The analysis on the present condition and future trend of Chinese staple food’s industrialization

  Carrying forward national staple food culture

  Staple food refers to food made from cereal or processed cereal in the three meals that are provided for people, to meet human beings’ basic energy needs and the demand for nutrition. As a country’s main kind of food, staple food decides the physical and general quality of a nation’s people, and is also associated with agriculture and the food industry. The annual output of wheat in our country is 90-110 million tons, which stands first place in the world. The annual cost of wheat for the traditional flour made food accounts for 75% of the total wheat output. Among this, the cost for making mantou accounts for over 30%, the wheat used for it is about 40 million tons per year. In most parts of China, especially in the north, mantou has become a traditional and irreplaceable representative staple food. Therefore, we think mantou should be the starting point of researching our country’s traditional staple food culture and realizing staple food industrialization.

  One strong point of our traditional diet culture is the “balanced diet” concept, puting emphasis on the diet structure of: “Five kinds of cereal (rear us), five kinds of livestock benefit us, five kinds of vegetables feed us, five kinds of fruit help us”, which gives prominence to the staple food,and at the same time promots ?interactive replenishment among different nutritious foods.

  History demonstrates that the formation of a nation’s diet culture is an interactive process between civilization and agriculture. The birth and development of mantou, as the inevitable result of our history of agricultural plowing, has direct connection with the planting of wheat. Wheat has over 7000 years’ planting history. Since ancient times, agriculture is the basis of our country, putting great emphasis on food is the basic ruling principal of every dynasty in history. In Zhou dynasty, “Book of rites. Lunar month’s weather” has the record of the emperor himself “pray for the harvest of the wheat, suggest for planting the wheat”, but at that time wheat was eaten in the main way of “eating the grain”. In Dong han dynasty and the three kingdoms period, the application of the stone mill made the change from “eating the grain” to “eating the powder”. The birth of wheat flour provided the raw material of mantou’s processing. According to the content of “Incidents record” by gaocheng in Bei song dynasty, the mantou we eat nowadays was invented by Zhu geliang who is the famous statesmen and military man in the three kingdoms period.

  In tang dynasty, the planting area of wheat was expanded. At this time, flour made food was developed and popularized, and also the variety became richer. In Nan song dynasty, due to the big migration of people from the north to the south, the habit of eating flour made food as staple food came to the south, and the social demand for wheat increased unprecedentedly. After a long period’s mixing and creation, mantou and other kinds of flour made food began to have more variety and new taste. In the south, there appeared soft flour made food which is different from the north’s and ?corresponding change in wheat. At the end of the Ming dynasty, half of the population’s foods were made from wheat. The position of wheat in China’s food supply has been set, and mantou and other flour made food as staple foods have been established, they are at the basic and leading position in the diet structure.

  Due to different diet habits and weather, we have over 7000 kinds of wheat in China. After a long period of optimization and elimination, there are still over 1000 left. Not only the north hard mantou and the south soft mantou have corresponding relations with their area’s flour, but also every district’s wheat affects and enriches the local staple food, just like the Chinese phase “one place’s water and land feed their local people”. The planting history of wheat and the development history of the staple food prove that there must be an essential corresponding relation between our country’s wheat and flour made food’s processing. Our company holds that we should use technology to find this corresponding relation and put it into quantization to enhance the staple food industrialization.

  Western fast food is not only eroding our traditional industry and our culture, but also is doing harm to the health of consumers. We have to admit that western food has its own advantage in the aspects of marketing and food standardization, but it’s unsafe and unhealthy characteristics have begun to come to the surface. For example, western food has three highs (high energy, high fat, high protein) and three lows (low mineral, low vitamin, low meals fiber), and also lacks variety and balance of nutrition. It can cause obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. So fast food abroad is called “garbage food” and ?the? “energy bomb”.

  More importantly in bread and french fries, acrylic amine which can cause cancer is overdosed about 400-500 times. This has drawn concern and rejection all over the world. In addition, the hydrogenic fat that western fast food uses contains much TFAS which is another unsafe factor. Hydrogenic fat is mainly used to make artificial cream, reduction oil, artificial butter, frying oil and salad oil. ?It can also be used as the frying oil for French fries and fried chicken. According to research, TFAS can disturb people’s (incretion) system and do harm to their health. It can also cause coronary heart disease, miocardial infarction, diabetes and so on. This has become one of the ten health items ?in the “Harvard health times”. But because the big difference between the east and west meals structure and lack of the research on TFAS, most consumers don’t even know there is TFAS in meals.

