Chapter 401 - The Versatility of Sweet Potatoes

Xun Suji arrived at the food factory full of expectations. He would first familiarize himself with the situation and see what was going on, then discuss technology with Huang Dashan and Mo Xiao'an. As for factory management and finances, he planned to leave those matters to his future deputy and accountant.

But the food factory was different from what he had imagined. The first thing that caught his eye upon entering was a red industrial safety banner: "Prioritize Safety So You Can Go Home." Beneath it hung photographs of industrial accident victims at various enterprises—hands missing fingers, fingers crushed so their bones were exposed...

Red tape for industrial safety? And gory photos used to scare people? Xun Suji was bewildered. The food factory should have just a few grinders and choppers at most, with no dangerous operations at all.

A young man in overalls and a cloth cap came running over. "Factory Director, you're here! I'm Mei Lin, the factory's general manager."

This Mei Lin was a veteran employee from the first batch. He'd been formally assigned to the factory over a year and a half ago, back when the factory was still in the Baye period. Though his educational background was modest—just an associate's degree in economics—he'd made his way up through seniority at the food factory.

"What's with these photos?" Xun Suji asked.

"Oh, the equipment in the production shops has rolling parts. Several workers have had their fingers caught," Mei Lin explained, speaking with easy familiarity about the operations. "Most of the equipment uses belt-driven transmission from the water wheel. Those are fine—they shut down if anything happens. But there are also two sets of animal-powered pulley equipment that can't stop quickly in case of an accident. We've had incidents."

"Have there been fatalities?"

"No, no. Usually just finger injuries. Apprentice workers who aren't careful."

The two walked and talked. Crossing the courtyard, they entered the main production building. "This is the sweet potato processing workshop," Mei Lin said. "The main products are sweet potato flour, maltose, hard candy, and MSG. Sweet potato vermicelli was produced at one point but discontinued—there isn't enough equipment."

"Didn't Director Mo say vermicelli is a key product?"

"He did say that. But Director Mo hasn't been here in over ten days..."

Xun Suji caught the hint of resentment in Mei Lin's voice. Having just arrived, he neither understood the situation nor wanted to take sides, so he simply nodded noncommittally.

"Besides sweet potato processing, the factory has a salt workshop and a sugar workshop—well, those are just workshop names. They're actually just warehouse-administration rooms for managing the communes' deliveries. We don't do any actual processing—that's all done at the salt fields and sugar mills."

Xun Suji toured the factory, getting a basic overview of operations. The most important facility was the sweet potato flour workshop. Besides the multi-process production line stretching from raw materials to finished sweet potato flour—with flour being the foundation for all sweet potato products—there was also the maltose workshop. This was the current production focus.

Maltose was used to produce hard candy, and the Chemistry Department also wanted maltose for making glucose.

"Production capacity isn't enough. We can barely keep up with the cafeteria's candy supply. Supporting the Chemistry Department is out of the question..."

"So you want to persuade me to help expand production?" Xun Suji asked bluntly.

Mei Lin looked slightly embarrassed.

"I'll look for opportunities—expanding production benefits the factory, after all." Xun Suji thought that the food factory had the potential to house many industrial enterprises. The future of processed foods was limitless. Expanding factory scale was the right direction; it was just a matter of timing.

"What's the MSG situation?"

"Oh, MSG is produced by Director Huang. He handles all the production and usually takes the finished product away himself. We don't see much of it."

Huang Dashan, as the person actually in charge, had his own small office at the food factory. When Xun Suji went to find him, he wasn't there. According to Mei Lin, "Director Huang rarely comes by either."

Mei Lin's dissatisfaction was written all over his face. Both transmigrators nominally in charge were hardly ever around, leaving him to take care of everything.

Xun Suji said he would keep an eye on things and toured the factory again. Although called a "food processing factory," it actually only processed sweet potatoes. Other items like sauerkraut, pickled radish, salted eggs, and preserved meat were still produced by individual cafeterias rather than being centralized. Even salt and sugar were only warehoused here, not actually processed.

But changing this would require significant capital investment. Xun Suji remembered Director Wen's "support for light industry products" instruction—there might be opportunities to develop here. Before taking charge, he needed to understand what the food factory was currently capable of producing and what each product was used for.

