History of Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried

Introduction History of Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried

Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried is a specialty of Liancheng County, Fujian Province, and a national geographical indication product of China.

With a processing history of over 300 years, Liancheng County is hailed as the "Hometown of Red Sweet Potato Dried". It ranks first among the "Eight Great Dried Foods of Western Fujian" due to its advantages such as beautiful color, excellent taste, rich nutrition, high fiber content, low calorie, and low fat. The products of Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried have developed into three major categories (preserved fruits, crispy, and restructured) with more than 60 varieties, such as dried sweet potato, sweet potato chips, sweet potato sticks, sweet potato slices, frozen sweet potato, sweet potato strips, steamed sweet potato, purple sweet potato dried, etc.. Their sales volume accounts for over 80% of China's total consumption of sweet potato dried. The products are sold domestically to more than 600 large and medium-sized cities across the country, and exported to Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian countries, as well as China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions.

On December 26, 2007, the former General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ) approved the implementation of geographical indication product protection for "Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried".

Product Features

Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried is refined from yellow-skinned and red-hearted sweet potatoes produced in Liancheng using traditional techniques. The product retains its natural color and quality, featuring a ruddy color, sweet aroma, soft and chewy texture. It is rich in dietary fiber, lysine, crude protein, calcium, carotene, vitamins C and D, and other nutrients. It has the functions of moistening the intestines for defecation, relieving heat, and invigorating the stomach. It is praised by scholars from the United States, Japan, and other countries as a health food with special nutritional functions.

Origin Environment

Liancheng County is located in the mountainous area of western Fujian Province. The county has a population of 330,000, including 280,000 agricultural population, making it a typical agricultural county. The territory is abundant in rainfall and has a large temperature difference between day and night. The special soils such as purple rock, sandy rock, and argillaceous rock have created the unique quality of Liancheng red sweet potatoes.

Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried is made from red-hearted sweet potatoes cultivated in Getian, Gechuan, Jiele, Daping, Liwu, Hongshan and other places. These areas have loose soil with moderate acidity and alkalinity, which is particularly suitable for growing sweet potatoes. Coupled with the suitable climate, the sweet potatoes grown here are yellow with a reddish tint, sweet and fragrant in taste, soft and fluffy in texture, and also contain high levels of vitamin A, vitamin B, and glucose.

Liancheng Dried Sweet Potato History

Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried is a traditional local specialty, ranking first among the "Eight Great Dried Foods of Western Fujian" with a history of over 300 years. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried was named "Golden Potato Chips" and presented as a tribute to the imperial palace.

In the 1980s, when Xiang Nan, the former Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, conducted an investigation in Liancheng, he proposed the requirement of transforming the traditional product sweet potato dried into a leisure food and making Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried go out of Liancheng and into the whole country.

In accordance with this, Liancheng County formulated the Fujian Provincial Local Standard "Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried Standard Complex" and the National Agricultural Industry Standard "Sweet Potato Dried" to promote the upgrading of the sweet potato industry. Centering on building the "World Capital of Sweet Potatoes", it formulated the "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Sweet Potato Industry". Taking "6·18" as a platform, it bridged the gap between enterprises and universities/research institutes, encouraged and supported enterprises to connect with scientific and technological achievements, develop new products and research new technologies, and strived to improve the quality and added value of sweet potato dried. It has cooperated with more than 30 universities and scientific research institutions such as Fuzhou University, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, and Sichuan University, and has connected and researched more than 100 technological achievements.

In 2015, the Sweet Potato Industry Branch of China Township Enterprises Association was established in Liancheng.

On October 31, 2015, the China·Liancheng Sweet Potato Industry Development Conference opened in Liancheng. The main activities of the conference included the National Sweet Potato Industry Development Seminar and the National Potato Processing Technology Matching and Signing Activity.

Addition, initially the sweet potato dried is made by farmers manually, but in the past 30 years there are more and more companies made the sweet potato products by machinery production line, there are many companies are growing up with developing the snack products which made of sweet potato material, such as Liancheng County Good Harvest Potato Industry co,.Ltd. , etc.

Product Honors

Liancheng County has successfully established the "National Green Food Raw Material (Sweet Potato) Standardized Production Base". The collective trademark of "Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried" has been recognized as a China Well-Known Trademark and a China Geographical Indication Protected Product.

On December 26, 2007, the former AQSIQ approved the implementation of geographical indication product protection for "Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried".

In 2011, Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried entered the Top 100 National Agricultural Product Regional Public Brands, was rated as one of the Top 100 Famous National Agricultural Product Regional Public Brands, and won the title of the Most Popular National Agricultural Product Regional Public Brand among Consumers.

In 2012, Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried won the Most Influential National Agricultural Product Regional Brand with a brand value of nearly 3 billion yuan, ranking first among national agricultural product potato brands for a long time.

On November 19, 2014, in the selection of the "First Top Ten Geographical Indication Trademarks" in Fujian Province, Liancheng Red Sweet Potato Dried stood out among nearly 300 geographical indications in the province and ranked third in the Top Ten. It was also the only geographical indication trademark in Longyan that won this honor.