  There is an article “Chinese obese people are trying hard to lose weight” in the newspaper “Christian Science Monitor” this article explores western fast food as the major cause of this situation. An article titled “Western Food Bites Chinese Culture” points out that “There are 0.2 billion people who are overweight, and 6 million are obese.” The public medical expert holds the increased consumption of western fast food’s as the main cause of the increasing rate of Chinese diabetes and high blood pressure.

  “What you eat and how you eat decides a nation’s destiny”, which has been admitted by both the scientific and historic area. There are a lot of examples about how scientific diet changes a nation and a country’s future. Therefore we must have a clear concept about western fast food.

  Western fast food which is represented by bakery and fried foods obviously can not become the principal part of diet, so carrying forward the traditional food must start with ourselves. In China, no matter in the rice food group or flour made food group, there are safe, healthy, and rich nutritious traditional food, such as mantous, noodles, dumplings and so on. But due to the long self relying agricultural period, these traditional kinds of food did not keep up with the times. Among them, as to mantous, the production ways are mostly family shops and (intensive producing).

  Family shops are old fashioned ways of producing which use hand work as their main method. In the area of production and sales, because our marketing economy is not completed and there is an ?imbalance in people’s living standard, this old way of production still exists. Another cause is the long period of self-relying agronomy. Because the investment needed for the family shop is small and the process is simple, a lot of mantous family shops appeared. The locations of their shops are mostly at some residence or vegetable market. Their sales volume is small, and the production is about ten (and some) kilos. The investors’ goal is to find some work for themselves and their families. The mark up is their own salaries. Therefore the main cost is flour, compared with flour, the coal cost accounts for a very low percentage of the cost. As long as the price of the mantou is a little higher than that of the flour, there would be profit. So the selling price is very low.

  Because the family shops’ scale is small, the distribution (is not in order), and they don’t stay at the same place. This creates difficulty and fatigue ?for ?government’s inspection of the family shops, and also has exacerbated the owners’ ignorance towards the mantou’s safety and sanitation. Therefore the family shops have become the target of the inspection of the government’s regulation system.

  We can not deny that family shops account for a relatively high percent among our staple food’s production, even as the principal production in some places. But speaking of the long term, the existiance of this old fashioned production is limiting the development of the traditional staple food.

  In recent years, some intensive mantous’ factories appeared. Some of them adopted machinery production, which greatly improved the sanitation situation of the mantou. As to the aspects of production location, they have certain houses for producing, corresponding equipments, stable employers, and complete legislative certificates.

  Compared with the simple handwork mill, mantou’s intensive corporation represents genuine progress in the aspects of production method, sanitation ?and machinery levels. However, the profit of the intensive corporation is based on the scale economy, that means, the bigger the production volume , the lower the cost of the unit product, and the higher the profit. Therefore the scale of the production should be expanded as much as possible to reduce the production costs. However, as a special commodity, mantous’ preserving time is short, the marketing area is small, causing a conflict that the bigger the investment, the bigger the risk. The more important difference between the family shop and the intensive factory is only limited to the way of processing and distribution. The intensive factories are still short of technical support. So in the aspects of the products’ structure, taste and mouth feeling(texture), they are no different than the family shops, and are still lacking competitive power, replying on low price and depending on big scale production to maintain their living. They can only be considered as the preliminary form of industrialization.

  The cruel actuality and crisis exposed an embarrassing situation of our traditional staple food. The long period of traditional old fashioned production and the inadequate acknowledge of mantous, in addition to the insufficient scientific research and national standard formed the barrier of ?healthy development of the mantous. In the long lasting future, neither family shops nor intensive production is the final direction of the staple food’s development. If a corporation only wanders around the low technology line, it may miss the innovation and historical opportunities, and will not realize the quality ?needed to not only compete with but surpass foreign companies.

  Realizing industrialization

  Chinese consumers always insist that “mantou made by hands taste better”. And mantou produced by both family shops and small factories are mainly made by hands. In the traditional sense, everyone is able to make mantou, and the elder women prefer to make mantou by themselves. Although there are now machine made mantou and bigger mantou enterprises, still the consumers do not recognize the advantages of machinery produced mantou. It is a fact that machine-made mantou doesn’t taste as good. The critical reason is that the capability of the mantou equipment is not good enough, the craft is too simple, and the effect of kneading the dough to the flavor is not considered.

