full of "sweet" harvest scenes.
In a wolkan processing plant on the outskirts of Xinping County, high-tech production lines rumble, boxes of oranges pass through "checkpoints" on the conveyor belt, "automatically grouped" according to size, sugar, shape, and skin appearance, and dozens of workers also divide labor and cooperate, busy handling, cleaning, sorting, boxing, and loading.
Workers wash the oranges
The factory is part of Yunnan Guosu Trading Co., Ltd., and the director of the factory, Rao Yuanheng, shuttles through the nearly 6000,90-square-meter factory area, carefully inspecting all links and guiding workers. "There is no special standard thing in agriculture, so small details are very important." This post-<>s Yunnan guy has a serious face, and his eyes almost never leave the orange on the assembly line. These fruits are sold by Yu Xianwei, a partner of Rao Wishheng and a merchant of Pinduoduo, and will be sent to all parts of the country after loading.
Wokan is not a unique fruit variety in Yunnan, Wuming Wokan from Guangxi and Aotang from Oceania have high popularity and market share. In the face of competition, Yunnan's plateau orange certainly has its "diamond diamond". The high altitude, long growth cycle, higher maturity of the planting base, coupled with the unique water and heat light, make the orange fruit here full of flesh, rich juice, and taste "more flavorful".
According to Rao Yuanheng, the overall cultivation of oranges in Yunnan is relatively scattered, and it is planted in Binchuan, Dali, Honghe, Baoshan and other places. As the hometown of Chu oranges, Yuxi Xinping Wokan is the most famous. But getting Wokan out of the plateau and into the hands of consumers is not a smooth road.
Climbing: quality-based, e-commerce assistance
"You look at this planted hillside, the steepest has a slope of 60 or 70 degrees, there is no way to mechanize picking, you can only rely on manual basket by basket." Standing on a plantation at a cooperative base, Rao Yuanheng inspected the ripeness and appearance of the unpicked fruit while introducing that in order to stand firm on the slope, he could only tilt his body slightly to maintain his balance. The high cost of planting and picking labor is not the only difficulty, "especially steep places, relying on manual medicine is difficult, diseases and pests cannot be avoided, and marks will be left on the skin, so Yunnan Wotang has certain disadvantages in selling it." ”
However, luck and misfortune depend on each other, because the fruit trees are planted along the mountain, and as the altitude rises, the temperature decreases, and the time for the fruit to ripen is different, and the fruit trees under the mountain have been picked, and the ones on the mountainside have just ripened. "Long growth cycle, long sales cycle, and low pesticide use are all advantages of highland oranges." Yu Xianwei, who has been doing fruit business in Yunnan for more than 4 years, said. The oranges he sold on Pinduoduo's tens of billions of subsidies ranked first in the "Wokan praise list", and all of these oranges came from Rao Yuanheng's processing factory.
In the industrial chain of Wokan, the processing plant managed by Rao Yuanheng can be said to be an important link in the commercialization link of Wokan. The upstream docking fruit farmers and planting bases, the downstream docking with the sales platform and merchants, and the processing must be done in the middle, and there can be no problems in any link.
Workers sort the oranges
"Pinduoduo's high traffic is very important to us to bring our products to more consumers," Rao Wangheng said bluntly. Although plateau oranges do not have advantages in cost and sales, they can achieve best-selling and praise in Pinduoduo "both hands are hard", and the two post-90s believe that the core depends on quality.
The two who met in 2020 because they chose a common express company to deliver goods relied on "magnetic field attraction" to "do practical things", and then began a long-term cooperation. The tens of billions of subsidies chosen by Pinduoduo are mainly because this channel has good quality control and is naturally suitable for their products. "No matter what our peers do, yield is an important indicator for us." Yu Xianwei said that according to the picking situation, the yield can reach 90% when it is high, and even only 45% when it is low, but in any case, the bad fruit and rotten fruit are resolutely not allowed, even if it will reduce profits. Even when the supply is insufficient and the price of the site rises, the loss of money does not reduce the quality control standard.
As a supplier and partner, Rao Yuanheng also supports this ultimate pursuit of quality, "Adhere to quality to win the final victory, consumers to Yu Zong's store recognition, is to our product recognition, so that Yunnan Wotang will be more and more recognized." ”
Yu Xianwei (left) and Rao Yuanheng (right) met and helped each other because of e-commerce
Crossing the hurdle: from the Internet "big factory" to the small processing plant
With dark skin and simple and even white-washed clothes, when you meet this Rao director in a processing factory, you will probably think that he is just an ordinary worker. It may also be because of this simplicity and grounding that he can do a good job in downstream docking while maintaining close contact with the upstream planting end.
In Xinping County, there are no large and small planting bases that he is unfamiliar with, and what is even more rare is that everyone recognizes him, even if some bases have their own direct customers, they are willing to pull Wokan to Rao Yuanheng for processing and subcontracting. On the sales side, in addition to Yu Xianwei, a "big customer" from Pinduoduo, the processing plant has also cooperated with many mainstream fresh food e-commerce. "I don't have any special methods, I do things reliably, pay promptly, have credibility, be reasonable, and when I do it, they recognize me." Rao Wanheng smiled shyly.
Although it is a heavy lift, a lot of hard work has been put into it, which can be called a history of the growth of new farmers. After graduating from university in 2014, his first job was as the technical director of a fresh food e-commerce platform, responsible for the highly information-based import production line in the processing plant. After 2016, I slowly started from technology, came into contact with procurement and sales, and gradually became able to take full responsibility and have a more three-dimensional experience.
