From what and how are dumplings made? The truth about convenience foods. What is minced meat for dumplings made of?

The vast majority of our readers know how homemade dumplings are made. What can not be said about the industrial production of this product. Let's find out how they are made in Belarus.

Meat plus garnish - for reasonable money! Before the advent of imported analogues, dumplings could rightly be called national fast food. However, like any fast food, dumplings often have to make excuses. Why does the dough fall apart? How long can dumplings be stored in an open package? Finally, is there meat in there? And if there is - whose?

To find answers to these questions, we (the Onliner.by team) went to Slonim. The local plant has been making dumplings for about six years, and not in the largest volumes, so they are not as popular as, for example, Volkovysk ones. But we will leave the analysis of the market to interested parties. We should find meat in dumplings ...

The technology for the production of dumplings is the same: at home, at meat processing plants, in hypermarkets (by the way, have you noticed that many stores offer dumplings of their own production?). Minced meat is taken, dough is taken, the first is wrapped in the second, frozen and sold.

If you do not delve into the theory of the origin of pigs and cows, then the “dumpling path” originates in the boning shop, where the carcasses of killed animals descend along the ceiling line “from heaven to earth”. On the tables they are picked up by deboners. These guys butcher a pork carcass in a matter of minutes. Employees of the meat processing plant help with finer work.

A pig is both smoked meat, and sausage, and canned food. Nevertheless, there is literally a place for dumplings in it.

Each type of dumplings is, first of all, an original filling (the dough is the same). The most common are dumplings with minced pork and beef. The composition of minced meat for dumplings may include raw fat (no more than 28% of the volume). Technologists say that it gives juiciness.

Minced meat is made in a huge meat grinder, which looks like a flying saucer and is called a cutter (from the English cut - to cut). The machine can make minced meat with a fraction of any size. She, for example, prepares minced meat for boiled sausages, which generally looks like an emulsion. Meat for dumplings is cut larger.

At the same stage, onions and spices are added.

Looking for "chemistry" in the composition of dumplings is not a good idea. This is a product with a long shelf life, so there is not as much temptation to preserve it, moisten it or color it, as for some other types of meat products. Soy content usually causes dissatisfaction among buyers. We hasten to reassure the readers: now there is a little less soybean on the Belarusian meat market, because it ... has risen in price. Now soybeans are successfully replaced, for example, by shredded pork skin.

Minced meat is automatically unloaded into a trolley and goes to the workshop, where a meeting with his "half" is waiting.

The line for the production of dumplings consists of several nodes. In one, the dough is kneaded, in the second, the testist is formed, in the third, ready-made minced meat is added.

Drawing up a dough recipe for each meat processing plant is not quite a core business. “We consulted with bakers,- says process engineer Lyudmila Nesterovich. - It was necessary to find good flour so that the dough would stretch, stick together, but not stick to the machine.”

They settled on flour from their own region, but, they say, local protectionism has nothing to do with it.

Dumpling dough consists of flour, water, egg powder (for elasticity and strength), sunflower oil, which avoids the dough sticking to the line. If the dough is cooked correctly, then the dumplings will not boil.

Sheet thickness may vary. But there is a normative indicator of the ratio of the mass of dough and the mass of the filling: meat in dumplings should be at least 49% of the mass. An ordinary dumpling weighs about 10 grams.

In Slonim, dumplings are made in the form of hand molding. Although there is no direct manual labor in this form at all. Special matrices wrap meat in dough in a fraction of a second. By the way, frying such dumplings is extremely difficult.

To check the operation of the line, dumplings are periodically weighed

Once molded, the dumpling travels down a line into a chamber the size of a truck bed. This is a freezer that does not rise above -29°C. The duration of freezing is regulated by the speed of the tape, but on average, the dumpling is in the machine for about half an hour.

Leaving the chamber, he climbs up the same conveyor belt to the filling machine. There he is waiting for a classic set of options: left, right and straight. But, unlike epic heroes, the fate of dumplings has already been decided and does not depend on which of the three gutters our product will fall into.

At the end of each gutter is a scale. As soon as the required weight accumulates in the container (in our case, it is 430 grams), the bottom of the container opens, and the dumplings fly into a dark sleeve, previously rolled up from the packaging film. At the bottom of the sleeve, the pack will be sealed and cut off by the heating element. In a second, the sleeve will again be filled with a portion of the fallen dumplings.