  Western bread equipments’ design made good use of the (technological fruits of cereal science, baking science, machinery science and so on. What’s more, they fully considered the effect of the machines’ movement on the dough’s quality, meeting the high demand of good flavor and taste, so the bread produced is quite tasty. Additionally, there is a price difference among different qualities and different form’s of bread. The price ranges from 1 yuan to 4 or 5 yuan,, in this way they can meet the needs of different groups of consumers. But as to Chinese mantou, not only the way of production is in arrears, but also there is no variety, the price is always from 0.2 yuan to 0.3 yuan. It is impossible to meet multi-levels ?of consumer’s needs.

  The mantou enterprises have surpassed the family shops in the scale of production and sales, but there is no genuine difference as to the aspects of product quality and flavor. Then there is no way to heighten the price, allowing the low price of mantou to continue to exist in the consumers’ expectations. This is also the reason that most mantou enterprises don’t have? good business. The question of the low price is led by out of date methods of production, but at the same time the low price forces the existance of out of date methods of production which further blocked the developments of mantou business.

  There is solid basis and abundant raw material for carrying forward mantou industrialization in China. The output of wheat in our country accounts for one fifth of the total output in the world. And there is big variety of wheat which can surely meet the need of processing different kinds of mantou. Especially the wheat planted in central China is considered by the experts as the best and the most suitable wheat for producing Chinese traditional flour made staple food. With urbanization, the increasing level of people’s living standards and the quicker pace of modern life, people’s consuming levels are increasing (which makes the buying of mantou as staple food become necessary. In our company’s survey of the mantou market of Henan province in 2004,? 35% of the families in the counties buy mantou from the market completely and 58% of the families buy mantou sometimes. In cities ?70% of the families buy mantou from the market or super markets and 95% of the families always buy their mantou. According to statistics, the staple food in China such as mantou, dumplings and noodles have 2000 billion’s marketing potentiality. As the people’s living standards continue to improve, there will be ?an even brighter marketing and developing future.

  Facing such broad market space and objective marketing demand, a new producing pattern is ???needed. Based on a profound understanding of the staple food’s market, we think the modern staple food industrialization should be “According to certain regulations and standards for machine production instead of the manual production, using modern technology to promote traditional food craft and induce modern sales concepts will form a brand new flour made staple food industrialization.

  Staple food industrialization runs through the whole wheat economic chain, realizes the combinations among wheat, flour and flour made food, and also envolves the nation’s first, second and third industries.? It concludes flour and food as it’s basis, and also food processing machines, testing equipments and food technology as its extension.

  And what is the specific content of the staple food ? We have concluded five contents according to many years’ practice and exploration.

3.2.1   Products’ standardization

  There should be a standard for every product circulating in the market. And products that do not meet this standard should not be allowed to enter into the market, especially the food market. As to mantou’s standard, it should include sanitation, safety, anti-aging and so on. It is both the goal for production by the seller and the desire of? the consumers. ?It is also the yardstick for testing, quality control and marketing regulation by the supervising organization. Food standardization provides the foundation for corresponding farm products’ standardization.

3.2.3   Performance regulation

  With analyzing the performances in the steps of selecting the raw material, producing and selling, setting a standard for every movement, therefore we can change the complex working performance into a set of standard movement. Performance regulation helps enterprises’ supervision over the food sanitation and quality, and the focus is on performance instead of the final products, which is much easier to guarantee the quality of the products.
3.2.4 Production mechanization

  Mechanization taking the place of handwork is the most outstanding characteristic of the ?modern food industry. Mechanization guarantees sanitation and safety and is also the precondition of the regulatory performance. Handwork depends on individual habit, skill, and present mood, so different people’s products are not the same, even the same person can’t make the same quality’s product. But the presupposition of production mechanization is the mantou produced by machines must taste better than handmade mantou, otherwise there won’t be a market for them. This is the critical point for research, and it is the shortcoming of the present mantou machines on the ?market.

  The raw material of mantou is flour, which is processed from wheat. Mantou, flour and wheat have a corresponding relationship. Technological craft adopted the results of standardization, regulations, machinery research and internal structure of mantou.

3.2.6   Admittance systematization

  Food safety relates to the country’s future and people’s lives. Food processing enterprises must meet certain requirements, such as capital, houses, sanitation controlling equipments, healthy workers, safety regulations and so on. Although in the present “Food sanitation law”, there are regulations regarding food, containers, packaging, tools, equipment and so on, still it is not practical and also the tipstaff always lowers the standard.