Rao Wishheng checked the machine sorting situation on the computer
At the end of 2017, due to the business adjustment of his platform, Rao Yuanheng changed from a glamorous Internet "big factory" employee to a director of a small processing plant. Starting from Wokan, it slowly expanded to rock sugar orange, mogu orange, honey mandarin, and avocado, and did the "commercialization" of local seasonal fruits.
From technical posts to management posts, from large factory workers to small factory leaders, adapting to the change of role and lack of management experience are all obstacles in front of him. "At that time, I felt that I was from a big company, very good, and even a little unconvinced. But the operation turned out to be not that simple at all. Rao Yuanheng said frankly that only processing, without a full range of customers, can not guarantee the operation of the factory. And if you really pick up the burden, you will have real ideas about how to do things well. "So slowly I began to attract more customers through the resources accumulated in my original work, and gradually made up for the shortcomings."
Contacting upstream and downstream customers, how to retain customers is also a hurdle. After starting operation in 2018, Rao Yuanheng found that this production line with strong sorting ability and high degree of informatization was much higher than other machines that could only do simple and large sorting. Even if it is continuously optimized, there is still no advantage in the cost and price level. "Since the cost can not continue to be optimized, I changed my thinking later, I do services, improve my service awareness, whether it is upstream and downstream customers, as long as I encounter problems, I always have to find a way to solve them."
Charge: Establish standards and build brands
However, the opening up of upstream and downstream industries did not make Director Rao easy and slack, and establishing industry standards and building real estate brands are his long-term goals and missions.
The building of real estate brands is inseparable from the construction of industry standards. Now the well-known Shaanxi kiwifruit and Shandong apple in the market have formed a clear set of industrial norms and standards. But Yunnan Wokan is not yet, as a college student majoring in manufacturing and studying precision instruments, Rao Yuanheng is deeply distressed.
Because different sales side procurement standards are different, it increases the difficulty of his production and management. The processing plant now has nearly 40 permanent workers, but when the season is busy, there may be more than 200 employees at the same time, and because of the high mobility of temporary workers, more than 600 people are paid a month at most. "In general, we rely on old employees to bring new employees, and long-term workers to bring temporary workers, but because there are many customers and standards are constantly changing, we often have to do repeated training, go around and return to the original point." Rao Yuanheng said that if there is a unified industry standard, everyone will follow the same standard, which will greatly improve management efficiency.
In the past two years, standardization and brand building have also continued to progress with the efforts of many parties. According to him, the cold chain logistics demonstration park led by the Xinping County government will be officially put into use this year, the cold chain logistics demonstration park is five or six kilometers away from the processing plant, and the overall strengthening from the plant construction, industry standards, industrial supporting aspects, and then concentrated on the promotion of the citrus industry in Xinping County, which will also play a demonstration driving role.
Due to its large scale, the processing plant in charge of Rao Yuanheng has received an olive branch thrown by the relevant department and invited them to move in the first batch. "We hope to work with the government and associations, work hard in the direction of this standardization and brand, find a balance point recognized by the market, and price according to quality." Rao Yuanheng said.
Perseverance: Agriculture to the future
After more than nine years in this industry, Rao Yuanheng admits that agriculture is indeed hard and tiring, and when he was busiest, Yu Xianwei's Pinduoduo channel alone had more than 1,3 orders a day. One end is that the planting base is in a hurry to ship, and the other end is that the customer is in a hurry to sell the goods. During the month or two when his needs are most concentrated, he may only sleep more than <> hours a day on average. The worker works in two or three shifts, but as the person in charge, he always stays.
"At that time, I wanted to lean in, because I didn't dare to sit, and I fell asleep immediately after sitting down." Rao Yuanheng said that the customers who serve him for a long time have been recognized and supported, and the workers are also in a state of extreme fatigue, "No way, I can't be the first to fall." Although he felt very bitter and tired, when faced with the reporter's questions, he still said "no regrets", as the son of a farmer, as a Yunnan native, what has supported him to this point is a feeling.
Rao Wishheng considers himself a "hometown treasure", feels that his hometown is very good, and loves home. After graduating from college, he did not choose to go to the big city to develop, but worked hard in his hometown, sending real estate fruits out of the mountains, while the processing factory also promoted the surrounding employment, according to Rao Yuanheng, "The source of workers are all villages around the county, either mothers who need to bring children, or people who are about 50 years old and have no advantage in going out to work." ”
As the son of a farmer, he firmly believes that China's agricultural development will gradually break away from the traditional model, and the trend of standardization and commercialization has emerged.
At the same time, as a father, he also feels the responsibility for the growth of the next generation, although he can only accompany his wife and children for one or two days a month, but he believes that he has the obligation to create a safe food environment for more children, which is also his current original intention, "The high-quality development of agriculture has not yet reached my generation, but I will continue to work in this direction." Rao Yuanheng said.
Agriculture needs to be industrialized, new farmers with knowledge and vision, and a high-speed road that allows agricultural products to go out of the village and into the city. Pinduoduo started in agriculture, and has built a new agricultural product supply chain through "Farmland Cloud Pinpin", becoming the largest upward platform for agricultural products in China. The reporter learned that in order to further serve rural revitalization and respond to the call of "digital business to revitalize agriculture", Pinduoduo recently announced the launch of the "Agricultural Cloud Action", focusing on superior resources to promote the 100 agricultural belts across the country to "fight in the cloud" faster and create a more resilient and competitive digital agricultural belt.