The industrialization of potato staple food has gradually entered the common people's dining table.

In recent years, potato production in China has developed steadily, with a planting area of 5.57 million hectares in 2014, accounting for about 1/4 of the world's total. China has become the largest country in potato production and consumption. In this context, the industrialization of potato staple food is particularly important. On June 1 this year, the first generation of potato steamed bread, which accounts for 30% of total potato flour, was successfully put on the market in Beijing. Up to now, the first generation of potato steamed bread has been sold in more than 200 supermarkets in Beijing, and manufacturers have produced and supplied more than 1 ton of potato steamed bread every day.

"the industrialization of potato staple food is to greatly increase the proportion of potato consumption in total consumption in the form of staple food products through the integration of nutrition, consumption, processing and production of potato staple food products. promote the transformation of potato from miscellaneous grains and non-staple foods to the fourth staple food coordinated with the three staple grains, so as to provide important support for ensuring national food security and speeding up the transformation of the mode of agricultural development." Chen Mengshan, party secretary of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said at the promotion meeting on the development of potato staple food held a few days ago.

In July 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture launched the development of potato staple food products and industries, according to Chen Mengshan. Over the past two years, the experts of the project team have overcome difficulties and coordinated efforts to tackle key problems, overcoming technical problems such as few special varieties, weak adhesion of whole potato flour, poor forming ability, lack of special processing machinery, and lack of research on nutritional efficacy, and made important phased progress.

The reporter learned that the expert team successfully selected 4 potato steamed bread varieties and 5 potato noodle varieties from 26 potato varieties in the main potato growing areas in China, which solved the problem of insufficient varieties suitable for processing. At the same time, the proportion of potato flour in traditional popular potato staple food products, such as potato steamed bread, noodles, rice noodles and mixed rice, has been successfully increased from about 10% to 70%, 45%, 55% and 35% respectively, and the product quality has been greatly improved and the nutritional value has been strengthened. Through the process optimization, the browning of potato flour and mashed potatoes was effectively restrained, and the cheap and nutritious high quality potato staple food special raw flour was preliminarily developed, which laid the foundation for the production of high quality potato mashed potatoes suitable for potato staple food processing.

According to Chen Mengshan, in the next step, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will continue to carry out scientific and technological innovation in variety selection, processing technology, mechanism research, nutrition evaluation, and other aspects. First, the use of conventional breeding, cytological breeding, molecular breeding methods to cultivate special varieties to meet the processing needs of potato steamed bread, noodles, rice noodles and other staple food products. The second is to develop high-quality whole potato flour, raw flour and special flour for staple food products, and to carry out product quality analysis, molecular structure mechanism and nutrition maintenance technology through the combination of different varieties of whole potato flour and wheat flour. Research and development of staple food products home cooking technology and factory production technology and equipment. Focus on steamed bread, noodles, rice, rice noodles and other traditional staple food products, covering regional characteristics of staple food products, leisure and functional products, etc., to achieve the potato powder accounted for more than 55% of the staple food products. The third is to select different people and different regions, focus on the consumption guidance of traditional staple food products, monitor the health improvement effect of potato staple food consumer groups, and evaluate the nutritional efficacy of staple food products. The fourth is to study the strategies and ways to promote the staple diet of potato in different main producing areas and central cities. Focus on the research on the technology of increasing potato yield and capacity in winter fallow fields in the south, groundwater overexploitation areas in North China and arid areas in Northwest China, comprehensively integrate the regional technical model of potato staple grain and carry out demonstration and popularization. comprehensively follow up and evaluate the social, economic, ecological and nutritional benefits of potato staple, and explore the technology and policy of the integration of nutrition, consumption and production of potato staple food in China.