Freshly cut vegetables
Reduce losses and increase efficiency
Half a dish for Chinese food, a platter for hot pot. At present, the concept of "disc action" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and "ordering one less dish, not eating and packing" has become a new trend for many citizens. In addition to the dining table, the "Disc Action" has also gradually blossomed in various Chinese food, takeaways, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, etc., competing to launch products such as "vegetable platter", "one-person meal", "small dishes" and "vegetable packs" to guide consumers to save.
Beijing Xifeng Chunyu Agricultural Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xifeng Chunyu"), located in Henan Zhai Village, Henan Zhai Town, Miyun District, Beijing, is an agricultural product processing enterprise focusing on ready-to-use fresh-cut vegetable processing and food distribution. Zheng Lijing, senior agronomist of Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, connects Henan Zhai Village with "Happy Spring Rain" as a link, focusing on the technical problems and needs in the production, processing and distribution of ready-to-use fresh-cut vegetables, and carries out professional and technical service guidance to help enterprises solve problems, reduce losses and increase efficiency, and drive farmers in Henan Zhai Village to increase their income and become rich.
In recent years, driven by multiple factors such as fast pace of life and restaurant chaining, fresh-cut vegetable products have developed rapidly because of their freshness, health, convenience and hygiene, and the production scale, sales channels and markets have gradually expanded. Crispy yam cubes, potato cubes, shredded potatoes, lotus root slices, eggplant hob blocks, lettuce slices, lettuce shreds and other products involved in fresh-cut vegetable products are easy to browning in the process of cutting, processing and sales, affecting the appearance quality, shortening the shelf life, increasing loss, and in serious cases, they are often rejected by customers, resulting in direct economic losses, especially in summer. In response to this kind of problem, Zheng Lijing combined her own professional and technical accumulation, and started from the selection of varieties of raw materials, the temperature control of the workshop processing environment, and the development of natural antioxidant and antibacterial materials.
Evaluation and screening out a batch of fresh-cut processing varieties that are not easy to brown after peeling and cutting, optimize the environmental temperature of the processing workshop to control the quality of fresh-cut vegetables from the source, and develop natural fresh-keeping materials, such as lemon nutritional, medicinal and economic value is very high, freshly squeezed lemon juice is rich in ascorbic acid, citric acid, flavonoids and other compounds, with strong antioxidant activity, can effectively inhibit the activity of microorganisms, remove DPPH free radicals, reduce the degree of browning of fruits and vegetables, and have good sterilization, antibacterial, Antiseptic effect: mustard has a strong bactericidal function, raw salmon and other seafood are often accompanied by mustard, the main ingredient in mustard is allyl isothiocyanate, which has a broad spectrum of antiseptic and antibacterial properties and antioxidant effects; tea polyphenols are a pure natural polyphenols, as the main active substances in tea, with broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and antioxidant effect.
The use of the above-mentioned natural plant preservation materials in fresh-cut vegetables that are easy to brown, such as lettuce, yam, potato, eggplant, etc., can significantly control the browning of vegetables, reduce microbial infection, and effectively improve the nutritional added value of vegetables. "Through laboratory tests and experiments, and then to the processing workshop for pilot tests, we have carried out the suitability evaluation and screening of fresh-cut net vegetable processing varieties, the optimization and control of processing environment temperature, A series of studies on the development and screening of natural antioxidant and antibacterial materials for different categories of clean vegetables, combined with some auxiliary measures in the processing process (such as adding water and cutting), etc., have integrated the green processing and preservation technology of fresh-cut clean vegetables that are easy to brown, which effectively solves the problems of oxidative browning and microbial infection of the above-mentioned clean vegetable products, and extends the shelf life of different clean vegetable products by 3~10 days on the original basis, among them, the waste rate of potato series clean vegetable products has decreased from the original 6%~10% to 2%~4% , an average decrease of 4.7 percentage points. Zheng Lijing introduced.
"In order to facilitate our production and application, Mr. Zheng made different processing assistance packages of fresh-keeping materials, so that our workers can use them directly and reduce the inconvenience of on-site preparation. Wang Linfeng, head of production technology of Xifeng Chunyu Company, said. The application of the above technologies has effectively promoted the listing of a series of new vegetable packages and new vegetable products of related enterprises, enriched the product categories of the vegetable market, improved economic benefits, and promoted the development of the vegetable industry.
Author: Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, Conan Yan, Zhao Liqun
Editor: Nong Xiaoli