How does a piece of peel connect an industrial chain of tens of billions of dollars
▲In Shuangshui Town, Xinhui District, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, in a Xinhui orange plantation, the growers displayed their collection of 20-year Xinhui orange peels.Photo by our reporter Mo Xin
Our reporter Mo Xin
A pound of peel can be sold for 50 yuan, but the pulp is used as fertilizer... Xinhui District, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province is rich in Xinhui oranges. This Chinese geographical indication protection product, because the peel is more expensive than the pulp, is called "smiley meat without skin". laugh".
Xinhui orange is the only raw material for making Xinhui tangerine peel.In recent years, the Xinhui tangerine peel market has been bullish, and many local families have stored tangerine peel as a dowry for their daughters, and the price of Xinhui tangerine peel has soared.
A small piece of fruit peel can not only be used as medicine, but also can be disguised into citrus tea, tangerine peel vegetables, tangerine peel wine, and tangerine peel snacks. It spans the three fields of medicine, food and tea, linking thousands of enterprises, and the output value exceeds 10 billion yuan.
What are the forces behind the booming tangerine peel industry in Xinhui?A reporter from Xinhua Daily Telegraph walked into Xinhui, the "hometown of tangerine peel", to sort out the development context of the tangerine peel industry in Xinhui, and decode how a piece of peel connects an industrial chain of tens of billions of dollars.
The citrus fruit is harvested for three seasons a year, and the peel "wrapped" the industry chain
"The price of the oranges I planted last year was 8 to 12 yuan per kilogram, almost double that of the previous year. The tangerine peel market has been so hot in recent years. I hope this piece of oranges will continue to sell for a good price this year." Zhang Jianrong Mu Citrus Garden is located in Shuangshui Town, one of the main producing areas of Xinhui Citrus.Looking at the vibrant scene in his citrus orchard, the grower was full of longing.
The relationship between supply and demand is superimposed by the impact of the epidemic, and the market for tangerine peel is hot.Taking the second half of 2020 as an example, the purchase price and market retail price of Xinhui tangerine peel in each year both increased by 20% to 40% year-on-year.
"So many flowers are blooming on the branches, and when they form big citrus fruits, won't the tree be crushed? Should we clean up the extra flowers?" In April this year, the reporter interviewed at Xinhui. Ask Zhang Jianrong.
"You don't know this. Our new tea branch oranges can be harvested three seasons a year, and the orange peels can be made into different products in each season." Zhang Jianrong said.
According to reports, Xinhui oranges can be divided into three types: green peel, reddish peel and red peel according to different harvesting periods. The three types of orange peel have their own smell, texture and function.The green citrus peel is picked from the beginning of autumn to the autumn equinox, and the peel is blue-green; the reddish peel is picked from the autumn equinox to the beginning of winter, and the peel is yellow to yellow-green; the red peel is picked after the beginning of winter, and the peel is bright red to bright red.
Xinhui orange peel needs at least three years of natural aging in Xinhui to become Xinhui orange peel.In the meantime, the citrus peel has to experience the local climate of Xinhui alternating hot and humid, wet and cold, which is very important for the formation of the quality of Xinhui tangerine peel.Since tangerine peel has the characteristics of "old age is good", the longer the age of Xinhui tangerine peel, the higher the natural price.
According to the "Xinhui Chenpi Standard Dry Warehouse Chenpi Price List" published by the Xinhui Chenpi Village Standardized Storage Center on March 10, 2022, the market price of 3-year Yuanzhi orange and tangerine peel is 790 yuan to 2710 yuan per catty, depending on the production area. ; The market price of 5-year Yuanzhi tangerine peel is 1240 yuan to 4000 yuan per catty.In an online store of a local tangerine peel company in Xinhui, the 10-year canned tangerine peel is being sold at nearly 6,000 yuan per kilogram; a 120-gram can of 21-year tangerine peel is priced at nearly 30,000 yuan, or per gram. Nearly 250 yuan.No wonder there is such a popular saying in the local area - "One tael of tangerine peel and one tael of gold, a century of tangerine peel is better than gold."
Coexisting with the high price, there is no shortage of shoddy chaos in the market.The reporter saw on a shopping platform that some merchants sell the so-called "20-year Xinhui tangerine peel" for only 80 yuan per kilogram, which is far from the price of products in similar years mentioned above.
"The price of tangerine peel is affected by various factors such as the origin of the fresh fruit, the age of aging, storage conditions, and supply and demand. There are indeed many chaos in the market, such as impersonating Xinhui oranges, using chemical processes to accelerate aging, and even some inferior products. It will cause harm to the health of consumers." Liao Changcheng, deputy general manager of Xinhui Hongdatang Chenpi Tea Co., Ltd., told reporters.
In his opinion, the rapid development of Xinhui tangerine peel industry in the past two years has made the brand value of "Xinhui tangerine peel" soar. Many people want to "free ride" to make quick money, which has also led to chaos in some industries, but he believes that this is only a matter of Temporary phenomenon, with Xinhui's protection of public brands, it will not take long for the market to be washed away.
