Power supply upgrades bear fruit in hawthorn industry

As the fall harvest season has brought an abundance of hawthorn fruits to Niuquan township in Jinan, Shandong province, local hawthorn processing enterprises are now experiencing a peak in production.

As a key provincial-level agricultural enterprise, Laiwu-based Wanbang Food Co Ltd offers more than 50 hawthorn-based products, including freeze-dried hawthorn, candied hawthorn, and hawthorn wine. Its products reach markets across China and are exported to Japan, the United States, the European Union and Southeast Asia.

The company integrates hawthorn variety research, deep processing, specialty e-commerce, and modern tourism.

It currently operates two production facilities and five production lines, including a 20,000-square-meter comprehensive workshop, an 8,000-square-meter dehydration workshop, and a cold storage facility of over 10,000 cubic meters, with a storage capacity for more than 2,000 metric tons of fresh hawthorn.

The company has supported hawthorn cultivation across six villages, involving more than 6,200 farming households and 35 hawthorn business entities. Together, they have developed a hawthorn agritourism complex, now the largest hawthorn processing and distribution hub in China, capturing over 50 percent of the national market share, creating over 10,000 local jobs and distributing more than 100 million yuan in wages, while increasing farmers' incomes by over 40 percent year-on-year, Wanbang Food said.

"Currently, all five of our production lines are fully operational, with daily fresh fruit usage reaching over 250 tons and daily electricity consumption around 12,000 kilowatt-hours," said Dong Zhenwen, deputy general manager at Wanbang Food. "We anticipate achieving a production capacity of 2,000 tons this year, with sales revenue expected to exceed 100 million yuan."

To ensure a reliable power supply for the hawthorn industry, Laiwu has implemented a tailored power support plan, including three rounds of rural grid upgrades, the addition of seven transformers and the installation of 16,480 meters of new power lines, said State Grid Laiwu Power Supply Co.

The measures have ensured uninterrupted and efficient power for both farmers and processing facilities, therefore supporting the thriving growth of local specialty industry and rural vitalization, Dong added.