Bring more potato staples to the table

Have you ever eaten noodles made of potatoes? Two years ago, if someone had asked you this, you would have been surprised: how can potatoes become a staple food? But now, people can not only buy a variety of potato staple products in the supermarket, but also bring them to the table.

In 2015, China put forward the development strategy of potato staple food products, focusing on cultivating the habit of public consumption of nutritious and healthy potato staple food. In a short period of less than two years, potato staple food products have changed from being a minority to becoming popular, and the staple food industry has also become a starting point and a breakthrough for carrying out agricultural transformation and restructuring and promoting the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. the potato industry has become a sunrise industry.

The development of potato staple food is inseparable from the innovation of science and technology. As the national team of agricultural scientific research, the processing Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has made outstanding contributions to the development of potato staple food industry for a long time. A few days ago, the reporter walked into the processing institute to explore how scientific and technological innovation leads the development of potato staple food.

Conquer the key processing technology and turn the potato staple into positive fruit.

Nutritious potato was introduced into China more than 400 years ago, although it has long been regarded as a staple food abroad, while in China, it has been dominated by fresh food. Data show that China is a big potato producing country, not a processing power, with less than 10% of the total output of processed products and almost no staple food products. This has also led to China's potato industry is relatively backward, the output value is not high.

"on the one hand, under the influence of China's traditional eating and consumption habits, potatoes are mainly used as vegetables, and people do not have enough understanding of its nutritional value. On the other hand, as potato processing technology has been difficult to break through, potatoes can not be made into staple foods such as noodles and steamed bread by traditional technology, which also directly affects it to become a staple food. " Dai Xiaofeng, director of the processing Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said, "with the upgrading of consumption and the change of dietary structure, people have paid more and more attention to eating healthily and safely, and potatoes as a staple food is in line with this trend."

So how hard is it for potatoes to become staple foods? "potatoes do not contain gluten. When making steamed bread, noodles and other staple food products, there are some problems, such as difficult to shape, difficult to wake up, high hardness, noodles easy to break, not resistant to cooking, and so on. It is not easy to solve them." Researcher Zhang Hong, who has long been engaged in traditional food processing and equipment research, is the chief scientist of the innovation team of the Institute of processing of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and is also a core member of the national potato staple food research group. the research and innovation of processing technology and equipment is the difficulty and key to realize the development of potato staple food. As long as the processing problem is solved, the road to potato staple food will be much easier.

Since 2013, Zhang Hong led a research team to study the processing technology and equipment of potato staple food. after tens of thousands of experiments, they finally successfully solved the technical problems in staple food processing. In January 2015, with the start of the potato staple food strategy in China, the first generation of staple food products containing 35% potato flour were developed. After that, complete sets of equipment such as integrated bionic rolling machine, industrial potato noodle production line and staple food compound powder production line have also been developed one after another, and the second and third generation potato staple food products have been developed one after another. at present, the content of potato powder has increased to 55%. Substantial progress has also been made in the direct processing of staple foods using low-cost mashed potatoes or raw potatoes.

Scientific and technological achievements take root in enterprises, and the development of staple food drives the development of the whole industry.

In the research and development of potato staple food, the processing institute has formed more than 120 patents and 8 major technologies. However, in order to let people eat potato staple food products and promote the development of the whole industry, it is necessary to popularize the results of the laboratory as soon as possible. Since 2015, Zhang Hong has cooperated with enterprises. In Beijing, Hebei, Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanghai alone, more than 50 enterprises have participated in the development of potato staple food industry. At present, there are 22 potato staple food processing production lines across the country.

With the promotion of technology and the participation of enterprises, a variety of Chinese potato staple food products with unique flavor have been continuously developed. According to statistics, at present, China has formed more than 200 kinds of potato staple food products in five categories, such as steamed bread, noodles, extrusion, pastry and local characteristics, and some products have even been exported to the Middle East, singing "Belt and Road Initiative".

"with the breakthrough in processing technology, potato staple food products have more opportunities to go to the public table." Dai Xiaofeng told reporters that among agricultural products, the potato staple food processing industry is the easiest to achieve the integrated development of the first, second and third industries. "once the whole industry chain is opened, the added value goes up, and the whole industry develops, potatoes can help more farmers shake off poverty and become rich."

Zhang Hong laments that the advent of potato staple food shakes the entire industrial chain. Now, from the breeding of special varieties of potato staple food, to the study of potato cultivation technology, and then to the research of processing, storage and transportation technology, the silent industrial chain has all been pulled up. Nowadays, a whole set of integrated technologies from planting to harvesting to processing have even been formed in many major potato producing areas.

In addition to promoting technology, the research team also helps local planning industries. As the main potato producing area, with the promotion of staple food strategy, Ningxia potato industry began to upgrade. At present, Zhang Hong and his team are working out a blueprint for the future industrial development of Guyuan, Ningxia, hoping to combine staple food products with local cultural tourism, so that potatoes can really become people's "wealth potatoes".

There are broad prospects for the staple food industry in the future, and scientific and technological support will continue to be strong.

It is predicted that in the next few years, the market demand for potatoes will increase significantly, and the impact on the industry will also be very significant. Zhang Hong analyzed that by 2015, the potato staple diet strategy will promote the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary production, and the added value of agricultural products processing industry is expected to exceed 300 billion yuan. According to the calculation that the benefit of potato increases by 300 yuan per mu, with a sown area of 150 million mu, the net income of potato farmers planting potato is expected to increase by 45 billion yuan.

"the development of potato staple food will not only drive the whole potato industry, but also promote and enhance the level of our entire agricultural product processing industry. Because almost all of the processing equipment that can be used to make potato staple food can be used in other crops. " Zhang Hong sighed.

Despite the broad prospects, Zhang Hong said that as the national team for potato staple food processing, the future scientific research task still has a long way to go: "on the one hand, we should strengthen the research and development of Chinese potato staple food processing equipment, and at the same time, through technological improvement, reduce the cost of staple food processing, and study the law between the formation of raw materials and product quality. On the other hand, efforts should be made to study the suitability of potato varieties, so as to provide a scientific basis for breeders to select more special varieties for processing. "

At present, Zhang Hong's team is still nervously studying detection techniques such as potato staple food product evaluation and authenticity identification. "Potato staple food is becoming more and more popular in the market, and more and more enterprises are participating in it. what are potato staple food products and how to classify potato staple food? these urgently need a complete set of industry norms and testing methods and means. to provide technical support for the entry of products into the market and government supervision. We still have a lot of work to do. "

In the future, as China's potato staple food industry will expand from production areas to consumption areas, that is, from southwest, northwest, northeast and other areas to the southeast coast of China, in order to produce staple food products that are more suitable for the eating habits of the south, in the future, Zhang Hong and his scientific research team will continue to work hard in scientific research and pay more painstaking efforts for the development of China's potato industry.