Ready-made packs of frozen dumplings are collected by the packer's hands in a box and go to the camera. From there, a direct road to the store shelves.

At a temperature not higher than -18 ° C, dumplings can be stored for six months. The shelf life of dumplings in an open pack, subject to temperature, does not change. Nevertheless, in the dry air of the refrigerator, among the smells of other products, it is better not to leave dumplings. In the end, the meat in Slonim met with the dough not to lie and dry.

With the acceleration of the rhythm of life, not every housewife has enough strength and inspiration to cook dumplings, dumplings or pancakes at home. Therefore, domestic producers have long and firmly mastered the production of frozen semi-finished products.
How well these products turn out depends on the standards at each particular manufacturer.
Inspection bodies cannot cover the entire market with inspections, acting only as an “ambulance”, that is, responding to consumer complaints. And standardization bodies have nowhere to go - under the pressure of manufacturers, they allow them to use ingredients in limited quantities that reduce the cost of production. However, competition is still doing its good deed: in the struggle for consumers, factories still try to use high-quality raw materials in semi-finished products.

Until recently, many domestic producers used eggs or, in extreme cases, egg powder when making dough for dumplings and dumplings. Today, many have abandoned this: the sanitary requirements for the storage of this perishable product are too high.

Now, gluten or a baking improver, usually imported, is added to the dough, consisting of prepared drinking water and flour. According to technologists, it allows you to "stretch" the quality of flour, as well as avoid cracking the dough when freezing ready-made dumplings, ravioli and dumplings. Meanwhile, the improver usually contains many ingredients, including stabilizers and emulsifiers. And since manufacturers are required to fully describe the composition of such additives on the label, they sometimes refuse to do so.

The second problem is high-quality raw materials for minced meat. Factories are trying to work with domestic producers, but they still buy it frozen. And since the standard prohibits re-freezing minced meat, it is impossible to defrost this raw material. This means that it is necessary to purchase expensive equipment: a crusher that cuts meat blocks into plates, which are then sent to an industrial meat grinder - a top.

“The quantity of high-quality raw meat is decreasing every year. Cattle were taken out a long time ago, there is no pork either. Therefore, the main raw materials are imported. This is the reason for the permission to use offal in the manufacture of minced meat, up to pork heads and diaphragms, and even deboned meat in ravioli. Manufacturers have been trying to achieve this for a long time, and in the end they received permission from the Ministry of Health, ”explains Olena Franko, an employee of the meat products technology laboratory of the Technological Institute of Milk and Meat of the Agrarian Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Recall that the meat of the fur bar is the carcasses of animals ground under pressure with bones and veins. Therefore, when checking dumplings and ravioli in specialized laboratories, it usually turns out that minced meat contains not only meat, but also tendons and connective tissues.

The chopped meat is then sent to a meat mixer, where lard, soy texturate, onion fried in vegetable oil, imported spices and flavor enhancers are added. Technologists say that minced meat will turn out tasteless without monosodium glutamate, and

DUMPLINGS, PANCAKES, PELMENI, RAVIOLI: STANDARD Soya is added to minced meat to bind it, and if the inspectors from Ukrmetr-teststandart discover that it is genetically modified, it is not always the manufacturer's fault. “If the soybean supplier has documents confirming that it is not GM, the producer has the right to use it in good conscience. And all our soybeans are imported,” says Elena Vasilievna.

As technologists say, luxury dumplings contain neither soy nor vegetable protein - only wheat fiber. In dumplings of the middle price segment, soy is added at the rate of 2-2.5 kg, and the lower one - 8 kg per 200 kg of minced meat. The standard only requires that minced meat be 75% meat. But in meat and vegetable minced meat, not only soy is added, but also extruded, that is, crushed and pressed into granules, cereals - rice, barley, semolina. “They absorb water well and ensure the dumplings swell when cooked. In this case, the filling does not lag behind the shell, and a filled dumpling is obtained, ”explains E. Franko.

