In today's era of emphasizing "speed", the fermentation industry seems out of place, as no one is willing to listen to the "sound in the can" anymore
It doesn't talk about trends or popularity, it only believes in one iron rule: enter the industry in five years, enter the industry in ten years, and become a teacher in twenty years.
But the reality is that young people cannot afford to wait.
In the past three years, a major Internet factory has been promoted to director, and the starting salary of a doctor in an AI start-up company is one million yuan.
A fermentation engineer may have to follow dozens of parameter curves and deal with countless bacterial contamination accidents to find out the "temper" of microorganisms.
1、 No one wants to slow down
HR, a biotechnology company, said frankly: "We only pay 60% of the salaries of our Internet peers for our masters. Three graduates from famous universities recruited last year have all gone away within one year."
Even more cruelly, companies cannot afford to wait. KPI is pressing on research and development, with the goal of producing new products in one year and seeing benefits in two years. Universities assess young teachers to achieve national natural science awards in three years and top tier publications in five years.
Real fermentation process optimization often requires three to five years of repeated polishing - for example, increasing the sugar acid conversion rate by another 0.5% and shortening the cycle by another two hours.
These 'small victories' have almost no presence in the fast-paced evaluation system.
2、 Experience is being 'lost'
The older generation of fermenters rely on "hand feeling" and "intuition": know the amount of defoamer by looking at the foam, smell the exhaust gas to identify the type of bacteria, and predict the metabolic shift by looking at the morphology of the bacteria.
These skills cannot be written into SOP, nor can they be taught in PPT.
But the new generation of young people are accustomed to structured learning - they need to quantify metrics, decision trees, and standard processes.
When teacher Fu says, 'It doesn't feel right here,' young people will ask, 'What is the threshold for' feeling '? Is there any data to support it?' Once the 'language' of inheritance is broken, experience becomes an isolated island.
An old senior worker gave a bitter smile and said, 'It's like teaching a bike, the principles can be explained clearly, but the' sense of balance 'can only be achieved by falling on its own.'.
After listening to the principle, the child now asks, 'What is the critical value of balance?'? ’I can't answer, they think I'm hiding something. ”
3、 Meditation is not emotions, it is survival
Some people think that with smart sensors and AI algorithms, human experience is no longer important.
This is the biggest misunderstanding.
A German equipment manufacturer revealed that the same intelligent control system is 30% less effective in China than in Germany.
The reason is not in the hardware, but in the operator - German engineers have a better understanding of the microbial physiological logic behind the parameters and can make precise localized adjustments.
AI needs data, but more importantly, it requires people who understand the data.
After the global homogenization of strains and equipment, the last fortress of cost competition is the 0.5% increase in conversion rate and the 2% reduction in energy consumption.
This is precisely the battlefield for those who cultivate meditation deeply.
The reason why Japanese Ajinomoto and Dutch DSM have survived for a hundred years is not only due to patented strains, but also the ultimate polishing of process details by several generations.
4、 How to rebuild the soil of 'meditation'?
For enterprises:
Establish a "Fermentation Master Studio" and grant equal status to process experts and scientists;
Implement long-term incentives, focusing on results over three or five years instead of quarterly reports;
Transform the experience of the old master into an "expert decision-making system" and make implicit knowledge partially explicit.
Regarding education:
Establish a "Fermentation Craftsman Class" to allow students to enter the workshop early and handle abnormalities by themselves;
Allow graduate students to use "solving practical production problems" as their graduation topic;
Tell the true stories of those who changed the industry through process optimization and reshaped the sense of professional honor.
For young people:
If you are still willing to enter this field, please remember:
In the first three years, I got my hands dirty, stayed up at night, took samples, and handled bacterial infections;
Three to eight years, independently leading the line and forming one's own problem framework;
Eight years later, become a "living dictionary" in a specific field, able to anticipate problems and innovate solutions.
In this era where everyone pursues "breadth", "depth" has become a scarce competitive advantage.
When everyone is chasing after the wind, the person who is quietly listening to the breathing of microorganisms by the can may be standing at the starting point of the next gust of air.
