"We're going to kill ducks!" 400 ducks! Coming out of the Fuyang high-speed railway station in Anhui Province, Huang Ming, a professor at the College of Food Science and Technology of Nanjing Agricultural University, carried a school bag and walked forward quickly, followed by his two doctoral students and five master's students, and said "murderous" in a word. The goal of this line of people is absolutely not visible from the outside. The leader, Huang Ming, wearing a dark blue suit, a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, and gray hair, a group of graduate students looked at Sven Wen, but when it came to "killing ducks", they all seemed to know it well. "There are two ways to kill, either oral assassination, or neck three-pronged, the key is to find out, a knife down..." Doctoral student Xiao Mengchao introduced it while painting. The gentleman is far away from the kitchen, and here in Huang Ming, it is not established at all. "What psychological construction does this require?" Huang Ming's eyes narrowed, "Engaging in food farming is ultimately for the people to eat, and it is normal to kill them." In contrast, he is more concerned about whether the goal of the trip can be achieved: "We have a project in Fuyang to study the nutritional indicators, functional indicators, harmful substances produced after frying and so on. Recently, the brand "Professor Huang" roast chicken founded by Professor Huang has "gone out of the circle" on the Internet, and this roast chicken not only participated in the finals of the university research and gastronomy competition held by an online platform, but also won various nicknames - "domestic academic snacks", "a diploma roast chicken", "fat-reducing roast chicken from 211"... Over the years, the annual sales of "Professor Huang" roast chicken have exceeded 1 million. More than ten years ago, with the help of Nanjing's policy of encouraging college teachers to start a business, Huang Ming "took advantage of the tide to go to sea" and became the first person to open a business in Nannong University. Over the years, while taking students in school to engage in scientific research, he opened companies and built factories, and went on a rampage in the business world. Such a dual identity can just allow him to naturally open up the cooperation channel between industry, academia and research.
◆Professors go to start a business◆
Huang Ming's "Professor Huang" brine restaurant is easy to find. Immediately next to the west gate of Nanjing Agricultural University, on the bright yellow door number, a cartoon image wearing glasses and the appearance of a scholar is very eye-catching, and there are three big characters on the side - Professor Huang. On the first floor of the small shop is a brine shop that sells cooked food and prepackaged fast food. Up the narrow and steep staircase is the company's office area. Huang Ming's office was in the innermost part, a cabin of about five square meters, with a desk and a filing cabinet, almost full.
Huang Ming at a brine shop. Interviewee Courtesy photo
Here, Huang Ming is the founder, chairman, general manager and legal representative of the company. The company has a total of more than 70 employees, in addition to eight or nine stores, the company has an 8,000 square meters of factory building in The National Agricultural High-tech Industry Demonstration Zone in Lishui Baima, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. However, most of the documents piled up on Huang Ming's desk are papers and research materials. "My energy allocation is about four or six, the company accounts for 40%, and the scientific research accounts for 60%." Huang Ming estimated himself in this way. In addition to having a whiter hair, Professor Huang sitting in the office is the same as the cartoon image at the door, but the professor, who deeply binds his personal image and products, is not willing to make roast chicken from the beginning. "When I first went to school, I thought that to be a food major was to be a cook, but I was reluctant to learn." Huang Ming does not hide his initial preconceptions about this profession. In the 1989 college entrance examination, Huang Ming's results were among the best in Shangqiu, Henan, but because of a series of yin and yang errors, he did not enter the medical and polytechnic university he longed for, but was transferred to the food processing major of Henan Institute of Science and Technology. Within half a year of entering college, he had no motivation to study and planned to mix his days. Change starts with a hands-on lesson. Practical classes in food processing are very grounded and require students to make hawthorn cakes, preserved fruits, jams, bread, yogurt and other foods. "It's fun to watch, it's delicious, and when you look at the machinery and equipment and the theoretical knowledge of the lectures, you know that you are definitely not a cook." Gradually, Huang Ming became interested in the food profession and learned how to kill chickens and how to make roast chicken. But he wasn't happy with the roast chicken he made in the lab. "On the one hand, there is a problem with the processing raw materials, using the eliminated layer chicken, on the other hand, the processing technology is problematic, handmade with a small pot and a small stove, the oil temperature is difficult to control, the frying time is long, and the oil in the pot is black." After entering Nanjing Agricultural University for a doctorate and work, Huang Ming met roast chicken again. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the Food Department led by Professor Chen Boxiang of Nannong University has developed new products on the basis of several major roast chickens such as fu li ji roast chicken, a characteristic traditional dish in Suzhou City, Anhui Province. In the 1980s, Chen Boxiang opened a roast chicken store in front of the school, which became a hit and became the memory of a generation of Nanjing people. However, at this time, Nannong roast chicken was only a processing technology, not a brand. In 1996, the "Nannong Roast Chicken" was preemptively registered by an off-campus company, for which the school had to withdraw from the market and stop the production of roast chicken. When he first entered the school, Huang Ming once learned to make roast chicken with Chen Boxiang. By around 2010, the school decided to resume roast chicken production, and Huang Ming had another entrepreneurial impulse, and the two sides hit it off. But at the beginning, the opposition was very loud, and many people accused Huang Ming of not doing his job. It wasn't until 2013, when Nanjing introduced a policy to encourage college teachers to start businesses while retaining their identities, that he was able to settle down. In this year, Huang Ming registered the "Professor Huang" brand, and in the same year, under the introduction of the Municipal Science and Technology Commission, he carried out large-scale production in Lishui Baima, and officially put into production in 2016.