In the production of dumplings with potatoes, many manufacturers also initially used natural potatoes. However, this is a seasonal product, with price fluctuations, requiring considerable storage and cleaning costs. Therefore, factories have massively switched to potato flakes, usually imported. According to technologists, they have long been used in kindergartens and hospitals for making mashed potatoes, and the latest DSTU does not prohibit their use. The flakes are hydrated - diluted with water - in a ratio of 1 to 3, and then fried onions, mushrooms, offal are added there. By the way, onions are most often used natural, and familiar mushrooms - champignons or oyster mushrooms.

The same - with cottage cheese: a seasonal product, with storage - a headache. Therefore, many factories refuse to produce pancakes and dumplings with cottage cheese. But they actively make sweet pancakes - with jam. The dough for pancakes is prepared traditionally: flour, water, egg powder. The sheet of dough enters the frying drum, lubricated with vegetable oil. The already fried leaf is cut into square layers, the filling in which, as a rule, is wrapped by hand.

Meanwhile, any jam is usually prepared like this: applesauce, diluted with sugar syrup, is added to a concentrate, for example, cherry juice. It turns out "cherry jam". Manufacturers buy applesauce during the season in large quantities, placing it in aseptic packaging in freezers. In this form, mashed potatoes can be stored for two years, writes AiF.

* DSTU 5052:2008 "Semi-finished products from sour-milk cottage cheese"; DSTU 4437:2005 "Sliced semi-finished meat and meat-vegetable products"; DSTU 6028:2008 "Semi-finished products with meat in a test casing, frozen".

Surely each of us at least once bought ready-made dumplings in the store. We go to the modern production of dumplings at the Siberian Gourmet company and find out how and from what they are made.

A little help. Sibirsky Gurman is a leader in sales of semi-finished products in the markets of the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia. Every day, more than 100,000 people buy semi-finished products from the company. In 2010, Siberian Gourmet took 27th place in the rating of Russian employers.

The first point of our route is a room for bulk storage of flour. Flour for the entire production is stored here and automatically sieved. Flour is supplied to the Dominioni dumpling production line through pipelines, and to other areas in special containers.

The Dominioni sculpting line produces up to 25 tons of products per day. Flour is fed through the pipeline to the line, which is kneaded by automatic machines into the dough. Various dough recipes are entered in the program of the machines, the operator monitors the maintenance of the ratio of ingredients.

The automatic trolley distributes dough to all machines. The dough is rolled into layers, a workpiece is cut out, the product is molded (the filling is fed and wrapped in dough by the apparatus):

The operator of this line checks the products for filling:

The finished product is sent along the tape to the chambers of spiral shock freezing. The temperature in the chambers is -30 -32:

The line of manual molding of dumplings produces about 10 tons per day. On this line, the blanks are obtained automatically, an already cut circle from the dough with filling appears in front of the sculptor. The task of the sculptor is to form the dumpling by hand: to mold the seam and connect the ends. Handmade dumplings are made from less dense dough and more juicy minced meat:

After the freezer, the product is sorted, substandard in appearance is selected, and the product that meets the standard is packaged:

The next step in the line is the multihead weigher, which separates and doses the product. They can pack 2 types of products at once:

Packing tape:

After packaging, the products are put into boxes, then onto pallets and sent for temporary storage in cold stores. In finished form, the product should be in positive temperature for a few minutes.

Temperature in workshops +13С:

The whole process from refrigerator to packaging:

Right next to the dumplings they make khinkali and cutlets:

The product goes to the freezer:

Minced meat used in khinkali:

Before loading minced meat into the cutlet machine:

Package:

After the product is packaged, it is transported to the refrigeration and logistics terminal, which holds 600-700 tons of products, this volume is sold in less than 2 weeks. The terminal maintains a constant temperature of -18C.

Warehouse for 3,200 pallets:

For many, the most interesting how to make minced meat for semi-finished products?

Dumplings are made from meat here. I asked a question about vegetable soy - is it added? I was told that soy is added exclusively to the stuffing that goes into cheap dumplings. All those dumplings that cost more than 150 rubles are made from real minced meat.

Meat cutting area.