The reporter learned that many enterprises in Xinhui are promoting the work of "traceability of dried tangerine peel in Xinhui" in an orderly manner.In the future, consumers only need to scan the QR code to trace the whole process of tangerine peel from the field to the warehouse.
In addition to making Xinhui tangerine peel from citrus peel, citrus pu-erh tea made of whole peel as a container and filled with Pu-erh tea is an important product form for Xinhui tangerine peel to integrate into the tea market.The well-known "Xiaoqinggan" is one of the products of citrus tea.
In addition, the product forms formed by the combination of Xinhui tangerine peel and local specialties are also constantly enriched. Products such as tangerine peel wine, tangerine peel peanuts, and tangerine peel sausages have come out one after another, constantly enriching the content of the industrial chain that can be "wrapped" by a piece of peel.
The strong market demand is collected as a "dowry"
According to public information, in 2010, the output value of Xinhui tangerine peel industry was less than 100 million yuan.Since around 2015, the output value has risen rapidly.3 billion yuan in 2016, 6 billion yuan in 2017, nearly 9 billion yuan in 2018, and 14.5 billion yuan in 2021. The value of the regional public brand of Xinhui tangerine peel agricultural products is close to 10 billion yuan, ranking among the regional agricultural industry brands in China in 2020—— No. 1 in the Chinese herbal medicine industry.Looking at the development curve of the tangerine peel industry in Xinhui, the popularity of the small green mandarin market during this period has become an important driving force.
According to legend, when Xinhui Jinshi Luo Tianchi was an official in Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty, inspired by the smell of tea leaves, he dug out the citrus flesh of Xinhui Dahong orange in his hometown and filled it with local Pu-erh tea.After long-term aging, Pu-erh tea has absorbed the smell of citrus peel, creating the first citrus tea.Although the production of mandarin tea has a history of more than 100 years, it has always been a local tea drink in Xinhui.
In 2009, Liang Weizhao moved to Hong Kong with his family after graduating from South China Agricultural University majoring in plant protection.In 2013, he resigned from public office in Hong Kong and returned to Xinhui Shuangshui Town to start a business. He experienced the key node that Xiaoqinggan injected vitality into the development of Xinhui tangerine peel industry.
"In 2013, I started a factory and made the first batch of small green mandarin oranges, but when I got the tea market in Guangzhou Fangcun and other large tea markets, almost no one knew it. If you want to make small green mandarin oranges well, all the husks are used. It is Xinhui mandarin orange, and the filling tea also needs to use high-quality Pu-erh tea, the cost is not low, and it is difficult to expand the sales market at the beginning." Liang Weizhao recalled.
The promotion of small green oranges soon ushered in a turning point.From 2015 to 2016, leading Pu-erh tea companies such as Yunnan Lancang Ancient Tea brought a lot of capital into Xinhui, aiming at Xiaoqinggan, an emerging tea beverage that combines the aroma of Pu-erh tea and citrus fruit. One product has the characteristics of "one bubble, one bubble", which is mainly aimed at young consumer groups.
Liang Weizhao's Xinhui mandarin tea processing factory quickly accepted a large number of orders for processing small green mandarin for Yunnan Pu'er tea enterprises.As the category of Xiaoqinggan was recognized by the market, he also earned the "first pot of gold" in his life.Later, Liang Weizhao expanded the factory and contracted land to increase the planting area of Xinhui oranges.According to Liang Weizhao, during the best period of Xiaoqing orange business, more than 90% of the factory's production capacity was used for the processing of Xiaoqing orange, and there was almost no energy to take into account the original tangerine peel processing.
From 2010 to 2018, the output of citrus tea in the entire Xinhui area increased from almost zero to 8,500 tons, and the output value jumped from nothing to 3.4 billion.
Although Xiaoqinggan is a popular product, Xinhui is the origin of tangerine peel rather than tea. The supply channel of Pu-erh tea used to fill Xiaoqinggan is also in the hands of others."With the rise of the tangerine peel market in the past two years, the proportion of our factory's production has now reversed, and tangerine peel processing accounts for more than 90% of the production capacity." Liang Weizhao said.
"This is also the benefit of the diversification of Xinhui tangerine peel products. Production can be adjusted at any time according to market conditions. How many types of fruits are harvested in each harvest season and what products are processed in the processing season can be flexibly adjusted." Liang Weizhao added.
On January 27, 2020, the National Health and Medical Commission released the "Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Novel Coronavirus Infected Pneumonia (Trial Version 4)", which first proposed the application of tangerine peel in the treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, and has been mentioned in multiple versions of the diagnosis and treatment plan since then. Chenpi.Not only the national-level new coronary pneumonia diagnosis and treatment plan, but also many TCM prevention and treatment plans issued by the health management departments of prefecture-level cities and above, have also repeatedly mentioned tangerine peel.
The 2021 financial report of a listed company in Xinhui, which is mainly engaged in the tangerine peel business, shows that the company's tangerine peel sales will increase by 84.5% in 2020 and 151.15% in 2021. The market's strong demand for tangerine peel in Xinhui is evident.
