Editor's note: From the Guangdong farmhouse to the dinner table at home and abroad, what kind of global Odyssey has a bird experienced? Under the tuyere of prefabricated dishes, many Guangdong enterprises quickly rushed to the beach of this new blue sea, and through research and development innovation, standards leading, ingenuity and wisdom, so that Guangdong delicious fragrance of the world. In this issue of "intelligent prefabricated vegetables", the Southern Financial media reporter came to the Tang Shun Xing processing plant and breeding base in Boluo County, Huizhou, to understand the whole process of birds from breeding, processing, transportation, and then customs clearance to port.

In the early morning, in Huizhou Shunxing Food Co., LTD., Fuzhong Road, Futian Town, Huizhou, Guangdong (hereinafter referred to as "Tang Shun Xing"), a touch of marinated aroma gradually spread, and soon filled the whole park. In one corner of the park, more than 20 12-wheel cold chain trucks have been waiting for the containers to be filled with bunches of poultry meat before they can set off.

About 80,000 chilled poultry depart from here every day, heading south along the Guanzhou-Shenzhen-Shenzhen Expressway and arriving in Hong Kong via the Shenzhen-Hong Kong land control point. Within 12 hours, these fresh meat and poultry can be delivered to nearly 1,000 businesses and restaurants in Hong Kong and Macao.

As the first batch of agricultural enterprises in Huizhou engaged in poultry feeding and supply for Hong Kong and Macao, Tang Shun Xing has won the mainstream position of Hong Kong poultry market in 30 years. For every three chickens consumed by Hong Kong people, one is produced by Tang Shun Xing. Pre-prepared dishes such as white-cut chicken, salt-baked chicken, marinated duck, marinated pigeon, crispy squab and roast goose are also popular in Hong Kong.

In the view of Tang Zhanyao, general manager of Tang Shun Xing, 30 years of experience in supplying Hong Kong can be summed up in four words - the whole industrial chain. On the one hand, the system covering the whole chain of breeding, processing, logistics and sales has supported the total annual output value of 1.5 billion yuan; On the other hand, every poultry is strictly monitored to ensure that all aspects of the quality control is firmly maintained.

Relying on Huizhou, an important base for mainland food supply to Hong Kong, Tang Shunxing is introducing an increasing variety of prepared poultry dishes to Hong Kong and Macao. Tang Zhanyao hopes that in the future, Tang Shunxing's products can take advantage of the tuyere of the sea, and cross the sea to reach the vast overseas market.

Digitization of the whole chain from the field to the factory

In 1990, the Tang brothers came to Luobu Mountain, known as the "first mountain in Lingnan", and started with 300 pairs of squabs wholesale from Dongguan, where they landed the first meat pigeon farm in Tang Shun Xing. Today, 33 years later, the former farm has extended its business to slaughtering and processing, meat preparation, cold chain logistics, export trade, Hong Kong-style roasted meat restaurant chain and other links, producing more than 3 million poultry a month.

"The planning of the layout of the whole industrial chain began in 1992, and with the expansion of the farming scale, the demand for stable sales of more and more large poultry volume is becoming increasingly urgent." Tang Zhanhao, deputy general manager of Tang Shunxing, believes that the whole industry chain further promotes production to deep processing, so that products are more suitable for market demand; At the same time, it is also convenient for enterprises to expand the scale of production, reduce the intermediate links, and ensure that the quality project is implemented from the source to the end of every link.

With the extension of the chain, Tang Shun Xing has expanded from a single squab breeding to chicken, duck and goose, and has completed the preparation of R & D technical teams, the preparation of new factories, the construction of the whole industry chain traceability system and quality management system, as well as the optimization and upgrading of the enterprise operation system. In this process, digital almost throughout.

In the farm's thermostatic workshop, sensors monitor the ambient temperature in real time and automatically adjust when the temperature rises above a set parameter. "Data Eye" accurately controls the growth of a poultry within the most scientific range, from feeding water, to temperature control and light control, to cleaning and decongestating, sterilization and disinfection, all of which are fully automated.

In this context, farming is undergoing an efficiency revolution. Take Tang Shun Xing's national livestock and poultry standardization demonstration farm in Yangcun Town, Boluo County, for example, 110 employees manage more than 550 acres of cages, which can transport 4.8 million Sanhuang chickens for enterprises every year.

At the same time, Tang Shun Xing is also connecting farmers with farmers through the development model of "company + base + cooperatives + farmers" and "order agriculture". Tang Zhanhao believes that in this way, we can make full use of the advantages of the base in processing and sales and large-scale breeding management experience, and constantly promote industrial concentration and standardized management, giving farmers more information, technology and market opportunities, greatly reducing production costs, but also to ensure the sales of products.

Including Yangcun chicken farm, similar self-supply breeding base and cooperative export record breeding base, Tang Shun Xing a total of more than 20. After spending 180 days in the farm, the weight of a chicken increases to 4-5 kilograms, and it is then pushed onto an automatic assembly line covering more than 20 fine processing processes, beginning the leap from farmers to workers.

Tang Zhanhao introduced that in the production equipment, the company has introduced the industry's cutting-edge technology of closed automated production line equipment, and has built an internationally advanced slaughtering industry standard plant. This year, Tang Shun Xing plans to invest another 30 million yuan to purchase two automatic tank suspension halogenated prefabricated vegetable product production lines and packaging production lines, as well as single-frozen, quick-frozen and other prefabricated vegetable production equipment, to create a more large-scale and standardized prefabricated vegetable production workshop.

