Duan Yi carefully observed the cans made of these two long-necked, wide-mouthed bottles and asked, "This should be very expensive."

Luo Fei said while taking it out of the bag: "The one in my brother's hand is used by the officer, one is ten silver dollars, this is the soldier's version, one is fourteen silver dollars. This is still the current price, and the price can be cheaper after mass production.

Compared with the canned peaches and pineapples ordered by the Navy from South Africa, and the canned apples and pears ordered by the North American province, our price is not at a disadvantage, but they are tin-plated and have a longer shelf life. However, in order to support the Atlantic City industry, the Navy still prioritizes our orders.

Especially for short-range military operations such as the Beihai exercise, a half-year shelf life is enough. If the Navy can bring the bottle back, we can still discount it."

Duan Yi took a look at the canned food in the soldier version. It was a little bigger. After opening it, he found the difference. The blueberry fruits inside were of different sizes, which were different from those of the officers. The bigger difference lies in the color. The color the officer enjoyed was blue, while the soldier version was red and black. He tasted it and it was very sweet, so sweet that it was a little tired of being.

"Who thought of this?" Duan Yi asked, saying, "Can you get the price of canned fruits in Atlantic City? Blueberries must be a local product. Are there blueberry plantations in the local area? I haven't heard of it at all."

Luo Fei shook his head slightly: "No, these blueberries are all wild blueberries."

Canned blueberries, among which glass bottles and sugar need to be imported, just so happens that the Caribbean region is several of the world's largest sugar export places. The canned sugar used in the officers' version is rock sugar, which comes from South African provinces and is made of sugar imported from Brazil by local sugar merchants. The canned blueberries used in the Caribbean local brown sugar and brown sugar.

As for the main ingredient, blueberries are specialties from the Atlantic colonies.

When Luo Fei was still with King Yu, he traveled to Newfoundland with a team from the Atlantic Fleet and also to the French colonies. Later, he left due to injury and joined the shipping company. His footprints spread throughout the colonies of the New World.

Especially after setting up a acquisition site on Newfoundland Island last year, Luo Fei discovered that wild blueberries were everywhere on the land north of Atlantic City. Some women in Atlantic City also bought blueberries from the north to make jam and dried fruit for their children to snack on.

More importantly, blueberry picking is separate from the Atlantic colonial pillar industry, the cod industry.

In the early days of the discovery of Newfoundland fishery, European fishermen did not dare to go ashore. They only dared to "catch wet fish" at sea. At that time, fishermen tied many fish hooks on long fish lines, hung bait and threw them out. It only took half an hour to pull them up to harvest a lot of cod. The easy bite of cod will make the fishermen in later generations drool, and there is no need to make nests or other things.

Several tables were placed on the boat as assembly line to process cod. The cod was cut off and the internal organs were removed by another worker. The third worker removed the fish bones and then threw them into a large bucket of high-concentration salt water, marinated for a whole day, and then fished out and placed in the storage bucket.

Later, in order to gain more, the fishermen began to land on Newfoundland Island with courage and set up a drying yard on it. At this time, they found that a large amount of dried cod could be processed with only a small amount of salt.

After hundreds of years of mileage, European fishermen have discovered that February to May is the best time for fishing and processing cod in Newfoundland fishery. This is the breeding season for cod. A lot of cod will be obtained in the warm waters of the Great Shoals. This season, on Newfoundland Island, there is a lot of snow outdoors. The snow and cold climate prevent bacteria and insects from harming the cod.

The best weather for cod processing is cold and dry, but the cold should not be too cold. The best temperature is slightly higher than zero degrees, and the dryness should not be too dry. It is better to have a little rain.

When the Imperial fishermen arrived in Newfoundland, they also mocked the European fishermen for being lazy and stopped working in winter. The Imperial fishermen hummed for a winter and dried a lot of dried cod. As a result, after European merchants arrived, they did not buy it. Their own merchant ships were transported to Europe and sold at lower than the market price.

