Monthly Archives: March 2025

A Chinese innovation: rice from potatoes

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Recently, a special production line in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, has created the world’s first potato rice. It is understood that this production line that converts potatoes into ‘rice’ is the result of more than five years of research and development led by Wu Qi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a polymeric physical chemist. This is not only the first production line in China to turn fresh potatoes into dried rice, but also the first in the world.

Nutrition

According to the report, potato rice retains 90% of the nutrients of potatoes and the protein content is 27% higher than that of traditional refined rice noodles. After the first batch of potato rice was launched, Zhaotong Mekong conducted product stability tests among people with diabetes and obesity. Judging from the situation of regional sales tests, there is a tendency for supply to exceed demand. After more than a month of trial sales, the repurchase rate of diabetics and people who lose weight is relatively high.

Easy to handle

Because potato rice has been processed at high temperature and high pressure, consumers can steam the potato rice without washing it. In addition, the amount of water and time required to steam potato rice is much less than the amount of water and time required to steam white rice. Some consumers feedback that potato rice is convenient to cook, and it not only feels close to rice in the mouth, but also smells like potatoes.

Price

At present, the price of potato rice is still higher than that of ordinary rice. According to the official platform of Zhaotong Meikang Agricultural Company, the price of potato rice is RMB 66 per box of 950g.

Top producer

As one of the world’s largest potato producers, China has ranked first in the world for many years. For Chinese consumers, the research on potato rice is expected to make high-yield potatoes a staple food for people, which will help solve the problem of food security. For fresh potatoes with a large yield, this new form of potatoes can solve the problem that fresh potatoes have a short storage time and are not conducive to preservation to a certain extent. potato rice can reduce the need for ventilation and climate control during storage, and it is also more convenient for logistics and transportation.

The process

Wu Qi’s team integrates macromolecular physics theory, food macromolecular processing and polymer extrusion granulation technology, focussing on the research and development of high-water extrusion and reorganisation technology of plant polysaccharides and protein complex systems. Through precise control of temperature, humidity and enzymatic time, fresh potatoes are transformed into diameter 0.5 -1mm rice granular finished product. Simply put, the research team changed the characteristics of macromolecules from the physical level, reshaped the starch chain of potato crops, and turned fresh potatoes into potato rice with good taste.

Peter Peverelli has been actively involved in and with China since 1975 and frequently travels to the most remote regions of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a substantial book that explores the cultural factors that have contributed to China’s economic success. Peter has been involved in the Chinese food and beverage industries since 1985.

Hunan cuisine: how regional cuisines are marketed in China

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Hunan cuisine, known in China as Xiang Cuisine, Xiang being the literary name of Hunan Province, is one of China’s more famous cuisines. It is characterised by its liberal use of chili peppers and garlic, but also by its use of very fresh ingredients. A typical way of preparing and serving dishes in Hunan is the ‘dry pan’ (ganguo). Those dishes are served in an iron pan on a fire to keep it hot.

Hunan’s capital Changsha is foodies’ paradise. As a patron of this blog, you know that food is the central concept of Chinese culture. Food is available in abundance everywhere. However, there are still cities in China that even Chinese refer to as places to go for food lovers, and Changsha is one of them.

Changsha is also very centrally located in the heart of China. In Europe, all roads may lead to Rome, but in China they lead to Changsha. Changsha is a major infrastructure hub. This highly facilitates the export of the local cuisine to all corners of the nation, and beyond its borders. However, in this post, I will restrict my story to the situation of Hunan cuisine within China in 2024.

Regions

In an earlier post, I introduced the major food regions of China. The following table shows the percentage of Hunan restaurants in China in each region.

These figures confirm that fire food is still more appreciated in Southern China than in the north.

Cities

At a lower level, Chinese cities are catogorise by function and size. First tier cities are the cities directly under the State Council (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing). New first tier cities are the capitals of provinces and autonomous regions. The remaining cities are categorised by size. The following table shows the percentage of Hunan restaurants per urban category.

We can see that Hunan cuisine is most popular in regional capitals and smaller regional cities. A possible explanation could be that cities in the south of China tend to be smaller, with the largest cities concentrated in the north. E.g., of the four first tier cities, only Chongqing people prefer spicy food.

Province/autonomous region

I am also adding a map indicating the number of Hunan restaurants per province and autonomous region. Dark red indicates a higher number.

The top regions, Hunan (obviously) and Guangdong are indicate with percentages, 19.6% and 17.8%, respectively. Guangdong is a special region, adjacent to Hong Kong, where many emigrés from other parts of China are living. I presume that Guangdong is the home of quite a few people from Hunan.

I could go even deeper, including, e.g., the regional distribution of the various Hunan restaurant chains. However, that information would be unsuitable for a post like this. However, I will be able to provide an in-depth study upon request.

Peter Peverelli has been actively involved in and with China since 1975 and frequently travels to the most remote regions of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a substantial book that explores the cultural factors that have contributed to China’s economic success. Peter has been involved in the Chinese food and beverage industries since 1985.