China's time-honored and deeply rooted agricultural tradition is now showing some new trends.
In recent years, with the growing popularity of health management, "foreign ingredients" such as kale have gradually appeared on the dining tables of Chinese people. These "foreign ingredients" have become popular due to their rich nutrition. However, they also have an inherent problem: these vegetables are often suitable for "white people's meals" and are not fully compatible with the habits of Chinese people in terms of taste, texture, and cooking methods. The localization of "foreign ingredients" has given rise to a large number of innovative "super vegetables" from China.
Local retail companies such as Hema have already taken the lead in entering this new market.
For example, after launching the domestic "Banhonggen vegetable" (Sungyou No. 1), Hema recently introduced the "Pro Max version" of kale - the Afri皱叶青菜, which has been well received by consumers. Compared to kale, Afri皱叶青菜 has higher levels of vitamin C and dietary fiber, and its texture is more crisp, tender, and sweet. In addition to being suitable for juicing and making salads, it also adapts to various Chinese cooking methods. Since its launch, the monthly sales growth of this vegetable has reached 80%.
A scene of the planting source of Afri皱叶青菜, provided by the contact person, the same below
Compared to the past when consumers passively accepted "foreign ingredients," Chinese agricultural workers are now trying something new: making foreign ingredients "actively" adapt to Chinese people.
How is the new vegetable developed? For this, we specifically contacted the producer of the vegetable, He Yafei, chairman of Afri Seed Industry.
He Yafei said, "We collected hundreds of kale materials from both inside and outside the country, and after repeated trials, we finally cultivated this Afri皱叶青菜. At first, we wanted to process it into vegetable powder that is popular among young consumers, but found that the finished product had both nutrition and flavor. Not only can the tender leaves be eaten, but the flower stems that emerge later can also be eaten, and even the old leaves can be juiced or made into vegetable powder, which better suits the habits of Chinese consumers."
"In the past, others controlled us, but now we control others' countries. This is called 'source control'."
A scene of the research and development base
He Yafei, chairman of Afri Seed Industry, mentioned that in recent years, China's modern seed industry has achieved significant results, but there are still "shortcomings" in the field of breeding, such as serious dependence on foreign seeds, for example, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots — to restrict the development of Chinese agriculture, some imported vegetable seeds from abroad are "male sterile".
"If Chinese agriculture wants to have international voice and pricing power, it must firmly grasp the seeds in its own hands."
"If we only plant the varieties sold to us by others, what if they don't sell them to us? Would that not put our necks in their hands?" said Professor Ge Xianhong from Huazhong Agricultural University to Observers Network. Many Chinese seed companies are still at a relatively early stage of development. Our enterprises need to step into a new height, and the industry needs to further safeguard agricultural security. We must have independent innovation capabilities. Only then can we stand firm and prevent low-quality internal competition through low prices."
China's seed industry and even Chinese agriculture also need such an autonomous innovation breakthrough moment like "DeepSeek".
Connecting to the Wuhan seed factory: How is the "super vegetable" suitable for the Chinese stomach created?
To pursue nutrition, Chinese people often sacrifice taste when eating "foreign ingredients." But with the increase of China's self-research and development capabilities, this is gradually becoming a thing of the past.
When talking about the development process of Afri皱叶青菜, He Yafei mentioned such a past experience.
Before starting her own business, He Yafei worked in a foreign company. At that time, many foreign companies targeted the Chinese dining table, wanting to promote wrinkled kale in China — the appearance of wrinkled kale is wavy, the leaves are dark green, and the inner florets are white, with a slightly bitter taste, suitable for salads. He Yafei noticed a problem: Chinese people usually prefer "sweet" vegetables and like cooking. Wrinkled kale, a type of heading kale, was different from Chinese demand.
Many foreign companies then turned their attention to kale. But kale and wrinkled kale have similar problems: very bitter and "chewy." He Yafei realized that these two vegetables indeed met the needs of dietary fiber and nutritional health, and were very popular in Europe, but they were not suitable for the taste of Chinese people. "Is there a solution that can meet both the nutritional and health needs and the taste of the Chinese people?" This became the starting point for the company's innovation and entrepreneurship.
Afri Seed Industry collected over 300 sets of materials globally, covering various variants of cabbage vegetables, and began the development of new types of cabbages through the support of academic forces such as Professor Ge Xianhong's team from Huazhong Agricultural University. Compared to foreign counterparts, the new varieties bred by Chinese people have higher vitamin C content and better palatability. At the same time, the research team considered the habit of Chinese people who not only eat leafy vegetables but also eat vegetable stems, and carried out targeted research and development.