According to his forecast, after the new production line is put into operation, the production capacity of prepared vegetables will be expanded by about 10,000 tons, and the export of new foreign exchange earnings of 8 million US dollars.

With the expansion of its business territory, Tang Shun Xing's industrial chain continues to extend backwards. In 2007, the first Tang Shun Xing Siu Wei chain store opened in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. At its peak, there were once more than 40 chain stores in Hong Kong, such as Kwai Chung, Mong Kok, Sham Shui Po, Wan Chai and other bustling areas.

In addition to its own stores, Tang Shunxing also cooperates with Carrefour, Metro, China Resources Vanguard, Walmart, Qian Dama, Meituan Shopping, and Pipu Supermarket. "For a long time, our products are mainly in the whole large package, and the sales port is mainly for the B end." Tang Zhanhao said that in recent years, with the emergence of new business models such as the house economy, enterprises will target the C-end field.

In fact, in this regard, Tang Shun Xing has found a breakthrough in the field of e-commerce. In 2021, the sales of Tang Shun Xing cooked poultry products was about 136 million yuan, of which, the e-commerce channel reached 51.35 million yuan, and the semi-finished prefabricated vegetables such as hot pot chicken, crispy pigeon, kiln chicken and other new products were outstanding.

Efficient cold chain training sea "top students"

Trillion-level prefabricated food tuyere has quietly arrived, up to agricultural leaders, equipment manufacturing, down to catering restaurants, business super convenience have been squeezed into this wave. For Tang, however, premade dishes are not a new topic.

As early as 2007, the company stepped into the field of cooked poultry food processing, focusing on the research and development and production of Hong Kong-style roasted waxed prepared dishes. In 2022, Tang Shun Xing achieved a total annual sales of about 15,000 tons of prepared vegetable products, with sales of 310 million yuan, an increase of 45.9%. Hong Kong became the main consumer market for its prepared vegetable products.

In the practice of supplying Hong Kong for 30 years, Tang Shun Xing has explored two big secrets. First, strict quality control. From the farms that adopt the "five unified" control of seeds, feed, drugs, vaccines, and management, and have the inspection and quarantine record certificate of the animal original food raw materials breeding base for outbound processing, to the processing plants equipped with high standard food inspection and testing rooms, and then to the digital system that can be traced throughout the whole industry chain to promote the realization of high standard production.

Taking the hot-sold white cut chicken as an example, through the processing technology of microwave + low temperature slow cooking, Tang Shun Xing realized that the chicken was cooked without rotten, and the standard restored the taste of the dishes, and this processing technology also obtained relevant patents.

Second, strong cold chain logistics capability. From the farm to the table, the efficient cold chain transfer escorts the whole process, the whole production process of fresh poultry from slaughter to cooked food processing does not exceed two hours, and the processing can also achieve the same day arrival in Hong Kong. Tang Zhanhao believes that the construction of the cold chain logistics distribution center is an inevitable choice for the group's business development, "In order to ensure freshness, we have also upgraded the preservation technology to achieve -35℃ rapid freezing and -18℃ storage conditions."

In 2018, Tang Shun Xing Hong Kong Cold Chain Logistics Distribution Park officially started construction, becoming the largest cold fresh poultry distribution center in Hong Kong. More than 20 logistics trucks travel hundreds of kilometers between Huizhou and Hong Kong every day, delivering about 120 tons of fresh poultry to nearly 1,000 businesses and restaurants in Hong Kong within 12 hours.

Tang Zhanhao told the Southern Financial media reporter that in the early days, these poultry foods were actually sent to Hong Kong by sea via Guangzhou Huangpu Pier. "At that time, there was no refrigeration equipment for ordinary cargo ships, so we had to rely on ice to keep us fresh, which was very risky." He recalled that the turning point appeared in August 1999, and the enterprise successfully applied for several refrigerated container trucks with Hong Kong and Chinese license plates.

The advanced logistics of enterprises reflects the development history of Huizhou agricultural products transportation to Hong Kong. As one of the main bases for supplying agricultural products to Hong Kong in the mainland, the supply of agricultural products to Hong Kong from Huizhou can be traced back to the 1990s. From open-top trucks to refrigerated containers, from baskets to foam boxes, from live vegetables and fruits to chilled poultry, meat, eggs and dairy products, Huizhou's agricultural products exported to Hong Kong have undergone a refined transformation, and soft connectivity such as "5+2" reservation inspection green channel has also become increasingly perfect.

However, Tang Shun Xing's export ambitions do not stop in Hong Kong, as the RCEP dividend is gradually released, it is "eager to try" on this blue ocean. "In Southeast Asia, many students and overseas Chinese come from Guangdong, and baking is their 'homesickness'. This group is expected to become a loyal fan of local baked prefabricated dishes." Tang Zhanhao revealed that Tang Shun Xing's next goal is to pry open the Southeast Asian prepared vegetable market with baked meat.

Data show that in 2022, Tang Shun Xing chilled poultry meat, cooked poultry meat exports have reached 86.77 million US dollars, and the exploration of new markets will make this figure "to a higher level". Tang Zhanhao believes that, "Compared with the domestic, prepared dishes have been developed in the overseas market for several decades, and consumers have formed a higher degree of awareness and acceptance. Therefore, there will be great opportunities for Chinese prepared dishes to go to sea in the future."

Editor Jiang Peipei intern Lai Aihui