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Freight train carries tasty crustaceans to Moscow

By Zhou Lihua in Wuhan and Wang Keju in Beijing (China Daily) Updated: 2018-06-08 07:38

Crawfish from Hubei province are on their way to Moscow on the China-Europe freight train, taking one of China's favorite dishes to spice up the 2018 FIFA World Cup soccer championships.

The freight train, which carried 100,000 crawfish, departed on May 31 from Wuhan and is expected to arrive in Moscow in about 17 days, when World Cup matchups are still engaged in fierce battles.

After arrival, the crawfish will be sent to restaurants and bars in Moscow for soccer fans from around the world in Russia's capital for the games.

"China is the world's largest producer of crawfish, with annual output accounting for over 70 percent of the world's total. About 80 percent of crawfish produced in Qianjiang, Hubei, are exported to Europe and the United States as precooked food products," said Wang Jiaoyang, a specialist with e-commerce giant Alibaba's agriculture development branch.

Chen Wangming, deputy general manager of the business operation department of Wuhan Asia-Europe Logistics, said that to ensure the quality of crawfish, the container is equipped with a refrigeration unit to keep the food cold. He said the temperature in the cabin during transit will be-18 C.

Alibaba's Wang said the temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen levels and pH value of the water have also been controlled to ensure quality.

"When the crawfish is ready for the market, standardized processing such as ultrasonic cleaning, liquid nitrogen freezing and packaging will safeguard its quality," Wang said.

"The crawfish have been cooked and made into precooked food products that consumers can eat as long as they heat it for five minutes in the microwave," said Cai Xin, general manager of the online food shopping platform of China National Agricultural Development Group.

Compared with domestic consumers who prefer a spicy taste, European and US consumers prefer to cook crawfish with cream and cheese. So the crawfish sent to Russia was cooked in four different flavors, including garlic and spicy, Cai said.

Wang said crawfish initially were an invasive species that caused rice farmers in eastern and central China headaches by pinching off rice seedlings in the paddy fields and making tunnels in ridges that caused water loss.

"But now ... the invasive species has become big business, bringing more job opportunities and income for local farmers," he said, adding that his company aims at taking more agricultural products abroad, such as flour in Shandong and kiwi fruit in Anhui province.

Contact the writers at wangkeju@chinadaily.com.cn

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