"Ma Ta Ta" hot dry noodle restaurant, the Wuhan dialect made a wall, customers often can't tell whether their hot dry noodles are delicious or fun. Photo by Jin Zhenqiang, reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
On September 1 this year, a trendy hot dry noodle brand "Ma Ta Ta" opened its first store in Wuhan, and walking into this store is like walking into a trend exhibition.
"Hot dry noodles have entered the fashion circle", one morning in mid-October, Yan Qi, a Wuhan native, said to himself while mixing the hot dry noodles in the bowl while scratching the news on his mobile phone. This stems from the recent release of the "2021 China Fashion Festival", Wuhan hot dry noodles into the national tide food snack TOP list. Along with hot dried noodles, Liuzhou snail powder, Chongqing noodles, Nanjing duck blood vermicelli soup, and Lanzhou ramen noodles also made the list.
For a long time, the temperament associated with hot dry noodles was pyrotechnic gas. Many Wuhan people, like Yan Qi, were both surprised and surprised that hot dry noodles were selected into the top list of national tide gourmet snacks. Hot dry noodles are not outdated in following the trend, open Taobao and Xiaohongshu to see that there are a variety of flavors of hot dry noodles to choose from.
Embrace young people with the "Brick Shooting Club"
Sell hot dry noodles online. Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
A group of video bloggers on Weibo and Xiaohongshu have also begun to choose to evaluate hot dry noodles. They spend 1 minute cooking noodles, then pouring the tahini and seasoning that the seller came with, holding it up, quickly mixing it in front of the camera, and taking a deep breath while mixing, "It's so fragrant, can't help it." The rich tahini wrapped around each noodle, and the blogger took a big bite to eat, causing netizens to "drool" in the comments.
There are also bloggers who will add some "drama" to the hot dry noodles, fry a "sun egg" on the hot dry noodles, break the eggs, and the yolk liquid flows on the noodles, mixed with the rich aroma of tahini. Some Wuhan netizens left a message to point out: This egg should be used to make eggnog. Some foreign netizens lamented that bloggers ate hot dry noodles into pasta.
The outer packaging of fast food hot dry noodles on Taobao is no longer a uniform dress of big red, the style is more interesting, and it is more exquisite and literary.
In 2015, the sales data of hot dry noodles on the whole network was about 2 million yuan, and the sales of hot dry noodles sold by the whole network last year exceeded 600 million yuan, an increase of about 300 times.
Chen Jia, founder and general manager of Cai Linji E-commerce Company, told reporters that the province with the most online shopping for Cai Linji hot dry noodles in 2016 was Hubei, and it ranked first for many years. Last year, the number of hot dry noodles purchased online by Cai Linji in Hubei ranked fourth in the country, and the top three were Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.
Behind the change in consumption data is that the hot dry noodle companies themselves have made changes first. Cai Linji set up an e-commerce company in 2015 and began to touch the net to embrace young people, with the intention of making hot dry noodles go to the whole country through the Internet.
After the establishment of the e-commerce company, Cai Linji held 5 "brick auctions" in succession, inviting young people to eat noodles for free, and after eating, they also had to give opinions and write evaluations. Zhang Xuming, partner and general manager of Cai Linji, recalled the details of the "brick auction" a few years ago and still remembers it vividly.
The 63-year-old Zhang Xuming is quite proud of the history of Cai Linji, but young people do not buy it: "Cai Linji is too old, not young enough, not fun enough"; young people pursue a "low-carbon diet", they put forward "how can not add green vegetables"; and Bao Ma's advice, Cai Linji's shop should also sell bread and milk, so that children can eat and drink.
Every "brick shooting meeting" made Zhang Xuming unable to sit still. He proposed, "If you want to broaden the market, you must embrace young people and talk to young people."
Cai Linji's hot dry noodles sold online in 2015 are still air-dried noodle cakes with sauce small dish packets, which are mainly convenient, and can be directly brewed in boiling water for 7 to 8 minutes before eating. The disadvantage is that the taste is slightly worse.
Since then, Cai Linji has begun to study the second generation of products, which have enriched the taste while improving the taste, from the original single traditional taste to 6 flavor types, including vine pepper flavor, crayfish flavor, duck neck flavor and so on, which young people love to eat.
What seems to be a real instant food is the third generation of vacuum-packed fresh noodles. This product shortens the brewing time of hot dry noodles to 1 minute, which is more suitable for the fast-paced life of young people.
Hot dry wet noodles are made with udon noodle production line
Hot dry noodles are deeply loved by the citizens of Wuhan. Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
Industrialization and standardization will sell hot dry noodles to the whole network and the whole country, and 55-year-old Tong Weijin is most touched by this. 22 years ago, Tong Weijin joined Wuhan Dahankou Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dahankou Company") and turned from a steelmaking worker to a noodle master. He and three others formed a "Shan Noodle Squad", one of whom was responsible for mixing oil and the other of whom was holding a steel fork and could dust 3 tons of noodles a day.
At that time, Tong Weijin was 33 years old, had strength, and could not carry it for a day, "his arm hurt so much that he couldn't lift it." Tong Weijin remembers that at that time, the "Shan Noodle Squad" was often replaced, many people worked for a day and left, and young people in their early 20s did not want to stay. After a week of persistence, his body began to get used to the strength of shan 3 tons a day.
Dahankou's first fully automated production line was put into use in 2009. Tong Weijin's dusting work was replaced by a machine, from the japanese noodles to the pressing of the noodles, to the boiling of the noodles, drainage, all done by the machine. Tong Weijin also went from a duster to the head of the company's production department.