According to He Yafei, wrinkled kale is essentially a "wild vegetable," which is difficult to produce stems, and has a strong wintering requirement (plants that require low temperatures during the vernalization phase are called vernalization requiring plants). In seed source cultivation, we need to continuously improve it, making the seeds "obey," while continuously optimizing its flowering period. Only then can the seeds better fit the consumption habits and actual agricultural production of the domestic market.
Additionally, referencing the practice of using cabbage in European and Japanese markets to make milk tea, the domestically produced Afri皱叶青菜 can also be processed into powder, becoming part of the milk tea supply chain, allowing this new type of domestic vegetable to truly achieve "maximum utilization of the supply chain" — which will enhance the supply chain appeal of this new vegetable. Currently, related market attempts have already begun.
A scene of the research and development base
From "only buying seeds" to "creating new varieties," the vegetable basket of 1.4 billion people must be held in our own hands
Surprisingly, many common vegetables' "life and death power" was not previously in the hands of the Chinese people themselves.
Seeds are the "chip" of agriculture, and the seed industry is a strategic and foundational core industry. Currently, China's seed industry revitalization action has entered its fourth year, and the development of modern seed industry has achieved remarkable results, with the coverage rate of good seeds exceeding 96%. However, facing the increasingly fierce global competition in the seed industry, China's seed industry still faces bottlenecks such as low identification rate of germplasm resources, poor connection of breeding platforms, and slow industrialization process.
For example, in April of this year, the "Learning Times" article mentioned that the domestic sugar beet seed only accounts for 1% of the market, and the core variety "genetic single-seed" is 99% dependent on imports. Moreover, the seed industry's core technology still mainly relies on traditional methods such as hybrid selection and molecular technology-assisted selection, and lacks mastery of high-tech features such as "biotechnology + information technology." Therefore, it is necessary to rely on technological power to accelerate the breakthrough of key technologies in the seed industry.
"Some vegetables, foreigners control us. For example, broccoli, the seeds they sell us are 'male sterile'. We buy their F1 hybrid seeds, even if they are planted in the fields of universities and breeding experts, we can only harvest their flower leaves, but cannot get their seeds. They say how much it is, it is that much — many seeds are like castrated pigs, we can only take the edible parts, but cannot use them as seeds to reproduce."
Regarding the current international situation of seed breeding, He Yafei sighed, "foreigners really control us tightly."
"In the past, people often told us: you have to buy this vegetable, you have to buy this seed, and even you have to buy this seed at a certain price. Now the situation has changed — Chinese people create a new vegetable, create more possibilities for new seed breeding, and make the Chinese dining table richer. Chinese people themselves breed, select, and mate seeds, creating products for Chinese people." said He Yafei.
The changes that happened in this Wuhan company are one of the many examples of China's agricultural innovation in recent years.
Professor Ge Xianhong from Huazhong Agricultural University said to Observers Network, "For our country's vegetable industry, it is now more advocated that enterprises develop some new categories on their own, thus occupying a unique strategic position. In this way, it is less likely to fall into low-quality internal competition — many large vegetable bases and planting bases, if they are all competing in the same type of vegetable, it is easy to lose money or even not be able to sell."
Wrinkled kale has become a "new business" for some farmers
"Our domestic enterprises should be able to do some original innovation, and not just imitate others. I think this is a long-term development strategy, and it is also the overall trend of the development of China's agriculture — we need to gradually enhance our independent innovation capability. Our enterprises and schools must have innovation capabilities to realize national seed security."
Ge Xianhong also mentioned that the new types of vegetables not only need to be developed, but should also actively go to the market. This requires a "combination punch." For many consumers, few know that vegetables also need research and development. Although the research and development of vegetable seeds in China is currently developing rapidly, it is not easy to turn these research results into common dishes. It requires careful cultivation and testing by planting enterprises, as well as feedback, popularization, and promotion by channel brands like Hema.
Exploring "new vegetables" is becoming a new force in China's retail market. Han Tao, a vegetable procurement officer at Hema, said that for retail channels, vegetables are the most difficult category to differentiate. Over the past nine years, Hema has built a supply chain across the country, transporting "delicate" vegetables from all over the country to the whole country through cold chains. On the other hand, Hema also plays the role of a "sourcer", exploring various small-scale and novel products, and "laboratory vegetables" are the target of Hema's development this year.
Making more new vegetables enter the Chinese dining table tests not only the origin of agriculture and agricultural research, but also the ability of downstream supply chains, channels, and the market. This is also a huge opportunity for local enterprises.
(The statements are based on telephone recordings and have not been reviewed by the parties involved; the images used in the text have been authorized by the enterprise.)
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7523160072789213748/
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