Source: CCTV News Client
Kimchi is crispy and delicious, and many people like to eat it very much. In Sichuan, kimchi is known as the root of Sichuan cuisine and is warmly sought after by diners, who jokingly call it "the artifact of rice". Meishan in Sichuan is the "hometown of kimchi in China", where everyone not only loves to eat it, but also makes it. This inconspicuous pickle has become a bright industry in Meishan, with an output value of up to 23 billion yuan, and has become an engine to help rural revitalization.
Meishan City, Sichuan Province, known as Meizhou in ancient times, has a history of thousands of years, and can be described as a masterpiece of the world. The trip to Meishan for foreign tourists usually starts from the Sansu Temple. Su Xun, Su Shi, and Su Zhi's family produced three great writers, and today we are here not only to pay tribute to these three people, but more importantly, to find a delicacy that even the three of them praise. In Meishan, it can be found everywhere, whether it is a top restaurant or a street restaurant. It's exactly what we're looking for – kimchi.
Kimchi has a history of thousands of years in Meishan. According to historical records, Dongpo elbow and Dongpo fish are the worldly delicacy made by Su Dongpo with kimchi. In Meishan, people like to make kimchi, eat kimchi, and ponder kimchi. Today, kimchi, which has been passed down for thousands of years, has become an intangible cultural heritage of Meishan.
The method of the home version of kimchi may seem simple, but if it is industrialized and mass-produced, it is much more complicated and requires a lot of technical difficulties to overcome. In the 80s of last century, the Meishan kimchi industry began to start, but it has long been in a state of "small scale, scattered layout, short chain, low variety, quality, and brand level".
Wang Zhidan, deputy mayor of Dongpo District, Meishan City, Sichuan: It has gone from the previous home-workshop style to large-scale production, then to standardized production, and then to modern production. In 2006, the government also saw that although the kimchi industry had a certain scale, its development was still in a disorderly state, and it launched the action to build China's kimchi hometown.
After more than ten years of development, Meishan has developed into the hometown of kimchi in China. So, how did they do it? The answer is to create a kimchi industry cluster. And to make kimchi, the first thing is to grow vegetables on a large scale. Although everything can be made into kimchi, the most popular are radish, mustard greens, cowpeas, and large-leaf greens.
Before the kimchi industry, vegetable farmers mainly grew vegetables for their own consumption or nearby sales, and it was difficult to get rich from it. After the development of the kimchi industry, taking the road of order agriculture not only allows kimchi enterprises to have stable raw materials, but also promotes farmers to increase production and income.
Xiang Feng, Chairman of Sichuan Meishan Dadangjia Vegetable Professional Cooperative: First of all, we signed an order with the enterprise, and then distributed the order to the farmers, and the farmers planted according to the order, and after handing over the planted raw materials to the kimchi enterprise, the cooperative paid cash directly to the farmers.
Meishan adopts the "company + cooperative + farmer" model to strengthen the interest connection between kimchi enterprises and farmers. At present, driven by the pickle industry, the city has developed a vegetable raw material base of more than 400,000 mu, driving nearly 200,000 farmers to increase their income.
Wang Zhidan, deputy mayor of Dongpo District, Meishan City, Sichuan: Through the industry, the income has been increased, and the ability to grow vegetables has been improved, and the development of the family from solo to group has been realized.
Not only the vegetable industry in Meishan has developed, but also the surrounding counties and townships. It's harvest season for organic radishes in Qingshen County, and hundreds of villagers are busy delivering their goods to Meishan.
With vegetables, you can make kimchi. Where to do it? It is in the "China Kimchi City", that is, the Meishan Kimchi Industrial Park. This park is the first and largest, most functional and latest kimchi industrial park in the country. It is here that vegetables are deeply processed into various products such as pickles, prepared dishes, and seasonings, and the added value is greatly increased; The industrial chain has also continued to extend, covering production, transportation, packaging, e-commerce, tourism, catering, scientific research, etc., gathering more than 30 upstream and downstream enterprises of kimchi processing, processing more than 1.5 million tons of kimchi annually, providing 25,000 jobs, and finally turning kimchi from a small craft into a large industry.
Wang Zhidan, deputy mayor of Dongpo District, Meishan City, Sichuan: Relying on China's Kimchi City, it has connected the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Last year, the sales of the entire kimchi industry reached 23 billion.
Meishan Kimchi Industrial Park has achieved "seven national uniques", including Kimchi Food Industry City, National Kimchi Quality Inspection Center, Kimchi Industry Technology Research Institute, Kimchi Professional Museum, Kimchi Industry National 4A Tourist Scenic Spot and so on. They form industrial clusters and develop in synergy with each other. In order to make the kimchi industry bigger, we must first solve the problem of industrialization, and to industrialize, we must overcome several key technical problems, such as fermentation. We visited He Yanping, the representative inheritor of kimchi's provincial intangible cultural heritage, who founded a company that has been making kimchi using ancient techniques.
