Last year, I went on a business trip to Ho Chi Minh City during the rainy season. When I saw the moldy sacks of rice in Boss Chen's warehouse, I still remember the damp and musty smell. "It only takes three days from the mill to the dock, and the air can be squeezed out of water during the rainy season." The complaint of this Vietnamese rice merchant became the first driving force for our development of the Vietnamese rice vacuum packaging machine.
In Boss Chen's workshop, the ordinary vacuum machine used originally could not cope with the hot and humid climate in Southeast Asia. Our engineers squatted in the factory in the Mekong Delta and found that the vacuum bag of traditional equipment bulged twice as fast as in the north in an environment with a humidity of 80%. The technical team simply moved the laboratory into the rainforest, and then they came up with a "double-circulation dehumidification module" specifically for Vietnamese rice vacuum packaging machines.
The most interesting day was when the new equipment was put into operation. Boss Chen specially selected jasmine rice with the highest sugar content for testing. This kind of rice is most likely to exude starch mucus when vacuum-packed. When our packaging machine steadily extracted air and left a straight seal line at the bag mouth, Vietnamese operator Ayong pointed at the vacuum gauge with wide eyes: "Can this machine read minds? How does it know when to pressurize and when to evacuate?"
The secret is hidden in the redesigned vacuum chamber. We installed an "air smell" system for the Vietnamese rice vacuum packaging machine, which can automatically adjust the rhythm of exhaust according to the moisture content of the rice grains. When I visited again last month, Boss Chen's warehouse was piled with containers shipped to the Middle East. He grabbed a bag of rice and threw it on the ground: "Look at this vacuum degree. From Ho Chi Minh City to Dubai Port, the bag still dances close to the rice grains."
The automatic feeding function hits the pain point even more. In the past, workers had to stand in front of the machine and manually flatten the rice pile. Now our Vietnamese rice vacuum packaging machine can evenly shake the rice grains like a bed sheet. An organic farmer in Hanoi reported that the broken rice rate dropped by 70% after changing the equipment, and "the rice grains in the vacuum bag are arranged more neatly than the soldiers' queue."
What we are most proud of is the moisture-proof and fresh-keeping effect. The technical team got inspiration from the traditional Vietnamese bamboo rice basket and added a micro-permeable hole matrix to the inner layer of the packaging film. These "breathing windows" that are invisible to the naked eye allow the rice to slowly release moisture while maintaining the vacuum degree. Thai customers have done a comparative experiment. The fragrant rice packaged with our equipment has a stronger aroma than new rice after six months.
The new model that is being debugged in the workshop recently is even more interesting. In view of the woven bag packaging that Vietnamese farmers like, we have developed vacuum bagging technology. It is like putting an invisible raincoat on the traditional rice bag, which not only retains the national characteristics but also achieves vacuum preservation. After the cooperative in Thanh Hoa Province tried it out, the old ladies touched the still stiff rice bags and gave a thumbs up: "This machine is more effective than the sun!"
At the end of last month, Boss Chen sent a video - his Vietnamese rice vacuum packaging machine production line is rushing to produce orders to the European Union day and night. The camera swept across the green area pointed steadily on the vacuum meter, and suddenly remembered what engineer Lao Li said while eating cold rice in the laboratory when the research and development was the most difficult: "We are not making machines, we are making a micro climate chamber for each grain of rice."
Next time you come to Hanoi for an exhibition, you must try the off-season fragrant rice preserved by our vacuum packaging machine. When the rice fragrance explodes on the tip of your tongue, you will understand that this vacuum revolution on the banks of the Mekong River not only preserves the quality of rice, but also the "soul of the land" passed down from generation to generation by Vietnamese farmers.