Ma Xiang is a native of Zibo, Shandong Province. He was engaged in the sales of Pu'er tea around 2008. After contacting Xiaoqinggan, he gradually became optimistic about the sales prospects of Xinhui tangerine peel. Now he is the sales person in charge of Xinhui Hongdatang tangerine peel Tea Co., Ltd.
He told reporters that many Xinhui people used to make tangerine peels, but basically they made as many as they needed, and few people would collect them. Moreover, the storage conditions of tangerine peels were limited at that time, so the amount of dried tangerine peels on the market for more than ten years was limited. Very few, more than 20 years are even rarer.
The collection value of Xinhui tangerine peel has gradually emerged.Nowadays, many families in Xinhui, if a daughter is born, will save a box of tangerine peels of the year, ranging from 30 to 50 pounds, as a dowry when the daughter is married.
"Broken orange peel" reborn from the ashes
Today's Xinhui tangerine peel industry is very popular, and more than 20 years ago, this industry was almost destroyed.
Since the early 1980s, Xinhuiren spent 10 years pushing the scale of citrus cultivation to a peak."But in the five years after 1991, the entire industry almost collapsed, and it didn't recover until 2010." Pan Huajin still remembers the past.
Pan Huajin is the second-level chief staff member of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau of Xinhui District and a native of Xinhui. With his natural affection for the forest and fruit industry, after graduating from college in the 1980s, he took root in the orange garden. The locals called him "Chen Pipan".
According to Pan Huajin, in the early 1980s, after Xinhui County "divided fields into households", a group of citrus farmers grew rich by planting citrus, and credit cooperatives increased "citrus funds", and the village also increased "citrus buildings".Seeing that there are citrus farmers getting rich, more and more farmers join in.In just ten years from 1980 to 1989, the planting area of Xinhui oranges jumped from 16,000 mu to nearly 140,000 mu.
However, the output of Xinhui citrus doubled year by year, but the market at that time was difficult to digest, and a large number of citrus were unsalable.Xinhui once had to rely on many enterprises and institutions to buy "agricultural oranges" to support farmers' confidence. The cost of planting Xinhui oranges is about 0.5 yuan.Even if they sell at a loss, they still can't sell it, and the orange peel is no one cares, and it becomes the "broken orange peel" in people's mouths.
In the 1990s, the outbreak of citrus Huanglongbing was not stopped in time.Not only that, due to the widespread phenomenon of random breeding of seedlings at that time, many times inferior and diseased seedlings flowed into the citrus orchards. In addition, the cheap oranges hurt farmers, and a large number of citrus orchards were abandoned.By the beginning of 1996, the planting area of Xinhui oranges had dropped sharply from 140,000 mu to less than 700 mu.
Although the planting scale of Xinhui oranges recovered in the early 2000s through a series of measures, fresh fruit prices fell again as production expanded.
"At that time, the industry was almost only planting. Farmers planted oranges to make money from fruit sales. The price of fresh fruit was greatly affected by market fluctuations. Only by commercializing Xinhui oranges and industrializing Xinhui orange peels can the value of Xinhui oranges be realized. Zoom in and fix it," Pan Huajin said.
In December 2002, Xinhui Chenpi Industry Association was formally established, focusing on building a public brand, gradually shifting the focus from selling fresh fruit to selling tangerine peel, from the original sale of crops, agricultural and sideline products to the mining of the commercial value of the whole chain of Xinhui tangerine peel, promoting new Standardization of Hui orange planting and industrialization of Xinhui orange peel.
In 2006, Xinhui orange and Xinhui tangerine peel were successfully approved by the AQSIQ to implement national geographical indication product protection. Technical specifications, etc. have clear standards.In 2009, Guangdong Province promulgated the local standard of Xinhui orange and the local standard of Xinhui tangerine peel.
The authentic protection of Xinhui tangerine peel has a basis, and the public brand building and standardized production process specifications of Xinhui tangerine and Xinhui tangerine peel have been initially established.The two categories of citrus tea and Xinhui tangerine peel have been hot in recent years, allowing Xinhui people to taste the fruitful fruits of agricultural industrialization.
"The reason why 'Lafite' red wine can be prosperous is not the scale, but the consistent quality. Lafite, in the form of a winery, has been very successful in supporting the development of the brand and industry with specific varieties, designated areas and standardized technologies. , this is a good experience in the industrialization of geographical indication products and authentic medicinal materials. We hope that Xinhui tangerine peel can one day become a geographical indication product with extremely high market value like Lafite red wine." Pan Huajin looks forward to Xinhui tangerine peel the future of the industry.
The 2021 Xinhui District Government Work Report proposes that in 2025, the revenue of the whole industry chain of Xinhui tangerine peel will exceed the target of 50 billion yuan.In the next step, Xinhui will be committed to building a modern industrial cluster of tangerine peel that integrates seedling breeding, tangerine peel planting, tangerine peel processing, and cultural leisure, and will steadily move towards the direction of the big health industry.
