Noodles are the traditional staple food of Chinese people, but 70% of China’s fresh noodles are made by people in a county. Moreover, the county is neither in the North nor in the main wheat producing area, but it has created a labor brand of noodle workers, with an annual output value of more than 60 billion yuan.
made by Yunyang people in Chongqing, 200000 people call one name
In Chongqing, a southern city whose staple food is rice, many people start their day with a bowl of noodles.
In Chongqing, there are more hotpot shops than ATMs, and more noodle shops than hotpot shops. More than 80000 small noodle shops are distributed in the streets of Chongqing, supporting a large industry with an annual output value of more than 40 billion yuan.
These are almost all fresh noodles from Yunyang, Chongqing. Not only in Chongqing, but also in many cities across the country, the fresh noodles stalls are operated by Yunyang people.
Yunyang County, 310 kilometers away from the main city of Chongqing, is located in the main non wheat producing area and does not take pasta as the staple food. However, the fresh noodles made by the flour workers here account for 70% of the fresh noodles market in China.
At 3 a.m., the noodle shop of Wu Yong’s family started. The couple had to produce 300 kilograms of fresh noodles before dawn and send them to all noodle shops in the county.
In less than two hours, 300 kilograms of fresh noodles came out one after another. At 5:30 in the morning, Wu Yong went out to deliver noodles. The annual output value of this humble mom and pop shop can reach 450000 yuan.
Like Wu Yong, there are 200000 Yunyang people who make early morning fresh noodles. They are distributed all over the country. Although they have different scales, they have a common name: Yunyang noodle worker.
Yunyang noodle industry has become a brand, with an annual labor revenue of nearly 20 billion yuan
Yunyang is located in the south of yun’an salt farm. In ancient times, the south of the mountain was Yang, so it was named Yunyang. For a time, merchants gathered in the Millennium salt capital. People from all over the world gathered here and brought the custom of eating and making noodles to this “immigrant town”.
However, with the depression of the salt industry, Yunyang, located in the depths of the mountains, is also declining day by day. In the early stage of reform and opening up, Yunyang people went out of the mountains and brought out the skill of making noodles in Yunyang in order to survive and make a living.
Around 2000, the annual income of opening a noodle shop in other places can be as high as 200000 yuan. The news that going out to make dough can make a fortune spread widely in Yunyang, and those flour workers who made a fortune abroad used local flour machines in Yunyang, which also made it an upsurge to go out to open a noodle shop with a flour machine on their back, which opened the prelude to going south and north to open a noodle shop.
In 1996, Li Mingzhong became the person in charge of Yunyang machinery factory, which once produced noodle machines, just in time for the hottest sales period.
So far, Li Mingzhong still clearly remembers that in the most month, they produced 1202 table top machines. In fact, in this small county town, which is not good at manufacturing, the flour factory, as a product of the planned economy, once produced flour machines with no advanced technology and low price.
Tens of thousands of workers have come out of Yunyang with negative machines, step by step, changing the fate of themselves and their families.
Through mentoring, the team of noodle workers in Yunyang has grown stronger and stronger, and some of them with flexible minds have traveled all over the country to constantly open up new markets.
Today, the noodle shops opened by Yunyang people cover more than 300 large and medium-sized cities in China, more than 170000 households, and the average annual output value of each noodle shop is more than Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) yuan.
However, the hometown is hard to leave. Yunyang noodle workers who work hard outside are also looking for opportunities to return to their hometown to start a business. In 2003, in order to attract successful noodle workers to return home to feed back, Yunyang County Government specially established a return home park and gave policy and financial support. Feng Xiaoyan, who has been wandering abroad for 12 years, became the first person to eat crabs.
With the support of the government, Feng Xiaoyan’s noodle factory has gradually changed from the initial workshop to three production lines with a certain scale, with an annual output of 20000 tons and an output value of 120 million yuan. Fresh noodles can only be eaten and made now. In contrast, dried noodles with lower water content can solve the problems of shelf life and logistics. Therefore, it has also become a common choice for Yunyang noodle workers who upgrade to large-scale production.
In the workshop of another production enterprise, several equipment are orderly producing vermicelli. The green dough is due to the addition of Chlorella.
In this 3M high transparent curing box, the collagen in flour and wheat is fully fermented. After absorbing water, the gluten net is fully opened, and the phenomenon of water absorption will be reduced when the noodles are cooked. The equipment cost 7 million yuan.
In 2017, Yunyang County Government developed Yunyang noodle industry as a key industry and added Yunyang noodle characteristic vocational training; In the same year, Chongqing also included Yunyang noodle workers into the characteristic types of work of vocational training.
Driven by the labor service brand of “Yunyang noodle industry”, at present, more than 56000 noodle processing enterprises and workshops have been set up nationwide. The annual output value of Yunyang noodle industry exceeds 60 billion yuan and the labor service income is nearly 20 billion yuan.
half hour observation: labor has a brand and there is a way out for migrant workers
In order to break the root of poverty, walk out of the mountain with a noodle machine on your back, work hard in a foreign land, operate in good faith, constantly gather popularity by “passing on help and guidance”, accumulate public praise in the continuous test of the market, and gradually change from physical type to skill type, and upgrade from scattered soldiers to team combat, Yunyang noodle shows us a classic growth path of local labor service brand.
A labor service brand is not only a “Postcard” for local rural labor to go out to work, but also a “killer mace” to win the market. For workers, it means more employment opportunities, higher migrant income and stronger professional identity; For the market, it can reduce the labor search cost and drive the aggregation and development of upstream and downstream industries. In 2021, the total number of rural migrant workers in China reached 290 million, which has exceeded the level in 2019 before the epidemic. To provide more stable and decent employment for these 290 million people, we also need more loud and strong labor brands.
