Photo taken on July 15 shows roasted red sausages in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China. (Xinhua/Zhu Yue)
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- When camping in northeast China-situated Harbin City, a bite of Harbin red sausage will always remind campers of how the local delicacy overwhelms their taste buds amid constantly improved flavors and innovated services.
Boasting a history of over one century, Harbin red sausage is a typical cured and smoked pork sausage originated from the sausage workshops affiliated to Churin chambers founded in Xiangfang district of Harbin long ago.
With smoky taste as the soul, purplish red color and wrinkled surface, authentic Harbin red sausages are produced with techniques concentrated mainly in the process of smoke curing via stoves, said Liu Hui, the brand manager with Harbin Churin leaderfoods Co., Ltd., a producer of Harbin red sausage.
As Liu introduces, by curing with hardwood, oil transferred from hardwood to red sausages along with smoke can brighten their color and add to their fragrance. But changes in season, humidity and stove temperature all require different arrangements of woods by the bakers who can usually master the technique in 10-plus years.
After the producing technique of Harbin red sausages was appraised as an intangible cultural heritage in Heilongjiang Province in 2007, local producers generally turned their eyes to digital transformation and improved significantly production efficiency by gradually forming a set of producing procedures combining digitization and workmanship.
Currently, Harbin Churin leaderfoods Co., Ltd. is capable of manufacturing 100 tonnes of red sausages per day and nearly 5,000 tonnes annually. From production to sales, the company realized digital management and precise control over related procedures and developed flavors more suitable to demand of consumers by leveraging big data.
For instance, the newly launched "zero starch" series of black pepper crispy bone sausages and spicy crayfish sausages have particularly good sales, noted Liu.
To better satisfy customers, Harbin Dazhong Roulian Food Co., Ltd. (Haroulian), a reputed local meat processing firm, kept innovating its products and developed red sausage products with no fat, lower garlic content and refreshing flavor, said the company deputy general manager Liu Ke.
In its specialty shops, smoke curing stoves are placed and operated to produce red sausages for travelers and widely welcomed by customers nationwide, the company now has more than 400 specialty shops in China, Liu Ke added. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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