boyutpedia Chapter 85 Greenhouse Cultivation
Chapter 85 Greenhouse Cultivation
After closing for the evening, Lu Hualai and Lu Yuan went over the accounts.
The Malatang restaurant's final revenue for the day was 3265 yuan, and there was another small peak in the evening, which boosted the sales even more.
In this way, the total revenue of the three parts—Xiao Lu's Farmhouse Cuisine, Sister Lu's Spicy Hot Pot, and Lu's Private Kitchen—reached more than 12000 yuan.
If the other two home-style restaurants also open, the turnover will be aiming for 2.
But this is not the final form of the restaurants along the national highway. Luwangtan Village is backed by a beautiful river, and there is still great potential for development here.
Once the variety of catering options here increases, it will create a clustering effect.
When diners within a 10-kilometer radius don't know what to eat, the first place that comes to mind is Luwangtan Village.
As more and more diners come here, a herd effect will form.
Unsuspecting onlookers might come here to see what's going on, since people generally assume that food must taste good where there are many people.
Many unscrupulous merchants in later generations have taken advantage of this mentality, causing many people to fall for their tricks.
Therefore, for long-term development, the quality of the dishes must always be the top priority.
The biggest problem facing Lu Yuan is that he doesn't have enough people.
To be precise, reliable chefs are in extremely short supply in the kitchen.
Moreover, it's unrealistic for small rural restaurants to compete with large city restaurants for top chefs.
Lu Yuan wouldn't even look down on an ordinary cook.
In the end, the only solution is to train one's own younger generation or find aunts who are good at cooking.
. . .
Nothing happened that night. The next morning, Lu Wen brought Lu Changxi, the eldest son of his seventh grandfather, to Lu Yuan.
"Xiao Yuan, since all of you families want to rent out your land, could you offer a discount to Grandpa Changxi?"
Grandpa Changxi was a kind-hearted old man from the countryside. He was a little embarrassed and kept smiling shyly at Lu Yuan.
Seeing that Lu Yuan remained silent, Lu Wen spoke up for Changxi, explaining his family situation:
"Grandpa Changxi's two children are doing well in their studies. They'll be taking the college entrance exam in the next year or two, and if they get into university, the tuition fees will be a significant expense. So he's thinking of farming more land in the next couple of years to save up some money."
Lu Yuan remained silent. When Lu Wen mentioned renting land earlier, something suddenly popped into his head.
Greenhouse cultivation!
This is a point he completely overlooked before!
In those days, winters in the northern border regions were extremely scarce, and people often had to rely on potatoes, radishes, and cabbages to get through the winter.
Leafy greens, winter melon, green beans, eggplant, green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, and so on are called "living vegetables" in the northern regions during winter.
Live vegetables are not available in winter; they can only be eaten in the spring.
In fact, this problem is not limited to the northern border regions; the entire northern region faces this issue during winter.
There are three main reasons for this problem:
First, the ground freezes solid in winter, making it impossible to grow vegetables. Second, greenhouse cultivation technology has not yet been developed and popularized.
Secondly, the logistics industry is relatively underdeveloped, with insufficient road and rail transport capacity and a shortage of cold chain transport vehicles, making it impossible to achieve a large-scale logistics transportation operation, and thus costs cannot be reduced.
Third, the "vegetable basket" project has not yet been widely implemented. In fact, relying solely on the first two points, domestic prices would not be so stable.
Only when the "vegetable basket" project, a great project for improving people's livelihoods, is fully implemented will everyone be able to have cheap and fresh vegetables to eat in winter.
In individual households, it's not a big deal if there are no vegetables to eat, after all, everyone has gone through this.
But Lu Yuan now needs to focus on restaurant operations, especially the private banquets in the afternoon.
If there are no fresh vegetables in winter, it will have a serious impact.
It might even cause a six-month shutdown!
If private banquets are suspended for six months, the customers accumulated in the early stages will be lost very quickly, which would be a huge loss.
Therefore, greenhouse cultivation must be put on the agenda!