Scientific research has found that in order to turn vegetables into kimchi, lactic acid bacteria are the key to fermentation and flavoring. In the past, people did not understand the scientific principles of making kimchi, mainly relying on experience, so the quality was high and low and it was difficult to mass produce. Now with the blessing of technology, the products of this traditional kimchi company are stable at a high level. Because the old mother water they have passed down for four generations, that is, the brine used to make kimchi, happens to be rich in lactic acid bacteria. He Yanping decided to use the old mother water and the big altar to achieve industrial production. In addition to production, the company also conducts industrial tourism, attracting people to visit and study. In order to spread kimchi culture, they even built a new kimchi training hall.
To achieve industrialization, science and technology are essential. In order to provide technical support to enterprises, the Kimchi Industrial Technology Research Institute has also been established in the industrial park to carry out technical research with enterprises.
Zhang Wei, vice president of Sichuan Dongpo China Kimchi Industry Technology Research Institute: Our research institute is mainly for industrial development, to do common technologies and key technologies for the kimchi industry, and to provide enterprises with a full range of technical services. The so-called common problems are the common problems faced by various enterprises in the industry, and the key problems are some problems unique to individual enterprises.
For example, how to dispose of kimchi brine is a common problem that plagues the development of enterprises. Like a certain enterprise with an annual output of 200,000 tons of kimchi, they do not use large jars but pickle ponds to ferment. Although the yield is increased many times, it produces a large amount of kimchi brine that cannot be recycled. What if direct emissions pollute the environment? They found the Kimchi Industrial Technology Research Institute.
Zhang Wei, vice president of Sichuan Dongpo China Kimchi Industry Technology Research Institute: At present, it has made a breakthrough and has also won the first prize of Sichuan Province Science and Technology Progress Award, referred to as MVR technology, efficient concentration and crystallization evaporation.
Bao Yongbi, supervisor of Sichuan Dongpo Kimchi Industrial Technology Research Institute: After the evaporator has undergone one or two stages of evaporation, a high concentration of crystalline brine is obtained, and after centrifugal filtration, dry edible salt is obtained. The recovery rate reached 99.5%, and 4,200 tons of salt have been obtained in four years.
Another company takes kimchi brine a step further. This technology is also the result of cooperation between the Kimchi Technology Research Institute and enterprises.
Wang Yanli, deputy general manager of a kimchi enterprise in Meishan City, Sichuan: The electronic kimchi jar is automatically fed and can automatically monitor the salinity and pH, and the kimchi water can be reused, solving the problem that the traditional kimchi jar cannot be expanded.
In addition, the local government has also standardized the development of the industry and focused on cultivating leading enterprises, thus laying a good foundation for the entire industry. In this way, the government and enterprises performed their respective duties, making the entire kimchi industry develop rapidly. The industry has been revitalized, and more employment opportunities have been provided for local farmers. 490 people with disabilities found jobs in the e-commerce workshop of a company.
However, the pace of Meishan's development has not stopped. In order to open up a larger market, they decided to go abroad. In November 2020, Meishan took the lead in formulating the first international standard for the pickle industry. This is also the sixth food standard developed by Continental under the framework of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Wang Zhidan, deputy mayor of Dongpo District, Meishan City, Sichuan: We should take this as an opportunity to enter the international market, not only to export our kimchi products internationally, but also to export our kimchi culture and our Chinese culture through this.
In order to better go global, the Meishan Municipal Government also held the 13th China Kimchi Food International Expo, through various measures to expand and strengthen the kimchi industry cluster, realize industrial revitalization, and ultimately drive the common development of farmers, enterprises and localities, and achieved good results. In 2022, the annual sales revenue of Meishan kimchi will reach 23 billion yuan, helping more than 200,000 rural households in the city become rich and well-off. Meishan has also won the title of "the city with the most investment potential in the food industry".
Chinese kimchi looks at Sichuan, and Sichuan kimchi is in Meishan. Decoding Meishan kimchi, we found that it is by expanding and strengthening the kimchi industry that the local area has extended the industrial chain from vegetables to kimchi, attracting more and more vegetable farmers and enterprises to join it. At the same time, although kimchi is a traditional craft, it also needs innovation in technology and marketing to make homemade kimchi into a nationally famous "big industry" and "big business card". Native products are not afraid of small, but afraid of not being refined and not specialized, as long as you are willing to work hard and use your brains, local specialties can also become golden rice bowls.