Publications /  Annual Report 2000

In 1992, inspired by researchers from the Inter­­­national Potato Center, Zhou Guang-you founded the Guang-you Ltd. sweetpotato noodle company with an initial investment of US$60. Eight years later, Zhou is a millionaire.

The secret to his success, and to a revolution in noodle making in China, lies in an amazing value adding equation: 6 kg fresh sweetpotato (US$0.25) = 1 kg starch = 14 packs of instant noodles (US$5).

Today, Zhou owns 19 patents for sweetpotato noo­dle processing and Guang-you Ltd. is a US$5 million company. One of the largest sweetpotato enterprises in China, it employs 500 people, has an annual pro­duc­tion capacity of 10,000 tonnes of instant noodles and is the driving force behind the promise of better incomes for 500,000 sweetpotato farmers in Sichuan Province.

Since sweetpotato was introduced into China 400 years ago, this South American crop has become a lifeline there. The country has 6 million hectares  dedicated to the crop and produces 121 million tonnes yearly, about 86 percent of the world’s sweetpotatoes. The Sichuan basin (including Chongqing and Sichuan provinces) leads national production.

Sweetpotatoes, however, are not something Sichuan people have always been proud of. With little commercialization or added value, the crop has long been a symbol of poverty and ignorance. According to provincial statistics, 70 percent of Sichuan’s 1997 sweetpotato crop was used to feed pigs in subsistence farming systems. Throughout China, sweetpotato typically has brought in only half or even one-third the profits of rice.

Zhou grew up in the poor, sweetpotato-producing county of Shantai, Sichuan. Like many people from this area, he had mixed feelings about the crop because it was a reminder of difficult times. His professional experience, however, helped him to see it in a new light.

After earning a degree in food science, Zhou  worked in various government jobs putting farmers in touch with agricultural technologies that could make a positive difference in their livelihoods. One of these jobs was in Ganba, a poor district in Shantai, where one of the few income generators for local farmers was processing sweetpotato into starchy noodles.

Researchers from the International Potato Center visited Ganba in 1990 during a trip to China to study sweetpotato post-harvest practices. Zhou accompanied them on their tour and, after a few days with the experts, began to see the potential of this crop. Two years later, when CIP scientists and colleagues from the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences organized a sweetpotato processing course in Zhou’s hometown, he quickly signed up. The course was another eye opener.

At that time, the market was full of instant noodles made from wheat flour — a popular food for millions of Chinese people. Zhou recognized the potential demand for a similar product using sweetpotato starch, and worked this vision into a money-making proposition. His calculations were crystal clear: from sweetpotato to starch, value increased by 100 percent; from starch to normal starch noodles, by 200 percent. If the starch were to be processed into instant noodles, a 2000 percent value increase could be achieved.

One month after the course, Zhou quit his government job to start a small noodle factory. With his factory in full production, Zhou continued to develop the processing technology. He invented a starch extraction machine — the ‘Guang-you mini-machine’ — that processes 2 tonnes of fresh sweetpotato per day, 20 times more than the traditional, labor-intensive manual method.

The new technology has transformed sweetpotato noodles from a low-value rural commodity into a high-quality food product. The processing machine enables year-round noodle production and, more important, is well suited to small, family level processing.

Zhou says that farmers’ fields are his principal workshop. His company provides training in topics that range from variety selection to post-harvest handling. For example, because he depends on local farmers for the production of raw starch, he helps ensure that production is stable by giving two processing courses per month. 

To date, 4,000 Guang-you machines have been sold in China. Some 1,000 demonstration sites support sweetpotato growers. From Yunan to Inner Mongolia, potato and cassava producers are using similar technologies, bringing the national impact to about US$ 40 million.

As Guang-you noodles expand into international markets — in India and Russia, for instance — the company’s fame is attracting visitors from home and abroad. Zhou does not plan to rest on his laurels. Guang-you Ltd.’s second phase of expansion, just completed, is expected to increase noodle production by 200 percent and generate annual gross income of US$25 million. With that money, Zhou plans to build four more processing plants in western China and to draw more sweetpotato farmers into the enterprise.

The key to his success, according to Zhou, is that he builds on the healthy mutual interests of his company and the farmers. His neighbors from Shantai can testify to the value of this principle: 40 sweetpotato starch processors from one Shantai village produced 200 tonnes of raw starch for his factory last year, generating US$2,000 extra income per family.

—      reported by Chen Lan