By Tuoi Tre
The experiments of food processing from the first fruit of teachers of food science and technology University of Agriculture and Forestry Ho Chi Minh City has entered the factory to mass production, the delicious food sold on the e-commerce website .
Dr. Le Trung Thien exchange with colleagues at the workshop produce grapefruit, lemon wire - Photo: VY THUY
The workshop is located on a small road in District 9 (HCMC). Arriving at the beginning of the road, the aroma of grapefruit aroma nose nose radiate everywhere. From many stages of washing, cutting, processing spicy, sweetness, dry squeeze, drying, packing ... are closed, the pieces of pomelo finished products remain natural shell color, aroma and taste sweet with the spicy nature of pomelo oil.
Grapefruit peel "made by students"
Huynh Thi Truong - the young director is also a former student from the faculty - went a check round the sewing. The staff here operates cutters, dryers here are mostly students of the University of Agriculture and Forestry, only some stages such as preliminarily processing, packaging is to hire workers to do.
Each year the lab can produce 20 different products, but so far the link between scientists and manufacturing companies is weak, so most of the research is in the lab. Opening the factory is to open the door to unlock this knot. "
Dr. LE TRUNG THIEN
"The factory is not large, the machines here also have many homemade products. For example, the centrifuge used by the workshop is the washing machine. "- The school pointed to a row of rotating washing machines introduced.
Dr. Le Trung Thien, head of food engineering, Faculty of Food Technology, said: "I want to make use of agricultural products, cheap and cheap in Vietnam but good for the health of processing into delicious and nutritious food ".
And then a group of students were assigned to research and develop the process of producing pomelo peels from the laboratory on campus.
Dr. Thien initially said the grapefruit is produced in a small factory 40m2 of school, just enough to produce teachers gifts, friends. Take advantage of the tools available in the school from cutters, dryers, color meters ...
But suddenly everyone almost complimented the aromatic taste, so the teacher decided to do workshop, production sold to the market. From the small room of 40m2, the grapefruit peel moved to a 100m2 rentable workshop and now stands at 500m2.
"To find customers, we have a group of three people doing marketing, selling products, looking for distribution channels. Fortunately, grapefruit is sold to many people preferred and introduced to each other so far away. How much profit is put into buying machinery, then tinkering to add other products into production. Lemonade drying duct has launched and very promising "- Thien Thien said.
Kiwi, pineapple, dragon fruit ... come out of the lab
In the early morning of the week, students brush up on a moist dryer, spray dryer, distillation machine, color meter. At a slight angle, Hoang Quang Binh (23 years old) was with the students weighing purple cabbage powder by the four-digit weight that came out of the spray dryer.
Binh is one of the young students who have studied the pomelo peel jam, and then stayed at the school to continue their master's studies. Until now, he still accompanies his younger brother to continue researching the process of producing many kinds of food from vegetables, fish meat, eggs ... at the order of the business.
At another corner is a long glass jar, small zip bags printed with fruit juices: grapefruit juice - pineapple juice, grapefruit juice - chrysanthemum - peanut butter, herbal juice, crayfish juice ...
Nguyen Thi My Hien (22 years old), a young fellow just graduated, is the "owner" in charge of developing these product lines. Hien said that starting from March 2017, Dr. Thien Giao studied the fruit juices to create nutritious products with delicious flavor and high nutritional value can be followed by grapefruit, lemon production line sold to the market.
"The product is formed but still need to study adjustments to color eye-catching, taste better" - said Hien.
Must have nice packaging
A teacher's role in a company with high quality products from Vietnam's agricultural products, competing with other countries in the region, closed from formulation to design, production and distribution. is still being raised from this small laboratory. Dr. Thien said that students are trained in food, when developing a product that will understand the raw materials, understand how the food will transform, how the processing steps. "Until now, our processed foods do not invest properly in the packaging. The first attraction is the packaging so the products from agro-forestry food shop must have beautiful packaging "- Thien Thien said.