The reason is very simple. The severe cold in winter causes the fibers of fish to break, which causes this type of fish to be stored for a long time.

Obviously, European fishermen are not lazy, but are experienced.

Generally speaking, cod will be dried on wooden racks for three months, and will be removed and dried in a ventilated room for two months. At this time, more than 70% of the moisture in the cod meat will disappear, but the original nutrients will still be maintained. The cod made according to this process has an almost unlimited shelf life, which is similar to the zombie meat used by the early navy.

Of course, the dried cod made in this way is more troublesome to eat. Generally, the dried cod is wrapped with a cloth and beat it with an iron hammer. Then, the remaining fish skin and fish bones can be processed and eaten.

After learning the experience summarized by European fishermen for hundreds of years, the Imperial fishermen also began to do this. From February to May, cod can be caught and processed, because it takes five to six months to dry and air-dried, so dried cod can be sold until the end of the year.

In the early days of the canning factory, profits could not be guaranteed, so Luo Fei handed over the purchased dried cod to the canning factory for processing. The so-called processing was just a selection, and packaged separately according to the quality. The high-quality cod was sent to the European market for sale, and the low-quality was sold to colonial merchants and slave merchants from the Caribbean or Brazil. They used these cheap meat food to feed black slaves, or went directly to West Africa to exchange for black slaves.

It can be said that fishermen have no jobs in the second half of the year, so at this time, they will only leave few people watching the drying yard and bargaining with the merchants who come to buy. The rest return to Atlantic City to do odd jobs. The current Atlantic colony is still fishermen in the first half of the year, and will become construction workers in Atlantic City or farmers in the Xinshang area in the second half of the year.

Wild blueberries ripen in August because Newfoundland has a relatively high dimension, which is almost the season for blueberries to ripen, and winter is coming. Therefore, blueberries can be preserved in the wild state.

With abundant raw materials and labor, it is very convenient to pick this gift from nature. Last year, Luo Fei discovered this. He bought some and tried it back and found that whether it is fresh blueberries or dried blueberries, they can be made into canned food.

As the Caribbean sugars arrived, it was natural to produce canned blueberries on a large scale.

More importantly, wild blueberries are not only collected by empire immigrants, but also by Indians. In addition, Indians near the Atlantic colonies have a tradition of eating blueberries. They not only eat fresh blueberries, but also like to eat dried blueberries in stews and soups.

"Is there any canned beef?" Duan Yi asked.

"You still can't let go of this business opportunity." Luo Fei asked.

Duan Yi sighed and said, "After the Miluo incident, I changed shifts with Jiang Xianyun and stayed with Carl XII for half a year. Now he is planning to attack Russia and Poland. You may not know that from England to Moscow, this large area is full of lakes and swamps, with few people smoking.

In order to solve the logistics, King Carl ordered 500,000 canned beef from our merchants in one go. The canned merchants in Xijin got orders from me, and their mouths were grinning to their heels. Damn, it would be great if we could produce canned beef as well."

The fact is not what Duan Yi said, only look at it but not eat it. Several canned merchants gave him a lot of filial piety, and one of the canned manufacturers is also the property of his father-in-law's family.

"I really can't do it, Brother Duan."

Duan Yi was still a little unwilling to give up and said, "I heard that there are a kind of bison everywhere in the North American colonies..."

"Brother Duan, I'm going to tell you, I really thought about it and tried it, but it turned out not to work." Luo Fei explained.

The first one is not OK, it comes from the naval order. If the canned factory can produce canned beef, the Atlantic Fleet will need as much as possible. But the premise is that all canned beef must be artificially raised cattle and wild cattle cannot be used. This is a condition that military food must meet.

Luo Fei also thought that at worst, he would not sell it to the navy. Anyway, Europe is going to fight. When the fight is alive and dead, who cares whether the meat that can be eaten is wild or domestic?

But the problem is that North American bison is difficult to be used as beef.

First of all, this kind of bison is very wild and very aggressive. It does not exist. After large-scale capture, it is taken to Atlantic City to slaughter and process.

