Chapter 111 Red PigmentIn Gangu, after Tianhe’s demonstration base began to show results in 2003, the county urgently applied for a national pepper standardization demonstration zone construction project. Under the impetus of all parties, In 2004, the pepper planting area in Gangu quickly exceeded acres, far exceeding the planned area. And it's not just Gangu. Other counties and cities in the province that lack pillar industries have also flocked to launch pepper planting projects. The rapid expansion of production capacity has put tremendous pressure on the sales of fresh peppers, and the expectations for dried peppers have also been declining. The county agricultural bureau quickly got hold of this information and began to travel around, participating in various agricultural product fairs and expositions to connect with local markets. Fortunately, the brand of Tianjiao No. 1 was promoted early on, and its excellent flavor and taste won unanimous praise from customers. There is an endless stream of merchants coming to purchase. But compared with 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, you could tell that it had been driven very hard. Even used car dealers would not buy it. Traveling from one hilltop to another, Yu Qi could no longer remember how many farmers grew peppers along the way.
His name is written on the roadside signboard of "National Chili Standardization Demonstration Area". It is like a time bomb, reminding him all the time. Yu Qi is a technician at the county agricultural technology station, and most of the peppers in the demonstration area are produced under his technical guidance. Technically speaking, pepper cultivation has been successful, but a single variety also brings other troubles: the maturity period is concentrated and there is a serious backlog of raw materials during the peak period. Compared with a good harvest, he hopes that farmers can actually make money! In the small town of Panshan District, a chili pepper purchasing station has spontaneously formed. Yu Qi checked the fresh peppers in the farmers' baskets one by one. They were all in good condition. "How's the market today?" "It's fallen again. Today, it's 3 yuan per pound." "I was still thinking about 3 cents. It's already this late. I'll be lucky if I can sell it for 2 cents later." "Why are you still picking it when it's only two or three cents?" Yu Qi asked in confusion, 2 cents is probably the cost price for farmers. If it is a large-scale grower, including labor costs, it will be a big loss. The expression on the farmer's face was indescribably complicated. "We haven't signed an order with Quanwang Company, so there is no guaranteed price for dried peppers. We can only sell some fresh peppers first." Yu Qi couldn't help but contact Quanwang Company again. To his surprise, this time Quanwang Company no longer made excuses. "The trading company's cold storage has been fully operational, and the purchase of fresh peppers is increasing." "Quanwang Company is also developing new technologies for deep processing. If successful, the consumption capacity of dried chilies will be taken to a higher level." …… Quanwang Company's main processed products are dried chili peppers, chili sauce and chili powder. After Tianhe acquired Quanwang, it renovated the original factories and equipment, and also merged some small factories. Production capacity has been greatly improved. The order contracts signed with farmers reached 13 mu, but the planting area of Tianjiao No. 1 may have reached 25 mu.
Adding other varieties of okra, as well as string peppers and green peppers, the province's pepper planting area is likely to approach or exceed 50 acres! Fortunately, local governments and farmers are aware of the huge expansion of cultivated areas this year. In addition to strengthening the development of the fresh pepper market and improving storage logistics, more pressure is pouring on processing companies. As the leading company, Quanwang Company bears the brunt! In the production workshop of Quanwang Company, the pungent smell of solvents seemed to have not yet completely dissipated, and a critical debugging was in progress. "Will it succeed this time?" "It's not that easy to extract erythrin. I worked on it for half a year, but the purity of the extraction was not high enough, there were many impurities, and the refining cost was too high." "This time it's different. The group company provides technical support, and the group chairman is personally watching over the research and development and production equipment of Fengkai Agricultural Machinery, a subsidiary of the group." "It looks quite decent." Several technicians in the experiment were still doing the final debugging of the equipment. These sets of equipment were brought by Fengkai Agricultural Machinery, a subsidiary of the group company. Yu Qin, general manager of Quanwang Company, still had a look of deep suspicion in his eyes. “Can peppers really be extracted and purified with their stems?” Guan Cheng, the leader of the Fengkai Agricultural Machinery team, smiled and said, "Boss Yu, are you still struggling with the extraction of pepper stems?" Yu Qin said: "This is very important to us. Not only is it to extract the red pigment, but also to make chili sauce, chili powder, chopped peppers, etc., it is necessary to remove the chili stems. We currently remove them by manually twisting them off or cutting them with scissors, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive and inefficient. During the production season, people sit together on the drying ground and pick the pepper stems by hand. It is a spectacular scene, but it takes up a lot of labor costs. " Hearing this, Guan Cheng also became serious. "We tested this pepper red pigment extraction equipment when we were in Shandong Province. It can not only extract and purify peppers with stalks. Moreover, the eight independent links in the pre-treatment process, including airing, crushing, drying, seed skin separation, grinding, screening, fine grinding and granulation, can also be realized in continuous production through this set of equipment. One set of complete machine can process 8-100 tons of dried chili peppers per day. " All the knowledgeable people in the experiment were amazed. 120 tons per day, the efficiency has increased by nearly 30 times! Moreover, if the red pigment of pepper can really be extracted without the stems, the cost saved by removing the stems per ton of peppers is nearly 1200 yuan. Is this equipment really that advanced? Guan Cheng still had an apologetic look on his face, and said, "Mr. Yu, before we came here, we didn't consider that the chili sauce processing also requires the removal of the chili stems. It was my negligence. I will launch a research and development project for the chili stem removal machine. When the product is out, I will definitely send someone to install it as soon as possible." There was silence in the experiment for a while, and someone whispered, "Can the pepper stems be removed mechanically?" "As long as there is demand, we can develop it. No matter how niche the agricultural machinery is, as long as the companies within the group need it, we can provide it!" "That's great. Manual stalk removal is not only costly but also harmful to the human body. Every year workers suffer from burns, stings, and even skin ulcers." The equipment was quickly debugged and put into operation. Yu Qin looked at the scene in front of him in disbelief. The processing of peppers with stalks, powder granulation and extraction technology, all processes were connected together. The employees of the King of All were also a little confused. Plant pigment extraction generally adopts the small-scale workshop production method of traditional vertical tank extraction, which has extremely low production efficiency and low output. But inexplicably, Quanwang Company has a continuous, large-scale pepper processing and extraction production line, and has also made breakthroughs in production technology.
At this time, another employee in charge of monitoring shouted. "It's very fast, and the key is that the solvent consumption is so low." Guan Cheng smiled and said, "The solvent consumption has been reduced from 300 kg per ton of material to 3 kg, and the pigment yield has also increased from 85% to 98%." “Production efficiency has increased hundreds of times.” Yu Qin estimated in his mind that only two sets of production machines would be needed to consume nearly 300 tons of dried chilies every day. This will undoubtedly provide strong support for the price of excess peppers. (End of this chapter)