Frozen bacon from European manufacturers is purchased in briquettes. This is done as needed, as raw materials from local producers are not enough:

Onion, which goes into minced meat:

The unique equipment beyond the Urals is a fat analyzer. The cost of this equipment is 5 million rubles, the manufacturer is Germany. The fat content analyzer allows you to determine the percentage of fat content with high accuracy, excluding the influence of the human factor:

Laboratory where samples of raw materials and products are tested at all stages of production:

I propose to take a break from dumplings and talk a little about pancakes

The Balpe pancake line is French equipment. After kneading, the dough is fed to a hot drum, where the pancake ribbon is fried on both sides:

The pancake belt moves along the conveyor and a special syringe, controlled by a computer, delivers the stuffing in doses. This is how the serving of the ham and cheese filling looks like:

The pancake tape is cut, and special line devices roll the spring rolls. Manual labor in the process of cooking, stuffing and folding pancakes is not used:

After cooking, pancakes are stacked on special carts and sent to a freezing chamber with a temperature of minus 28 - 30 degrees for 1.5 hours:

And this is the finished product in the package:

Area for baking pancakes "Solntsepek" - special pancakes with sweet fillings of cherries, strawberries, chocolate. Pancakes are baked by hand, round shape. For baking, French pancake machines are used - round, even surfaces heated to the required temperature. The capacity of this production site is up to 700 kg per day:

We went through all the stages of production, and this is where our tour came to an end. And to buy ready-made semi-finished products or not - each decides for himself.

Learn user dedmaxopka writes: I recently participated in a press tour to the production site of LLC "Combine of semi-finished products" Siberian Gourmet ". The production is quite interesting, mobile and, it seemed to me, compact. Under the cut, the entire production of dumplings from the stage of creating minced meat, to packaging the finished product and shipping to the warehouse. In addition to dumplings, they showed the production of pancakes, cutlets and khinkali, more on that under the cut.

1. As the general director of the company Sapuhin Maxim Gennadievich said: “Our goal is not only to talk about new equipment and the modernization process at the enterprise. Our goal is to talk about food production in general, to dispel philistine myths, to show the modern process of production of semi-finished products.”

After these words, we put on white coats and moved to the shops.

2. Be sure to wash your hands before entering the production workshops.
A little about the company:

"Siberian Gourmet" is a leader from the Urals to the Far East in terms of the volume of products sold, in various price categories. Production volume - up to 80 tons of semi-finished products per day, 25,000 tons per year.

The sales volume for the first 6 months of 2011 amounted to 842 million rubles. Every day, more than 100,000 people buy semi-finished products from the company.

The company employs 1198 people. In 2010, Siberian Gourmet took 27th place in the rating of Russian employers prepared by HeadHunter.

And now about production:

Production stages: control of all input raw materials, preparation and quality control of dough and fillings, molding, intermediate molding control, freezing, intermediate freezing control, packaging and control of packaged products (several packs are selected from a batch and checked for compliance with quality standards).

3. The first point of our route is the placement of agroflexes for bulk storage of flour. Flour for the entire production is stored here, it is automatically sieved. Flour is supplied to the Dominioni dumpling production line through pipelines, and to other areas in special containers.

4. The Dominioni molding line produces up to 25 tons of products per day. Flour is fed through the pipeline to the line, which is kneaded by automatic machines into the dough. Various dough recipes are entered in the program of the machines, the operator monitors the maintenance of the ratio of ingredients.

5. Automatic trolley dispenses dough to all machines. The dough is rolled out into layers, a workpiece is cut out, the product is molded (the filling is fed and wrapped into dough by the apparatus).

6. The operator of this line regularly checks the products for filling.

7. The finished product is sent to the spiral shock freezing chambers along the tape. The temperature in the cells is -30 -32.

8. The line of manual molding of dumplings produces about 10 tons per day. On this line, the blanks are obtained automatically, an already cut circle from the dough with filling appears in front of the sculptor. The task of the sculptor is to form the dumpling by hand: to mold the seam and connect the ends.

9. Handmade dumplings are made from less dense dough and more juicy minced meat.
In this area, increased attention to sanitary standards.

10. After the freezer, the product is carefully sorted, substandard appearance is selected, and the product that meets the standard is packaged.

12. The next stage of the line is a multi-head weigher that separates and doses products, it can pack 2 types of products at once.

13. After packaging, the products are put into boxes, then onto pallets and sent as quickly as possible for temporary storage in cold stores. Used for packaging cling film Moscow company "Pimas". In finished form, the product is in positive temperature for a few minutes. This is done to preserve the appearance and quality of products.