Since it cannot be captured, it can only be killed on the spot. This is nothing. The Indians have rich hunting experience, but the problem is that spring, summer and autumn cannot be done. The reason is that the bison producing area is far away from Atlantic City and the traffic conditions are also bad. The killed bison cannot be transported to Atlantic City in freshly.

Then you can only hunt in the cold winter. Although some of the preservation problems have been solved, the traffic conditions in North America in winter are even worse. North American bisons also have the characteristics of migration. They will go south in winter. If you can’t find a buffalo, what’s the use of winter? Going south to hunt and go to a place with a warm climate and difficult to keep fresh.

This link is simply a dead end.

Of course, Luo Fei's efforts are not without results. Luo Fei has been confident in enriching the types of canned foods, but because time is too tight, some products have not yet been implemented.

The scale of animal husbandry in the Atlantic colonies is limited, which can meet the needs of local residents. It is impossible to develop products such as canned beef.

Therefore, Luo Fei set the main business scope of the canned food factory to canned vegetables and fruits.

Canned blueberries are the beginning, but there is a common problem with canned fruits, that is, they are not easy to mass produce raw materials. Common canned foods such as apples and pears, and fruit trees need to be cultivated for many years before they can be produced, not to mention that there is no decent fruit planting industry in the Atlantic colonies.

Therefore, Luo Fei focused on the fruits produced by herbs and produced them in the year. In addition to blueberries, the second main canned product is canned strawberries.

This fruit native to South America is the main product promoted by the Empire's Ministry of Overseas Affairs. Any developed colony needs fruits. Because the climate and soil of different places are different, the fruits that Chinese people generally like will take five or even ten years to cultivate. However, strawberries are different, and they can be produced in that year and served on the people's dining tables.

Moreover, this fruit can be grown in temperate subtropical and tropical areas, because in the immigration manual published by the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, the first choice for recommended fruit planting is strawberries. In addition, the Ministry of Overseas Affairs also cooperates with the Ministry of Agriculture to cultivate strawberries suitable for planting in various climates.

The third fruit is melon.

In addition to fruits, canned vegetables are also needed by the Navy. Even the Navy’s favorite is canned vegetables, which are mainly cheaper than fruits. Vegetables commonly grown in Atlantic City, such as cucumbers and tomatoes, are also being trial-made in canned factories. The amount of planting in front of and behind houses in Atlantic City is not enough to meet the needs of canned factories. Just because of cultivating large-scale vegetable farms, it will lead to large-scale market launch until next year or even the year after.

Luo Fei has put a lot of effort into enriching canning factory products, but it has not always been successful.

For example, he found that the Anza people and the Indians raised a lot of turkeys, and now the main consumer market in Atlantic City is Chinese immigrants. Chinese immigrants are not interested in this New World poultry. After trying to do it, the unified evaluation is that the meat is very hot, and they still like the poultry introduced from China.

As a result, the turkey was very cheap locally, so Luo Fei made canned chicken with turkey, which was a big bad review in the market, and even the Navy did not accept it. There was no way, Luo Fei put his mind on the eggs laid by the turkey. He originally thought that salted eggs and pineapple eggs could be favored by the Navy, but in the end he was knocked on himself.

I don’t know who knows Chinese medicine, but said that eating pineapple eggs and brown sugar is not healthy. In order to ensure the main product of canned blueberries, Luo Fei still treated the pickled eggs to the slave traders in Portugal at a low price.

Although Duan Yi's canning factory has never been able to get involved in the canned meat series that are popular among military and civilians in canned food due to raw materials, it has already been on the right track and is developing quite rapidly.

In the second half of this year, the finished tin-plated cans purchased from Xijin will arrive in Atlantic City, and cans with shelf life of more than three years will also be launched.

Luo Fei held a can opener and said to Duan Yi: "Brother Duan, don't be anxious. You see, the empire's history of studying canned food for more than thirty years, but the can opener was only invented in recent years. Perhaps the same is true for our business, and the important opportunity may be just one step later."
Chapter completed!