Training the Heavens

Chapter 225 Cannery

When a problem arose, Xu Lingjun, as usual, gathered everyone in the conference room for a meeting and explained the situation clearly. Everyone looked troubled. This was indeed a problem and it was difficult to solve.

Haisheng thought for a moment and said, "Captain, let's go out with Guo Lei again and visit a few more cities. If we can set up local outlets like we do in the city, even if the current production doubles, we can still handle it all."

"There are not many big cities around our place. If we go further, we have to consider transportation and shelf life issues. This cannot be solved by taking over one or two more markets." Xu Lingjun raised a new question.

The conditions for raising quails he had were far inferior to those of the Liu Yonghao brothers in the future, because the quail farm of the four Liu brothers was located in Xinjin, next to Chengdu, the largest city in the southwest, and further east was another big city, Chongqing. The market absorption capacity of these two cities was very strong, and together with the surrounding small and medium-sized cities, they could fully consume the quail eggs they produced.

Xu Lingjun is now at the foot of the Qilian Mountains. The population is completely different from that of Sichuan, and the transportation is relatively backward. He has to use a tractor to deliver the quail eggs to the county first, and then find a transportation company from the county to transport them to the city and other places. If he takes the railway, he has to go to the city.

Quail eggs have a shelf life. At room temperature, fresh quail eggs can generally be stored for about 10-14 days; if the weather is hot, the shelf life will plummet to seven days; in winter it will be slightly better, and the storage time can be extended to about one month.

The quail farm will also adjust the collection of quail eggs according to the season. It will be a little longer in winter. When there are fewer eggs, they will be delivered once a month, and when there are more eggs, they will be delivered once every half a month. In summer, they must be delivered every three days, otherwise they will go bad.

Now, there is a certain chance of success in developing markets in other places, but even if someone wants to buy, it is not certain that it can be delivered out. It takes a long time to transfer it from a tractor to a truck and then to a train, and there is also the possibility of it being damaged by bumps during transportation.

Once the goods are delivered to the destination, whether they are broken or smelly, local customers will definitely not want them. If this happens one or two more times, the business will be unsustainable.

Haisheng also realized this and didn't know what to do for a moment.

Guo Lei, who had spent a lot of time in big cities and had a more active mind, proposed a new plan. "We can expand the city's warehouse and divide the transportation process into two steps. First, we can send the quail eggs to the city and negotiate with the county transportation company to have them come directly to the team to pick them up. This way, we can reduce the need for tractors to transport the eggs, which will be faster and less wasteful."

"Once we get to the city, we'll contact the railway department and ask them to help transport the goods to other cities. We'll be responsible for loading and unloading the goods. We'll definitely be careful with the handling ourselves, so the losses should be manageable."

"That's a solution, and it can temporarily solve the problem." Xu Lingjun praised, then raised a new question, "But it can only solve the problem temporarily. What if more people raise quail in the future, and the nearby cities can't handle the demand, so they have to move to more distant cities?"

"The longer the quail eggs are shipped, the more obvious the issues of shelf life and loss become. If we want to sell quail eggs to Lanzhou or even Xi'an in the summer, it's probably far from enough to just rely on transportation."

Hearing this, everyone fell silent. Was the quail farm going to hit a bottleneck due to shelf life and transportation issues, preventing it from expanding production? They were once making tons of money, but now they couldn't. Everyone was very unhappy.

"Since the transportation problem cannot be solved in the short term, can we change our thinking and see if we can extend the shelf life of quail eggs?" Xu Lingjun reminded.

The production team was located in the northwest, where transportation was not ideal. This problem couldn't be solved by them alone; they had to rely on the government. However, the shelf life issue was different and could be solved. "We can extend the shelf life of our own eggs and quail eggs by stuffing them into the grain, but with tens of thousands of quail eggs to preserve, this method might not be practical."

"Why don't we ask the experts at the agricultural school? If the county agricultural school doesn't work, we can go to the city or the provincial capital. There should be a way, right?"

Everyone was talking about it, and finally someone gave Xu Lingjun the answer he wanted. "During the Chinese New Year, the team distributed some canned fruit as New Year's goods. Since fruit can be canned, can quail eggs also be preserved?"

"Clap, clap, clap!" Xu Lingjun couldn't help but applaud. The benefit of his insistence on holding meetings to brainstorm whenever problems arose finally showed. Everyone got used to using their brains, and their brains became more active. Now, everyone could find the correct answer without his reminder.

"This is a great idea. By cooking quail eggs and canning them, we can extend their shelf life from one month to six months or even a year! Plus, they're much easier to transport. The canned fruit we distributed during the Lunar New Year was shipped from southern cities, proving that canned food can be transported long distances."

"Since canned fruit can be shipped from the south to here, then the canned quail we produce can definitely be shipped from the foot of the Qilian Mountains to Lanzhou, Xi'an, and even Shanghai and Beijing! By then, let alone our current production, even if everyone in the county raised quail together, we would be able to consume it!"

"So our next plan is to build a canning factory, process the collected quail eggs into canned products, and then sell them out. This will not only solve the production capacity problem, but also make more money! The price of canned quail eggs will definitely be higher than quail eggs!"

With a loud "boom", the conference room suddenly became lively. Many people were excited and a little worried. They were excited because the production team was going to build a factory, and they were worried because of this.

Although the production team now has feed mills, pig farms, chicken farms, and quail farms, most of these belong to the breeding industry. The feed mill can also be seen as a supporting facility for the breeding industry, and everyone is still engaged in the agricultural and animal husbandry industry.

Building a cannery would mean officially entering the industrial sector. Could we do it well? Many people had little confidence.

Xu Lingjun also knew that running a factory wasn't easy, so he made careful arrangements. "I went to the provincial capital a while ago and consulted experts at the university. After research, they believe that producing canned quail eggs is feasible! And it's not difficult at all. We just need to slightly modify the existing canning production line and we can start production right away."

"Judging from the current market situation, quail eggs are very popular. As long as we can ensure the taste of canned quail eggs, there is no need to worry about not being able to sell them after they are produced!"

“So everyone can rest assured that this plan has a very high chance of success!”

　The funeral process in the countryside is very complicated. I basically stayed up all night every day in the past few days, and I still have to be busy these days, so I can only find a way to write two chapters.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)