14. Packing tape with shrink film.

15. Temperature in workshops +13 C

16. The whole process from refrigerator to packaging

17. Right next to the dumplings they make khinkali and cutlets

18. The product goes to the freezer

19. Minced meat used in khinkali

20. Cutlets.

21. Before loading minced meat into the cutlet machine.

22. Packers

23. After the product is packaged, it is taken to the refrigeration and logistics terminal, which holds 600-700 tons of products, this volume is sold in less than 2 weeks.

24. The terminal maintains a constant temperature of minus 18 degrees. In the shipping area, there are special entrances for refrigerators to keep the temperature low. The close proximity of the terminal and the production site, a comfortable temperature for frozen semi-finished products (products are also transported at a temperature of minus 18 ° C) allow maintaining product quality.

25. Warehouse for 3200 pallets
For many, it will be most interesting how they make minced meat for semi-finished products? I was also most interested in this stage, but in fact I did not see anything unusual. Dumplings are made from real meat. I asked a question about vegetable soy - is it added? I was told that soy is added exclusively to the stuffing that goes into cheap dumplings. All those dumplings that cost more than 150 rubles are made from real 100% minced meat.

Those. if soy is in dumplings, then only in cheap ones and for the sake of saving the consumer. Therefore, all those who complain that there is no minced meat in dumplings are simply stingy to buy a normal product.

27. Meat is cut in the meat carcass deboning area. Raw materials are purchased mainly from local producers and some from European ones.

28. After separating the meat from the bone, it is sorted into the highest, first and second grade. Each type of product uses its own variety of beef and pork.

29. Acceptance of meat raw materials takes place in the presence of the state veterinary service (from the Veterinary Inspectorate) and a technologist. If the meat does not meet the required degree of fatness, it is returned. Raw meat is stored at low temperatures in special chambers. According to the technology, meat raw materials should be stored for at least 24 hours. This is done to “ripen” the meat, it is during this period that it acquires the proper taste.

31. Frozen bacon from European manufacturers is purchased in briquettes. This is done out of necessity, as raw materials from local producers are not enough. This fat, like all raw materials, undergoes careful laboratory control.

32. Onion, which goes into minced meat.

33. The next step in the preparation of minced meat is mixing the ingredients. Raw meat chopped on a block cutter up to 5 mm is poured into a meat mixer, where it is mixed with onions and spices. After kneading in a meat mixer, the minced meat ripens in a special sterile room with a low temperature, which is required by the recipe.

34. The enterprise has a quality service that controls the quality of products at all stages of production. This service includes a quality control department, whose task is to monitor quality at all stages: from the input of raw materials to the finished product.

To control incoming raw materials, Siberian Gourmet purchased equipment unique beyond the Urals - a fat analyzer. The cost of this equipment is 5 million rubles, the manufacturer is Germany. The fat content analyzer allows you to determine the percentage of fat content with high accuracy, excluding the influence of the human factor. This point is important, since the fat content of raw meat largely determines the taste of the finished product, which the company seeks to standardize.

35. There is also a laboratory where laboratory tests are carried out on samples of raw materials and products at all stages of production. For maximum control, the stages of production are identified, where changes in product quality can occur. At these stages, samples of each batch of products are taken for laboratory research.

36. All studies are entered into a special electronic database.

37. Without the permission of the laboratory, raw materials and products are not used in production.

38. The Balpe pancake line is French equipment. After kneading, the dough is fed to a hot drum, where the pancake ribbon is fried on both sides.

39. Endless pancake!

40. The pancake belt moves along the conveyor and a special syringe, controlled by a computer, doses the filling. The amount of filling depends on its density, which is entered into the program and adjusts the line operation accordingly.

41. Currently ham and cheese filling

42. The pancake tape is cut and special devices of the line roll up pancakes with filling, manual labor is not used in the process of cooking, stuffing and folding pancakes. Irrigation of pancakes with oil also occurs automatically. The baking crust is the same as at home.

43. The line works in the production of pancakes with 1 type of product for a day, after which it is disassembled, thoroughly washed, and only after that the preparation of products with a different type of filling begins

44. After cooking, pancakes are placed on special carts by employees in sterile gloves and sent to a freezing chamber with a temperature of minus 28 - 30 degrees for 1.5 hours.

45. And this is the finished product in the package

46. Area for baking pancakes "Solntsepek" - special pancakes made from fluffy, soft dough with sweet fillings: cherries, strawberries, chocolate.