Huang Ming works in a slaughterhouse. Courtesy of the interviewee
◆Businessman logic◆
On the Internet, Huang Ming was given the nickname "Professor Roast Chicken", but chatting with such a grounded professor is not an easy task. Walking past the barbecue stall on the side of the road, Huang Ming pointed with his hand and said, "Do you know how long his oil took?" Do you know how many cancer patients there are in China now? When talking about popular food documentaries, Huang Ming asked loudly: "Is the taste of childhood and the taste of my mother really a healthy taste?" High oil, high salt, smoke and fire, the risk is too great. When he said this, Huang Ming was a teacher in the classroom, teaching earnestly and bitterly. But a second later, Huang Ming instantly entered the role of general manager and discussed the market: "To ensure that the delicious food is not lost under the premise of health and safety, there is a big market here." For example, roast chicken is fried at high temperature, producing a lot of carcinogens, and now after improving the frying technology, the harmful substances are absorbed, but the taste remains unchanged. It can be seen that over the years, Huang Ming has sought a balance between the two identities of professor and chairman. However, looking back at Huang Ming's entrepreneurial process, it can be found that some of his decisions at key nodes in the company's operation are not fully in line with the logic of businessmen. For example, in order to ensure the quality and safety of the roast chicken process in cooking and improve production efficiency, the scientific research team led by him designed a fully automatic oil-water separation continuous frying equipment, and the oil pot of "oil and water" can use water to absorb harmful substances in time, reduce the impact of oil degradation on product quality, and the production scale also bid farewell to the traditional "small pot small stove", which can cook 15,000 chickens a day. However, this patented technology needs a lot of testing from successful laboratory to actual use. "After countless experiments and destroying tens of thousands of chickens, we buried them with white ash in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Protection Bureau, and tens of thousands of chickens were discharged tens of meters long, and it was painful to watch." Although it was an experience many years ago, Huang Ming still frowned when he said it. "Do you have a sense of cost control?" The reporter couldn't help but ask. "Relatively weak." When Huang Ming replied, he deliberately used "science and technology workers" to define himself. "I'm not a full businessman and don't think too much about cost." For another example, in the early days of entrepreneurship, Huang Ming held 9 invention patents, but did not buy shares at a price, but took out all his savings. At the same time, he also borrowed 10 million yuan in accordance with the Nanjing talent support policy to purchase production equipment for the factory. This seemingly adventurous decision put him under all sorts of pressures, including from his family. "Even my parents didn't agree, my mother said what are you tossing and turning, every day you are tired to death, you leave early in the morning, and you don't come back until midnight." For his parents' complaints, Huang Ming sighed. According to Huang Ming, in the 11 years since the beginning of the business, Huang Ming's family has not yet received income from his entrepreneurial project. Although the company has long been profitable, the money earned has been invested in the company's expansion and reproduction. "I haven't even calculated this account, my personal salary, my wife's salary, all invested in the project, all unconditional." Huang Ming, who is generous in entrepreneurial investment, is famous for cutting doors in life. During a meeting in Fuyang, Huang Ming asked the front desk when checking in at the hotel: "Is there a triple room?" Is it okay to add a bed? "According to the school regulations, professors can take the first class seat of the high-speed rail and be reimbursed according to the first class ticket. But when buying a round-trip high-speed rail ticket, Huang Ming chose a second-class ticket. "It is the project fee that is saved, the room fee and ticket fee saved, it is better to spend it on scientific research projects, and the money should be spent on the blade." Huang Ming explains. A while ago, a well-known Internet celebrity team found Huang Ming hoping to cooperate, but Huang Ming looked at the ingredient list of the other party's products, and first reprimanded the other party's procurement. "Sodium benzoate, sodium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate, terbutylhydroquinone, sodium dehydroacetate, sucralose, silicon dioxide... With so many additives, it is incompatible with the idyllic scenery and organic concepts promoted. Angered, Huang Ming not only refused the cooperation of the other party on the spot, but also threw away a box of samples given by the other party. Judging from Huang Ming's resume, he has long been in contact with the market. After graduating from university, Huang Ming used to do sales in a well-known health product company at that time, and the salary was very high. On one occasion, he received a complaint from a consumer that the products he was selling did not meet the number of live bacteria promised in the advertisement and that there was false publicity. When he called headquarters for verification, the headquarters did not explain the technical problems, but instructed him to "do whatever it takes not to let consumers complain." This sentence made Huang Ming choose to resign from the graduate school and continue the academic path. "The reserve price of food is almost bottomless. If I, like them, were to make money, I would lose the meaning of my teaching entrepreneurship. Huang Ming explained.
