"The pork that was slaughtered in the morning wilts in the afternoon!" Last fall, Lao Zhou from Sichuan squatted at the door of his bacon factory and sighed. His smoked bacon is obviously fragrant, but it leaks oil and changes color when it arrives in supermarkets outside the province, and its shelf life cannot last more than ten days. When this matter came to our factory, Lao Zhang from the technical department slapped his thigh and said, "Use vacuum nitrogen packaging! This is the most effective way to preserve agricultural products!"
To talk about the doorway of vacuum nitrogen packaging, we have to start with the transformation of Lao Zhou's antique agricultural product packaging machine. The original equipment could only do ordinary vacuuming. After replacing it with our newly developed dual gas system, it can both extract oxygen and inject nitrogen. On the day of debugging, Lao Zhou stared at the gas concentration value jumping on the dashboard and smacked his lips: "If I had known that the agricultural product packaging machine could play this trick, I would not have thrown away half a ton of bacon every year!" The most amazing thing is the control of the nitrogen filling ratio. Bacon has a high fat content. If it is filled too little, it cannot suppress oxidation, and if it is filled too much, it is easy to swell the bag. Our technicians squatted in the workshop for three days to try it, and finally decided on the method of "first draw, then fill, and graded replacement". Now the bacon in the bag is shiny and shiny, just like it has just been smoked. After tasting it, the old customer asked directly: "Boss Zhou, did you change the formula?" The preservation effect is immediate. The goods that used to be sold only to neighboring provinces through the cold chain can now be shipped to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai at room temperature. Last month, Lao Zhou sent a batch of test products to Shenzhen. After unpacking and checking after 30 days, the acid value index was still 20% lower than the industry standard. The supermarket purchasing manager took the test report and added an order on the spot: "This shelf life is extended enough, giving us three times the time to distribute the goods!"
The preservation of vegetables is even more true. After using this technology, the Flower Mushroom Cooperative in Yunnan has extended the golden sales period of matsutake from 5 days to 20 days. Their agricultural product packaging machines are now running all day long. Workers say that the "hissing" sound when filling with nitrogen sounds like the sound of money. Once a Japanese customer inspected the goods and looked at the chicken mushrooms in the vacuum bag with a magnifying glass. The gills were so complete that the lines could be counted.
The most troublesome thing is the fruit with high sugar content. Last year, I helped Shaanxi apple merchants debug the equipment. At the beginning, browning always occurred at the cut. Later, we added a pre-cooling module to the agricultural product packaging machine. The picked apples were cooled first and then filled with nitrogen. The sliced apples were still crispy after seven days. Now their ready-to-eat apple slices dare to print the slogan "Open the bag and eat, as good as fresh cut".
This vacuum nitrogen packaging technology can be used in many ways. The beef jerky factory in Inner Mongolia uses it with Mongolian pattern packaging bags, fills them with nitrogen made from grassland air samples, and sells them hot with the concept of "original ecology locks in freshness". Lao Zhou has also learned a lot recently. He seals the aroma of pine and cypress branches in the bacon bags. When the bags are opened, the smoky smell hits the nose. Buyers say that this is "breathing packaging".
Equipment maintenance is also particular. When we trained Lao Zhou in the factory, we emphasized that the vacuum pump must drink "maintenance oil" once a week and the sealing strip must be wiped with edible alcohol. The last time the equipment alarmed, the worker Lao Li knew that the one-way valve was stuck with a melon seed shell when he heard the abnormal sound - they now worship this agricultural product packaging machine as their ancestor, for fear of delaying orders from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Looking at Lao Zhou's newly expanded factory, thinking of his hair turning white due to the unsale of bacon last year, several guys in the technical department felt a special sense of accomplishment. Now they have a banner on the wall of their workshop sent by a customer, which reads "Vacuum lock-in technology, dare to make seasonal food become perennial", which is more encouraging than any technical patent.
Next month we will take Lao Zhou to the International Food Exhibition, where his vacuum nitrogen-filled bacon will compete with French ham. In my opinion, this is not a competition of packaging technology, but a declaration of counterattack of Chinese agricultural products!