Lu Yuan suddenly spoke up: "Uncle Changxi, I can let you farm the land for free, but you have to farm it according to my requirements."
"That's easy to discuss!" Grandpa Changxi grinned even more broadly. "Xiao Yuan, how do you want to plant it?"
"Grow it in a greenhouse!"
Grandpa Changxi nearly stumbled: "Kid, even if you sold me, you still couldn't afford to build a greenhouse!"
These days, even the worst greenhouses that can survive the winter have to be built with a combination of earthen walls and steel and bamboo.
The cost of building such a greenhouse is about seven or eight thousand yuan per mu.
You have to understand that if you work yourself to the bone for a whole year, you can only sell an acre of land for eight or nine hundred yuan. After deducting costs, you only get five or six hundred yuan.
The cost of building a greenhouse is simply too high, no wonder Grandpa Changxi reacted this way.
Lu Yuan smiled and said, "Uncle Changxi, I'll build the greenhouse, so you don't need to worry about the money."
"That won't do!" Grandpa Changxi shook his head and said, "How can we let you build the greenhouse?"
Lu Yuandao said, "Sir, this isn't just a casual gesture. As I just said, I have my requirements."
Lu Wen seemed to have guessed something and asked, "Xiao Yuan, do you mean you're planning to build greenhouses to grow vegetables and sell them at the restaurant in the winter?"
Lu Yuandao: "That's right!"
Lu Wen asked, "Isn't this too high a price to pay? Can we sell the restaurant back?"
"No problem!" Lu Yuan pointed to the huge signboard that had just been changed a few days ago and said, "It's not like we're only doing this for one year; we have to get through the winter every year."
"That's true!" Lu Wen nodded and said to Grandpa Changxi:
"Grandpa, just listen to Xiaoyuan, you can't go wrong. Don't worry about anything else."
Within the Lu family, Lu Wen's words carried weight, and Elder Changxi immediately remarked:
"Okay, Xiao Yuan, whatever you say goes. I'm a farmer, I'm not one to mince words."
Lu Yuan roughly calculated for a moment and said to Grandpa Changxi:
"Grandpa, you have to bring me as many greenhouse vegetables as I need. You can sell the rest yourself. I'll cover the first year's farming costs."
At first glance, Lu Yuan's conditions seem a bit harsh.
actually not!
The combined land owned by Lu Yuan's family, his eldest uncle's family, and his second uncle's family is nearly 40 mu.
Lu Yuan plans to build 20 greenhouses this year. Firstly, building all greenhouses would be too costly, and secondly, the first year of building greenhouses requires accumulating experience.
Lu Yuan's four stores mainly sell meat, and at most 15 greenhouses are used for vegetables. The rest is eaten by Grandpa Changxi.
Lu Yuanlai also bore the costs for the first year, so Grandpa Changxi didn't have to bear any risks at all.
Moreover, greenhouses are not only for growing vegetables in winter, but also for getting a good harvest before seasonal fruits and vegetables.
For example, early spring vegetables and melons, if they are available a month earlier than the market price, will double in price.
A large portion of these items are unnecessary for Lu Yuan's restaurant.
In other words, Grandpa Changxi could easily sell these parts himself.
Based on vegetable and grain prices, the annual income is more than 10 times that of growing grain.
Seeing that Grandpa Changxi was getting a little confused, Lu Yuan added to Lu Wen:
"After Uncle Changxi supplied me with vegetables for 5 years, the greenhouse will belong to Uncle Changxi. If I want vegetables again, I will buy them at the market price."
"Brother Wen, could you help the old man sort things out? I still have to prepare the vegetables. These 20 acres of greenhouses will take at least five or six people to manage."
"Why don't you and the old man go back first, think it over, and then come find me?"
Basically, after 05, all kinds of fresh vegetables became available in winter, and their prices were close to those of spring vegetables.
The role of greenhouses has mainly been demonstrated in the last few years.
In five years, Lu Yuan not only recouped the cost of the greenhouse but also saved a large sum of money for vegetables.
As a result, Grandpa Changxi will also gain many times the benefits and a bright future.