BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Pomegranate processing industry in Yicheng, a district of Zaozhuang City of east China's coastal province of Shandong, has become a new booster for local industrial development, with its output value totalling 4.22 billion yuan in 2024, up 15.6 percent over the previous year.
Around 56 species of pomegranates are grown in Yicheng with a total planting area of around 6,666.7 hectares. Yicheng is home to more than 20,000 ancient trees at over one hundred years old.
In recent years, Yicheng District has regarded the development of the pomegranate industry as an important approach to its rural revitalization, and the pomegranate industry has made breakthrough progress.
Liu Haoran, who is in charge of the Wanglaoji Pomegranate One Health Industrial Park in Yicheng, said the park takes the model of "company + cooperative + farmers"，building up stable sales channels and technical support for farmers. Over 1,000 fruit farmers have benefited from this model.
To make pomegranate industry go further, Liu led his team to collaborate with 28 domestic and foreign research institutions to develop fully automated food production lines. New products such as Not-From-Concentrate (NFC) pomegranate juice and pomegranate and lime compound juice have been launched one after another, with a daily production of up to 750,000 cans. In 2024, the park's sales revenue reached 330 million yuan and its output value hit 400 million yuan.
Pushing forward further extension of deep processing industry of pomegranate is one of our goals beyond sales, said Liu.
The number of pomegranate deep processing enterprises in Yicheng has grown to 20, and the number of pomegranate processing products has increased to nearly 200 types, ranging from pomegranate beverages to pomegranate cosmetics, pomegranate health products, and even the first pomegranate veterinary drug in the country.
Yicheng District is also accelerating the construction of industrial platforms. It has established a national pomegranate germplasm resource bank, and started the construction of a comprehensive pomegranate trading center and a high-quality planting demonstration garden.
(Edited by Li Xueqing with Xinhua Silk Road, lixueqing@xinhua.org)
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