Starch content in potatoes is rich, generally between 18% to 25%, making it a good resource for starch production. Starch extraction process is simple, and starch is widely used in agricultural product processing, including food, medicine, chemical industry, textile, papermaking, environmental protection, among others, thus making starch extraction a significant proportion in the cassava starch processing industry.
1. The current situation of the starch market in cassava starch processing
In the consumer market, potato food development is mainly divided into fermented and non-fermented categories. Fermented category includes yellow wine, fruity drink, vinegar, soy sauce, lactic acid fermented beverage, among others.
Non-fermented category includes potato flour, vermicelli, noodles, skin, dehydrated potato, fruit preserves and jams, French fries, mashed potatoes, snacks, candies, ice cream, fruit juice, dried vegetables, canned vegetable tips, among other vegetable foods.
Among these, vermicelli and noodles processing accounts for more than 80% of the demand for cassava starch market. In 2020, due to the significant increase in prices of substitute products such as corn starch and potato starch, there was a certain increase in demand for cassava starch, and refined potato starch demand was around 280,000 tons throughout the year.
2. Raw material supply situation for cassava starch processing
Overall, potato production in China showed a decline from 2014 to 2020, with a total of 51.264 million tons in 2020. The northern potato region includes Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and other places, where spring and summer potato planting is the main crop, and the varieties are mostly starch types.
The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River potato area includes Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and other places, where summer potato planting is the main crop, and starch and edible types account for half respectively. The southern potato region is mainly in the south of the Yangtze River basin, with planting all year round, and the varieties are mainly edible types.
3. Market pattern for cassava starch processing
During the processing of potato starch, various environmental problems often occur, especially regarding large amounts of sewage discharge from potato starch processing enterprises, which is a key monitoring industry for environmental protection departments, thus leading to small, non-compliant potato starch processing enterprises being closed for rectification, and significantly improving the production share of the main starch-producing enterprises in the starch industry.
4. Future development of the cassava starch processing industry
With the increase of environmental protection inspections, a large number of illegally operated starch factories have been successively shut down, but the main problem faced by the cassava starch processing industry has not yet been effectively improved, and environmental pollution problems are still very serious.
The root of the problem is that a large number of starch production equipment in many processing enterprises are relatively rudimentary, technologically backward, with low degree of production automation, and quality of products cannot be guaranteed. Meanwhile, small starch enterprises are unable to handle the wastewater and waste residue discharged during production, and will cause severe environmental pollution problems.
Small cassava starch processing plants account for more than 80% of domestic starch enterprises, but have significant limitations, inadequate marketing promotion and information unsmoothness, resulting in difficulty in selling their starch products.
For large-scale processing enterprises, it is necessary to actively explore the developmental and innovative technology, strengthen the selection of high-starch potato varieties, and the development of specialized potato starch processing equipment and technological innovation. This enhances the production output and economic benefits of the cassava starch processing industry, increases market competitiveness, and establishes a scaled production network, improving the application levels of mechanized processing to ensure the benign development of the starch processing industry and increase production income.
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