New Mini Sweet Potato Variety Hits Supermarkets: Professor Promotes It on Site

Around noon today, the food section of the Vanguard supermarket in Pujia Xincun was filled with drifting aromas, drawing many customers to stop and look. It turned out that more than 60 fragrant, piping-hot roasted sweet potatoes had just come out of the oven. Serving everyone at the counter was an elegant middle-aged woman who, while helping people choose sweet potatoes, also introduced their nutritional value and cooking tips, making everyone nod in agreement.

This woman selling sweet potatoes was none other than the developer of this mini sweet potato - Ji Zhixian, a professor at the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The professor hawking sweet potatoes had already become a much-talked-about story in town over this period.

Inspiration Came from Japan's "Finger Sweet Potato"

Professor Ji gave the sweet potato variety she bred a nice name: "Xinxiang." This small, delicately textured, sweet-tasting sweet potato is not cheap, selling for 2.98 yuan per jin in the supermarket. That retail price is three to four times more expensive than ordinary sweet potatoes. The ones roasted on site cost five yuan for two. After Professor Ji appeared in person, sales of these little Xinxiang sweet potatoes had been consistently good. One batch can roast more than 60, and these past few days they had to roast five or six batches every day. More than ten large boxes of raw sweet potatoes, about 300-plus jin, were sold every day.

The birth of this small sweet potato, which was gradually gaining market acceptance, had been in the works since several years ago, when Ji Zhixian began mulling it over. At that time, "finger sweet potatoes" were already popular in South Korea and Japan. She realized that "mini" agricultural products would become a trend. Because small, mini sweet potatoes better suit modern people's eating habits and preferences, and are also easier to eat. Moreover, modern people increasingly seek natural foods with good flavor.

At that time, "finger sweet potatoes" from Japan cost more than 30 yuan per jin, which was really too expensive. So she decided to develop a Chinese mini sweet potato variety that could match Japan's "finger sweet potato" in taste while being both good and affordable.

By 2003, after various scientific research steps including cultivation, seed selection, and trials, the Xinxiang variety was finally born. Through hard work in promotion, by last year it had finally established several thousand mu of planting fields in the hilly and mountainous areas of Quzhou and Jinhua.

Professor Ji's next goal is to "strive to enter the Hong Kong, China market."

Brand @#@136@#@ Inspired by "Chestnuts"

Customers buying roasted sweet potatoes in the supermarket could all see that after Professor Ji's Xinxiang sweet potatoes were roasted, they were all packed in exquisite paper bags. This way they would not be too hot to hold, and the bags could also hold leftover sweet potato skins. On the back of the paper bags were printed many interesting little nutrition tips, such as "The nutrition of sweet potato is the champion among vegetables."

This idea was thought up by the careful Professor Ji herself. In chestnut shops on the street, she saw that chestnuts were all sold in this kind of packaging, which was both hygienic and very convenient for people to eat while walking, so she designed the paper bags this way too. After they were introduced, they indeed proved very popular with customers.

She said that a series of Xinxiang sweet potato products was currently being developed. Besides sweet potatoes, there were also purple-fleshed sweet potatoes, as well as dried sweet potatoes and preserved sweet potatoes, "The development potential is very big."

"I think we researchers really can do a lot of work. Now, from variety research to standardized pollution-free production, to market promotion, to getting onto ordinary people's dining tables, we use our knowledge to let people eat better and with more peace of mind."

These past few days, she was also preparing to draw up a "scientific roasting standard."

At present, Ji Zhixian's "Xinxiang" sweet potato variety had already been promoted and planted on a scale in Quzhou, Jinhua, and Lin'an in Hangzhou, among other places. Local farmers colloquially called this sweet potato variety, which has high yield, high market value, and good sales, "gold bars."