"Director Huang, I want to learn about our production situation..."

"Production situation? Go check the accounting records yourself—I'm not in charge of administration." Huang Dashan's impatience was evident.

Xun Suji sensed tension with Mo Xiao'an and didn't want to get involved. He quickly changed the subject: "I mainly want to understand the MSG production process."

MSG was the only product at the food factory with both technological content and export potential.

"The MSG production process isn't complicated..." Huang Dashan calmed down and began explaining in detail. In his later years, he'd been sent to work in the countryside, where he had used the simplest methods to produce MSG from sweet potatoes. To him, this was nothing special.

"Making MSG from sweet potatoes actually involves fermenting sweet potato starch to produce glutamic acid, then neutralizing it with alkali to get monosodium glutamate crystals. The whole process mainly requires acid, alkali, and the fermentation strain Corynebacterium glutamicum."

The overall process wasn't complicated. Sweet potato starch was first mixed with dilute sulfuric acid, then the mixture was heated and hydrolyzed to make a sugar liquid. After cooling, the fermented culture solution was added. Fermentation took about thirty hours, after which filter pressing began. The filtered liquid was what crystallized into MSG after neutralization.

The acid hydrolysis step was mainly to saccharify the starch. Starch was a polysaccharide and needed to be broken down into sugars that microorganisms could utilize; otherwise, fermentation wouldn't work.

The Chemistry Department was providing the acids and alkalis. Dilute sulfuric and hydrochloric acids, caustic soda—no problems there.

"What about the fermentation strain?"

"I brought it. I'll use it to cultivate and scale up," Huang Dashan said. "In the old timeline, I did this by extracting wild strains from soil samples. Getting a pure strain was quite complicated. Conveniently, this timeline has almost no glutamic acid-producing bacteria, so I can use pure strains without worrying about contamination, which actually makes it easier."

Xun Suji scratched his head. This was beyond his knowledge. "Then what's the problem?"

"No problem at all! I've already made the MSG—go taste the cafeteria's chicken soup yourself..."

"Then what do we need to do to expand production?"

"More fermentation tanks, more saccharification tanks." Huang Dashan pulled out a folder. "I wrote the equipment requirements over two weeks ago. Still no reply from the Industry Committee. And you can't rush Wu's factory—who knows when they'll actually make them."

This was a significant problem. Metal containers were always in short supply, and there was no quick solution. Xun Suji thought he'd discuss the matter with Mo Xiao'an tomorrow and see if there was any way to push for quicker approval.

At the sweet potato processing line, Xun Suji spent a long time watching sweet potatoes go through weighing, cleaning, grinding, and all the subsequent steps before finally becoming snow-white starch. Then he observed the starch being processed into maltose and the maltose being boiled into hard candy.

After reviewing the factory's operations, he suggested to Mo Xiao'an: "I think we should make one more product."

"What product?"

"Instant rice vermicelli."

At the last production meeting, Mo Xiao'an had mentioned sweet potato vermicelli as a potential export good. Though regular vermicelli could also be made from sweet potato flour, Xun Suji felt it lacked differentiation.

Rice vermicelli was a traditional staple in Southern China. The transmigrators, who hailed from all over, had brought diverse tastes. The cafeteria's vermicelli was very popular.

"Instant rice vermicelli? Isn't that just a convenience food? Selling convenience food to people in this era—won't they laugh at us?"

"I'm not thinking about export. I mean internal supply."

"Internal supply?"

"Field rations." Xun Suji had done his homework. "The Military Affairs Department has been wanting to develop individual field rations. We can produce pre-cooked, dried rice vermicelli that rehydrates quickly with boiling water. Add a seasoning packet, and it's a simple meal."

Mo Xiao'an considered this. Field rations had always been a gap in their capabilities. The current marching rations were just hard tack and salted vegetables—nutritionally adequate but unpalatable. If they could produce instant vermicelli with soup base, that would be a real improvement.

"What about the soup base?"

"MSG, salt, and dried vegetables. The cafeteria can handle dehydrating vegetables—we're already making dried radish and such."

"Sounds feasible. Write up a proposal, and we'll try a small batch first."

(Chapter End)