Huang Ming's work photos. Interviewee Courtesy photo
◆The significance of scientific research◆
What is the point of teaching entrepreneurship? After presiding over the promotion meeting of the research and application of key technologies of Fan duck deep processing and the construction project of the Internet of Things and quality and safety traceability platform in Fuyang, Professor Huang Ming and his party sat down to eat. "Duck soup is a local specialty and must be tasted." At the dinner table, Professor Huang Ming greeted him warmly, but after eating a few bites, he suddenly raised his head and asked the students around him: "Why do you like to drink duck soup?" Are there any active peptides in duck soup? "This question is not something that is casually discussed. A minute later, Huang Ming asked a student to ask the restaurant for a washed mineral water bottle, filled with duck soup, and brought it back to Nanjing Agricultural University for testing. "The source of a lot of technology comes from the table, and looking at it is a meal, maybe you can make a major discovery." Huang Ming smiled and explained to the students. This is no joke, he previously directed a graduate student to study the formation and properties of antioxidant peptides during duck meat maturation, and successfully published a paper. The study found that after 6 hours of slaughter, the content of free amino acids and small peptides increased significantly as the storage time increased. In vitro test results also show that duck meat produces antioxidant peptides during maturation. "This discovery is incredible, it can guide people to eat duck correctly, and no one has ever done such an experiment before." Huang Ming is quite satisfied with such research results. Seamlessly connecting from duck meat and duck soup to scientific research and papers seems to be a perfectly normal thing for Professor Huang. Xiao Mengchao remembers once in a farm in Shandong, Huang Ming saw a slaughtered duck in a stress state, due to a change in the metabolism of muscle tissue, resulting in meat deterioration, resulting in economic losses. "Is it possible to predict changes in the quality of flesh by changes in the different substances in the blood composition?" One of Huang Ming's proposals has turned a problem encountered in actual production into a scientific topic that needs to be studied, and this research is still in progress.
Huang Ming work photo. Interviewee Courtesy photo Everything is learned, duck meat can be, roast chicken can be, duck blood vermicelli soup can also be. Last year, Huang Ming released the first "duck blood vermicelli soup" standard in Nanjing, and not long ago, the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision referred to this standard to set the standard for fast food "duck blood vermicelli soup". "A lot of research has been published around this bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup, and we have graduated two masters and a doctorate in duck blood-related technologies, and a ph.D. and a master's degree in research." Huang Ming said that the tone was quite proud. According to Huang Ming's statistics, over the years, his scientific research team has published more than a dozen papers on duck blood vermicelli soup, and hundreds of patented technology and professional papers published around roast chicken have been published, and more than 20 papers have been published last year alone. "We never worry about publishing papers." When it comes to the number of papers published that most researchers pursue, Huang Ming's answer is lightly understated but quite meaningful, "The things we study have to face technical problems in the production line, either the development of new products or theoretical breakthroughs, otherwise it is better to do research from bookstore to bookstore." This is also the experience that Huang Ming explored in the process of entrepreneurship and scientific research. After two or three years of entrepreneurship, he found that he found many problems in the production that he could not imagine in the laboratory, and the output rate of papers and patents was even higher than before. Some teachers resigned and went to the sea after successfully starting a business, but Huang Ming did not choose this path, but enjoyed the double life now. "I studied food technology in school, and I started a business in the food industry, which just connected the technology chain and the production chain together." Huang Ming analyzed, "If I leave the university and leave the technology chain, the source of innovation will disappear; now, I can teach the knowledge that I have groped in the front-line production to the students in the teaching process, so that I, the school, the students, and the consumers can benefit, which is a four-win situation." ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Kong Lingjun Text Editor: Kong Lingjun Title Image Source: Courtesy of the Interviewee
Source: Author: Chen Shuyi