  Products’ standardization, performance regulation, production mechanization, craft with technology and admittance systematization are the preconditions of carrying forward the staple food industrialization. Lacking any one of the five will leave industrialization in an air castle.

3.3  Staple food industrialization benefits both the economy and the society

  Staple food industrialization is the developing market’s demand and tendency. It will lead the consuming concept, break the traditional low price situation, and form a new market order thereby pushing forward the industry’s development. Mantou’s producing industrialization is the first period’s goal of our company’s staple food industrialization plan; afterward we will carry on research on noodles, dumplings and other traditional staple foods. Therefore, staple food industrialization is a huge systematic project, and at the same time it is a social project, because it has a big influence on the promotion and revolution of agriculture, food processing, mechanical production and so on. So it not only has a prosperous economic future, but also has very important social significance.

3.3.1  Carrying forward the advantages of Chinese traditional staple food, impelling the development of traditional staple food

   Basic biology makes the food processing industry ?the “Number one industry” in the world, and it is the forever “morning sunshine industry”. But staple food only accounts for a small percentage of the food industry. In recent years, food industry in our country has gained unimpeded development. In 2004, the total output of the food processing industry was 16,000 billion, a 20% increase compared with the year before. In 2005, the predicted industrial output is 2,000 billion, but cigarette and alcohol account for 30%, soft drinks accounts for 20%, convenient noodles, cookies, chips and such kind of foods account for another big part, leaving staple food playing only a small role.

  Many other countries cherish their local diet culture very much, and they take developing traditional diet as the strategy of maintenance of national rights and protection of local agriculture, so they do a lot of work on introducing foreign diet and popularizing local diet. However we have been neglecting our traditional Chinese food for a long time.

  As a healthier and safer food, Chinese staple food attracts people’s attention more and more. In recent years, there is a upsurge of research on Chinese food in western food enterprises and research organizations. It is not only because the Chinese staple food’s market is big, but also because Chinese staple food is safer. This proves to some degree that Chinese steamed staple food represented by mantou, will get developed and will be accepted in the whole world.

   With staple food industrialization, we can carry forward the advantages of our traditional staple food (at the aspects) of nutrition and safety, promote the technological content and automatic level of the traditional food, strengthen the competitive power of the traditional food, what is more, consolidate the position of staple food in the national economy.

  Using advanced technology to realize promotion and upgrading is the only way out for our traditional industry. Staple food industrialization refers to the first, second and the third industries in our country, so we must absorb advanced technology and build our own intellectual rights. At the same time we can lead the development of food processing, flour processing, food service and machinery research.

  Mantou, dumpling and noodles have about a 200 billion yuan marketing potential. With the drive of ?staple food industrialization, the total output will reach to 200 billion and form a independently increasing economic area.

  Staple food industrialization is a huge systematic project. How should we realize industrialization? Our company holds that we must do products standardization, performance regulation, production mechanization, craft with technology and (admittance systematization). How to promote traditional food with advanced technology and how to meet the modern people’s needs while at the same time keeping the traditional flavor is the first question to solve. So Xingtai takes mantou as the starting point and has done a lot of work in industrial theory, scientific research and market exploration.

  We are an agricultural nation and wheat is the second agricultural product, but we are lacking research on the wheat industrial chain. Compared with the western countries, our wheat industrial chain doesn’t show the corresponding relation between flour and the actual demand of wheat. So since 1997, we switched from the research of food additives to Chinese wheat industrial chain, and we have built the first and the only wheat database based on practical research. There are more than 1000 wheat sample records in the database which covers the potential relation among wheat, flour and flour-made foods. So it further builds the basis for research on flour-made staple food.

  In industrial production, stable food must have staple raw material. The research on domestic wheat and flour solved the problem of raw material supply. Based on the database, our company has done research on the five ingredients which affect the quality of wheat --- protein, starch, active subsistence, grease, half cellulose and so on. At the same time, we have done research on their working mechanism, and decided the research (corn) of Chinese traditional flour-made food is starch instead of protein as the western baking field thinks. So we assured the direction of our research.

  Since our country’s flour –made staple food are mostly produced in family shops and small mills, plus the big variety of the staple food and wheat quality, the research on traditional food craft is very inadequate. The traditional staple food’s processing is mostly based on experience.