At the end of September this year, KFC began selling hot dry noodles in stores across the country, and the supplier was Dahankou Company. In order to catch up with this batch of orders, during the "Eleventh" period, Tong Weijin and his colleagues only rested for two days, 4 production lines did not stop working for 24 hours, and produced 50 tons of hot dry noodles per day.
This is something that Tong Weijin did not dare to think about 22 years ago: "At that time, people could work overtime, the machine could not be added, and the pot that cooked noodles could only cook 3 tons of noodles a day, we wanted to dust more noodles, but the machine could not keep up." ”
In order to realize the industrialization and standardization of hot dry noodle production, hot dry noodle enterprises in Wuhan have made a lot of efforts.
Dahankou Company solved the automated production of hot dry noodles, how to achieve wet noodle automation in front of Hubei Evergreen Mai Xiangyuan Catering Management Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Evergreen Mai Xiangyuan").
Unlike Dahankou Company, which produces fast-food hot dry noodles, Evergreen Wheat Xiangyuan mainly focuses on offline stores. The hot dry noodle brand, founded in 2011, quickly opened up the market.
Evergreen Mai Xiangyuan has more than 30 stores in Wuhan two years after its establishment. Every Spring Festival, no matter how high the founder Li Yajuan's salary is, the noodle master has to go home for the New Year and can't stay.
After the Spring Festival in 2013, Li Yajuan took the team to Henan to find an automated production line that can produce hot dry noodles and wet noodles. In desperation, they transported back a production line of udon noodles from Henan.
Li Yajuan and the R&D team soaked in the factory to modify the production line, and each test consumed one or two tons of flour. After repeated trials, half a year later, hot dry wet noodles were made with a production line that produced udon noodles.
At present, Evergreen Wheat Xiangyuan has built 4 modern and automated noodle production lines, each line has an hourly production capacity of 4500 jin, which can supply more than 1600 stores of Evergreen Mai Xiangyuan.
Store for a year to maintain the original taste
A wide variety of hot dry noodles. Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
In a Taobao shop selling hot dry noodles, a consumer left a message: In 2016, when he graduated from Wuhan University, he bought a bag of hot dry noodles as a souvenir, to be honest, it was not delicious; not long ago, he did not resist buying a bag, really fragrant, is the taste of Wuhan that year.
Making instant hot dry noodles taste almost the same as fresh food is a common goal of hot dry noodle companies.
The reception room of Dahankou Company has a patent wall with 30 patent certificates on it, each patent is to make the instant hot dry noodles a little more delicious.
Since 2001, Dahankou Company has been independently developing convenient hot dry noodles. In the meantime, due to the company's losses, employees could not pay salaries for several months, and the founder Liu Haiyuan was worried and went to the hospital. After that, he sold his house to raise funds, invested more than 5 million yuan, purchased equipment and raw materials, and opened a difficult road of research and development. After experiencing many failures, Liu Haiyuan led the team to overcome one difficulty after another, and the non-fried hot dry noodles were finally successfully trial-produced.
The pursuit of taste does not stop.
Due to the long-term occupation of fried noodles in the market, consumers have developed the habit of 3-5 minutes of instant noodles, and the rehydration time of non-fried hot dry noodles is longer, and consumers often cannot wait. The rehydration time refers to the time when the bread is soaked in boiling water and softened until it is edible. The rehydration time has also become a bottleneck in the development of the non-fried hot dry noodle industry.
Dahankou's R&D team later found that adding salted duck egg white to hot dry noodles not only shortened the rehydration time, but also increased the flexibility of the noodles. After trial and error, a salted duck egg white reduced the rehydration time of non-fried hot dry noodles from 6 minutes to 5 minutes. This means that consumers can wait 1 minute less.
What is shortened is the rehydration time, and what is extended is the freshness retention time.
Dahankou Company began to develop fresh noodle preservation technology in 2015. It is easy to freeze the noodles for 1 year, but it is not easy to ensure that the taste remains unchanged. From 2015 to 2017, the technical team of more than 20 people in Dahankou Company was responsible for only one thing, "a bowl of fresh noodles stored for a year can still maintain the original taste."
It has cost 15 million yuan and invested two years, and the company has realized the freezing and preservation technology of fresh noodles. Today, KFC, Zhongbai Rosen, Meiyijia, Haidilao, Wufangzhai and other fresh and convenient hot dry noodles are supplied by Dahankou Company, which relies on this technology.
Liu Xiaoting, general manager of Dahankou Company, often introduces the company like this: "We are a leading agricultural enterprise producing hot dry noodles, and we are also a high-tech enterprise. ”
There are more than ten smart noodle vending machines in Hannan Dahankou Company, just click "Buy Now" at the top of the screen, wait 90 seconds, and then take out a bowl of mixed hot dry noodles from the noodle vending machine. This intelligent noodle vending machine is ready for development and will be put into wuhan business districts, office buildings, hospitals and other crowded areas within the year.
The innovation of hot dry noodle enterprises in Wuhan continues.
Last month, designer Liu Lin combined young people's favorite hot and dry noodles to open the first hot dry noodle restaurant in Wuhan named after "Ma Ta Ta". At the entrance of the store, Wuhan dialects such as "Engaging Moss", "Pretty Solid", "Over-the-Top" and "Sending Away" have made an exhibition wall, and customers often can't tell whether their hot dry noodles are delicious or fun.
Next month, the long-established Cai Linji sub-brand focusing on young consumers will land in Wuhan. At this restaurant, you can eat not only traditional hot dry noodles, but also cheese-flavored, curry-flavored hot dry noodles and pasta, as well as coffee and desserts.
Perhaps, the spring that belongs to the hot dry noodles has just begun.
(Zhang Weina, chief reporter of Changjiang Daily)
[Edit: He equation