"Sitting at the door of the village with Jun and eating fried beans with melon seeds, I don't know if there will be this day again?" In "Su Shi Collection", Mr. Dongpo once mentioned the life he longed for in a letter to a friend.
A small melon seed, so fascinating and so addictive. For this great writer, coveting may not only be good taste, but also those rare leisure time, or the simplest and most comfortable daily life.
Chinese habit of eating melon seeds has been around for a long time. In the 9.6 million square kilometers of Shenzhou, the food culture is colorful, but melon seeds have always been an indispensable and important snack food for Chinese people after tea and dinner. According to the "2022-2027 China Melon Seed Industry Supply and Demand Trend and Investment Risk Research Report" by the China Industry Research Institute, the scale of the mainland packaging melon seed industry in 2021 has approached 15 billion yuan.
Gull water depends on each other. Of course, behind a good melon seed, it is inseparable from a good "kernel", and it is more related to every step from the place of origin to entering thousands of households. Taking Qiaqia as an example, its four main raw material production areas, mainly concentrated in the area north of 40° north latitude and north, about 6 million mu of planting bases, layer by layer screening, independent grasp of quality, crispy and full melon seeds were born.
The "secret garden" of small melon seeds
Sunflower seeds, sunflower seeds generally refer to sunflower seeds, and sunflower seeds are the fruits of sunflowers. Sunflower seeds are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and trace elements, and their taste is delicious. Chinese has turned sunflowers into snacks for all ages, and the pursuit of sunflower seed flavor is constantly being explored.
But not every sunflower seed qualifies as a bargain.
In terms of melon seed raw materials, the four main raw material production areas of Qiaqia can be called "top match", mainly concentrated in areas with long sunshine time and less rain, suitable for sunflower growth at 40° north latitude and north. These raw material bases have a large area, wide range, rich variety and stable supply. The sunflower seeds planted not only have stable yields, but also have better output indicators such as larger grains, fullness and uniformity.
Sunflowers blooming in the main producing area
In Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu, Northeast China and other high-quality sunflower growing areas, melon seeds have been planted by themselves. Natural conditions such as 3,000 hours of sunshine, saline-alkali sandy loam, and large temperature difference between day and night give melon seeds rich nutritional value, which is also the advantage of self-owned planting land.
Located in the sunflower orchard in Xinjiang, every April, the sunflower seed varieties carefully selected by Qiaqia Company will reach the growers. Growers mechanize seeds on season, supplemented by drip irrigation, drones and other technologies. From the seedling stage, the underground part of the sunflower grows rapidly and soon forms a strong root system. Growers regularly patrol the sunflower orchards to check the wetness of the soil and judge the growth trend of the sunflowers, so that the nutrient distribution ratio can be adjusted in time.
7 days to emerge, 30 days to emerge, 30 days to bloom, 15-20 days to ripen... The drying method of the insert plate promoted by Qiaqia allows the sunflower plate to be air-dried in a natural state. After threshing by hand, melon seeds that meet the size standards are selected after 6 winnowing and hand-selection processes.
The fruit, which has been soaked in the bright sunshine, undergoes the Qiaqia cooking process and is cooked instead of stir-fried, which retains the crispy taste of the melon seeds while striking a balance between health and deliciousness. From the place of origin to the hands of consumers, each sunflower seed is perfectly presented in the hands of every consumer after undergoing a series of production processes such as quality inspection, production, cold chain, and preservation.
How industry leaders are made
Twenty years of heritage, Honghu aspirations. With its unique cultural connotation, Qiaqia melon seeds bring together a unique Chinese taste.
Focusing on breeding research, research and development, planting and quality control, Qiaqia insists on using direct harvesting in season, selects sunflower seeds with the best quality in the season, and directly cooperates with the farm of origin to monitor the whole process of processing methods, plant equipment and integrity system to ensure that each melon seed is fresh and safe.
At the same time, the implementation of scientific planting, has successively adopted the "order + seed company + farmer" order promotion model in Altay in Xinjiang, Yumen in Gansu, Bayannur in Inner Mongolia, Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia and other places, stable raw material recovery guarantee and process planting guidance, bringing good benefits to cooperative growers, and the perception of sunflower seed categories in this way is also better. "If you want sunflowers to sell well, it is indispensable to negotiate orders for sunflowers" has formed a good reputation in sunflower producing areas.
Thanks to the layout of the whole industry chain model, Qiaqia has established and improved the end-to-end food safety and quality management system from "planting end" to "consumer", leading the entire industry into the "era of fresh quality manufacturing".
At the same time, its leading position in the industry is prominent, and the market share of melon seeds has steadily increased. In the field of packaging and distribution of melon seeds, Qiaqia accounted for more than 50% of the market share. In the first half of 2022, its core melon seed products performed steadily, contributing 1.844 billion yuan to the total revenue, accounting for nearly 70%, a year-on-year increase of 14.32%.
The taste of China presupposes Chinese culture
"Take a melon seed to the extreme, go to the world, and let the world share the deliciousness of Chinese melon seeds." The words of Chen Xianbao, the founder of Qiaqia melon seeds, have always raised the flag for this delicacy.
Sunflowers originate from the Americas. When it first entered China, sunflowers were mainly used as an ornamental plant, and their consumption and sale were only occasionally recorded. Today, China is one of the world's most consuming sunflower seeds and one of the five countries that produce the most sunflowers.
Small melon seeds have big articles. From the "Qiaqia experience" of the snack industry to the "international sample" of national brands, behind the best-selling of Qiaqia Food in nearly 50 countries and regions in the world, Qiaqia Food has found an effective way for Chinese national brands to go overseas through exploration, while continuously transmitting the taste of China to the world, and further spreading Chinese culture.
From imported products to consumer goods to hobbies, melon seeds have walked out of the road of quality that suits them. Let foreigners fall in love with "melon seeds", which has since become a true proposition.
On the packaging of overseas products, Qiaqia specially adopts local languages such as Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Thai, etc., and specially arranges some ingenuity to show the method of sucking melon seeds on the packaging, so as to eliminate the concerns of overseas consumers that they will not suck melon seeds; In terms of products, localized flavors and localized products will be launched in response to local diets and habits. For example, the coconut aroma and curry flavors introduced in Southeast Asia have been widely praised by local consumers.
It is also the mission of the times to dust off the time dust attached to the long river of history, trace the development context of Chinese culture, and convey and carry Chinese culture through Chinese culture.
In some Chinese schools in South Korea, teachers hold a bag of melon seeds in their hands and write the word "melon seeds" on the blackboard to teach students to learn Chinese; In many overseas embassies, melon seeds are given as gifts to friends from all over the world as Chinese snacks; Many overseas Confucius Institutes even use melon seeds as teaching aids...
In the North American continent, when other export brands are doing product trade and only focusing on sales, the New Year's Festival in New York, Houston, Los Angeles and other places successfully "out of the circle", using melon seeds as the medium, foreign friends use this way to understand the customs and taste of the New Year.
From the output of one-way cultural content to the output of lifestyle and living habits, Xiaoguan seeds enter with small cuts, showing Chinese's all-round understanding of family and life.