  Based on the research of wheat and flour, our company has done research on quality of wheat grown different places, flour made food’s quality and performance craft. We have conquered the difficulties of mantou’s aging, reservation, and taste with a biological technology. In addition, our self designed equipment can produce mantou that surpasses the manual mantou in the aspects of appearance, structure and taste. So the traditional mantou (now can be able to be reserved). And the technology guarantee is provided for mantou production industrialization.

  It appears to be easy to make mantou from mantou, but it includes fermentation methods, raw material preparation, craft parameters, affecting factors, evaluation and so on. It also refers to biological technology, cereal chemistry, fermentation, food project, machinery and so on. Many consumers expressed that “We have never thought a small matou could have so much knowledge (and no less technology than any other products.”)

  The history of human being’s industrial development proves that there should be a corresponding standardization to support industrialization. Products’ regulation and standardization is the main characteristic and basis of industrialization. As to the mantou production industrialization, we believe firstly we need to accelerate the standardization to provide guarantees for the direction of development, products quality and rules of competition.

  Since we don’t have mantou’s standardization and national standardization now, it is not good for marketing regulation and supervision. Based on our company’s accumulation of technology, we selected some of our employees to do complete research on the marketing of mantou in 2004. In June of 2005, the national standardization administration commission authorized “wheat flour mantou” a national standard. It provided a set of scientific and measurable evaluation systems, and a regulatory basis for mantou industrialization.

  And as to other standardization, the wheat mantou standardization also has significant meaning. It plays a very important role in exploring the advantage of domestic wheat, promoting the technological content of mantou, regulating marketing order and maintaining consumers’ health.

  The realization of craft with technology and products’ standardization can only be realized through “mechanization”. Many organizations have tried staple food mantou machinery research. But the machines they made mostly have the disadvantages of crude production, bad combination with craft and unable to absorb advanced technology. And the imported machines’ price is too high. Therefore with the help of our more than 10 years’ research results, we founded a staple food researching group and designed a set high automatic intellectual mantou production assemble line.

  The research of mantou machine is a process of combining importing technology and domestic technology. In the researching of mantou production line, we adapted photoelectricity induction, electromagnetic induction, human-machine interface, microcomputer programming, far infrared technology, sound sensitive intelligent system, low-temperature steaming and so on.

  At present, the reason that machinery made mantou is not as tasty as the hand made mantou has something to do with the capacity of equipment. Elevating mantou’s taste needs the cooperation of craft and equipment. But because the machinery researchers are lacking of the knowledge of craft, the present equipment’s producing is still only “flour+water”, and extrusion shaping. In our research on mantou machine, we combine the many years’ research result of wheat, flour and staple food, with the bionics technology, imitate the traditional hand making craft to make the taste of machine made manotou is better than the hand made mantou.

  Many domestic food enterprises bought a lot of imported equipments which is several million or several ten million. They are not only expensive but also hard to maintain. Also the enterprises’ competitive fore is confined very much because of not owning the intellectual rights. Machinery research is a brand new researching area for Xingtai. During the research, we hold “Founding and consummating intellectual rights whose corn is technology and patent”. Technicians are willing to be creative and have applied about 20 national patents.

  The function that the government sets for the project center is very clear, that is analyzing the important research result and transforming it into practical technology to strengthen industrial competitive force. Applying for the grant of project center, the precondition is to own the first class technology creation, technology exploration and so on. Project center is the highest practical researching institute that is admitted by the government.

  Our company founded Duo Fu Duo as our subsidiary corporation in 2003.And we founded four mantou production model shops in the city of Zhengzhou. All of these shops adapted transparent glass window production rooms, complete closed production and separate the production area and sales area with window completely. So consumers can see the whole process of mantou production and can get rid of the worry they have toward the safety and sanitation. To guarantee the quality of products, Duo Fu Duo not only has rigid requirement on production environment, but also have a set of standard about employees training, shop location , production process control, product quality and so on. Threfore, the mantou produced by Duo Fu Duo can be sold at much higher price and always can not meet the demand of customers. These four shops played an important role in experiencing the market, directing the consuming concept and also have done a good preparation for staple food industrialization.

  Next, we will further increase the researching investment; propagandize staple food culture and inducting the consuming concept. Through the staple food industrialization, we can provide healthier and safer food. At the same time, we can have franchise to lead the development of other enterprises to carry out the national staple food industrialization. We will also start to research on dumplings, noodles and other staple food’s research.