"The sour jujube cake is sweet and sour, not only delicious, but also edible and greasy." Recently, the author interviewed in the Qiuyuan Food Workshop in Jinbao Township, Yangshuo County, and Ms. Huang, a villager, said with satisfaction with the sour jujube cake she had just bought.
How can a small wild sour jujube become a best-selling green food, develop the sour jujube cake processing industry, drive the economic development of one party, and become an industry that prospers agriculture and rich peasants?
Jinbao Township has high forest coverage, sufficient sunshine, abundant rainfall, mild and moist, especially suitable for the growth of jujube trees, and wild jujube is mainly distributed in Honglian, Yangshuo, Jinbao, Jiuda and other village committees in Jinbao Township. In order to make full use of the gift of nature, the ancestors of Jinbao Township have made the fruit of wild jujube into sweet and sour jujube cake after ingenuity, which has been handed down because of its long shelf life and unique flavor.
Jiang Xiaorong and Li Guinian, the founders of Qiuyuan Food Workshop, were originally technicians of a geological team, and returned to their hometowns after retirement to provide for the elderly, and found that many foreign traders went to Jinbao Township to buy sour jujube fruits. They wanted to create a food rich in the characteristics of Jinbao Township, so in 2008 they opened a Qiuyuan Food Workshop focusing on processing and producing sour jujube cakes. "Making traditional jujube cake by hand is hard work. The raw material of sour jujube cake is wild jujube, and when the fruit is ripe in the second half of the year, I have to go into the mountains to collect and buy. Li Guinian said. The wild jujube collected should be cleaned, selected, boiled, peeled, pitted, sugared, kneaded, dried, cut into strips and a series of traditional handmade products. In this way, 1 kg of wild sour jujube fruit can be made into 1 tael of sour jujube cake.
In 2022, the production skills of sour jujube cake in Jinbao Township were successfully declared on the list of representative projects of intangible cultural heritage in Guilin City, in order to carry forward the traditional production skills, Li Guinian, the inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, established a deep processing enterprise of sour jujube in Jinbao Township, integrating planting, fruit harvesting, processing and sales, with an annual processing and sales of more than 400 tons of sour jujubes, and gradually formed an industrial chain in Jinbao Township, in the peak season of fruit harvesting and processing, more than 100 workers should be recruited every day to help, and the daily income of each worker reached about 80 yuan. The processed jujube cake is sold in more than 10 provinces and cities, with a total annual output value of more than 1.5 million yuan, driving 3 people out of poverty and an average annual income of 12,000 yuan.
"In the past, the production of sour jujube cake was all by hand, due to the cumbersome process, the quality of handmade production can not be guaranteed, and the production efficiency and output are difficult to improve. Jiang Xiaorong, the founder of Qiuyuan Food Workshop, said happily.
In addition to sour jujube cake, Li Guinian also developed dragon fruit cake, navel orange cake, passion fruit cake, and kumquat cake. At the same time, it has also established the "Guiniannan Jujube Professional Cooperative", which is ready to build its own jujube fruit base from the aspects of jujube seedling improvement and fruit quality, and continuously expand and improve the local jujube planting and processing industry.
In order to broaden sales channels, Huang Ning, the first secretary of Yangshuoyuan Village, Jinbao Township, communicated with Jiang Xiaorong, and used the form of live broadcast to make the sales of sour jujube cake catch the express train of "Internet +". "After the live broadcast, many people called to buy, and the live broadcast effect was very powerful" Jiang Xiaorong was full of praise for the live broadcast of selling sour jujube cakes.
From picking wild fruits to scientific planting, from handmade to automated production, wild jujube has gone from obscure to well-known.
Author: Dai Zongfu