47. Pancakes are baked by hand, round. For baking, French pancake machines are used - round, even surfaces heated to the required temperature. The capacity of this production site is up to 700 kg per day.

Recently participated in a press tour to a semi-finished products plant. The production is quite interesting, mobile and, it seemed to me, compact. The report shows the entire production of dumplings from the stage of creating minced meat, to packaging the finished product and shipping it to the warehouse. In addition to dumplings, they showed the production of pancakes, meatballs and khinkali.

As the general director of the company Sapuhin Maxim Gennadievich said: “Our goal is not only to talk about new equipment and the modernization process at the enterprise. Our goal is to talk about food production in general, to dispel philistine myths, to show the modern process of production of semi-finished products.”

After these words, we put on white coats and moved to the shops.

2. Be sure to wash your hands before entering the production workshops.

A little about the company:

The sales volume for the first 6 months of 2011 amounted to 842 million rubles. Every day, more than 100,000 people buy semi-finished products from the company.

The company employs 1198 people. In 2010, Siberian Gourmet took 27th place in the rating of Russian employers prepared by HeadHunter.

And now about production:

4. The molding line produces up to 25 tons of products per day. Flour is fed through the pipeline to the line, which is kneaded by automatic machines into the dough. Various dough recipes are entered in the program of the machines, the operator monitors the maintenance of the ratio of ingredients.

5. Automatic trolley dispenses dough to all machines. The dough is rolled out into layers, a workpiece is cut out, the product is molded (the filling is fed and wrapped into dough by the apparatus).

6. The operator of this line regularly checks the products for filling.

7. The finished product is sent to the spiral shock freezing chambers along the tape. The temperature in the cells is -30 -32.

9. Handmade dumplings are made from less dense dough and more juicy minced meat.
In this area, increased attention to sanitary standards.

10. After the freezer, the product is carefully sorted, substandard appearance is selected, and the product that meets the standard is packaged.

12. The next stage of the line is a multi-head weigher that separates and doses products, it can pack 2 types of products at once.

13. After packaging, the products are put into boxes, then onto pallets and sent as quickly as possible for temporary storage in cold stores. In finished form, the product is in positive temperature for a few minutes. This is done to preserve the appearance and quality of products.

14. Packing tape

15. Temperature in workshops +13 C

16. The whole process from refrigerator to packaging

17. Right next to the dumplings they make khinkali and cutlets

18. The product goes to the freezer

19. Minced meat used in khinkali

20. Cutlets.

21. Before loading minced meat into the cutlet machine.

22. Packers

23. After the product is packaged, it is transported to the refrigeration and logistics terminal, which holds 600-700 tons of products, this volume is sold in less than 2 weeks.

25. Warehouse for 3200 pallets / place

For many, it will be most interesting how they make minced meat for semi-finished products? I was also most interested in this stage, but in fact I did not see anything unusual. Dumplings are made from real meat. I asked a question about vegetable soy - is it added? I was told that soy is added exclusively to the stuffing that goes into cheap dumplings. All those dumplings that cost more than 150 rubles are made from real 100% minced meat.

27. Meat is cut in the meat carcass deboning area. Raw materials are purchased mainly from local producers and some from European ones.

28. After separating the meat from the bone, it is sorted into the highest, first and second grade. Each type of product uses its own variety of beef and pork.

32. Onion, which goes into minced meat.

36. All studies are entered into a special electronic database.

37. Without the permission of the laboratory, raw materials and products are not used in production.

I propose to digress from dumplings, because I have already shown the entire production process. Let's talk pancakes :)

38 The Balpe pancake line is French equipment. After kneading, the dough is fed to a hot drum, where the pancake ribbon is fried on both sides.

39. Endless pancake!

41. Currently ham and cheese filling

44. After cooking, pancakes are placed on special carts by employees in sterile gloves and sent to a freezing chamber with a temperature of minus 28 - 30 degrees for 1.5 hours.

45. And this is the finished product in the package

46. Area for baking pancakes "Solntsepek" - special pancakes made from fluffy, soft dough with sweet fillings: cherries, strawberries, chocolate.

48. Pancakes are very tasty, I personally appreciated it :)

49. On this, our tour came to an end. Finally, a photo of the company's security guards :)

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