Yan Qi, founder and chairman of Chongqing Taoranju Food Culture (Group) Co., Ltd. Photo courtesy of the interviewee, sent by Hualong Network
In the hot summer of June, the Guanyin bridge business district in Jiangbei is bustling, and a place 10 minutes away from this drive has a quiet place. Yan Qi, the founder of Taoranju, wore a black dress and walked all the way from the antique pavilions and pavilions to tell reporters about the past, present and future of Tao Ranju, a leading catering enterprise in Chongqing. Who would have thought that a small restaurant on the side of the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway in the past would grow into one of the top ten catering companies in the country in just over twenty years, and the "Tianluo Girl" who came out of the town at that time also became the leader of Chongqing's catering industry? "Every step of Tao Ranju is bathed in the spring breeze of the market economy." Yan Qi said.
"Our generation of entrepreneurs was lucky to catch up with the good times"
"When I resigned from the bank to start a business, it had been 17 years of reform and opening up, at that time, the concept of reform and opening up had been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the policy dividends released by reform and opening up were blooming everywhere, and many people had done business well." After sitting down at the winery in Tao Ranju Grand View Garden, Yan Qi opened the conversation box.
Many things happened in 1995, and what had an important impact on Yan Qi was that at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee in September of that year, the Ninth Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development was adopted, proposing to "accelerate the construction of a modern enterprise system and initially establish a socialist market economic system."
"Compared with the older generation of entrepreneurs, such as Yin Mingshan of Lifan, who was regarded as a 'speculative upside down' because of his business when he was young, our generation of entrepreneurs is very lucky and catches up with the good times." Yan Qi was full of emotions.
"At that time, others called us 'self-employed', and whoever made a business of tens of thousands of yuan would be considered very capable." In Yan Qi's view, this title is a recognition of personal struggle and an affirmation of private entrepreneurs.
Yan Qi said that compared with other industries, the degree of marketization of the catering industry is the highest, and she has the most simple understanding of the market economy - "as long as you abide by the national policy, follow the laws of the market, dare to think and work hard, and operate in good faith, there will be gains." ”
Yan Qi also suffered setbacks in the early days of entrepreneurship, and has no business after opening, and after 3 months, the chef resigned, and she personally cooked the spoon. With the unique tenacity of Chongqing girls, she found a vitality and painstakingly developed a specialty dish "Spicy Field Snail" that others did not have.
Unexpectedly, this dish became a hit, and by January 1997, she earned her her first 1 million. At the end of 1997, Tao Ranju had expanded from the initial 5 tables to 500 tables, and at its hottest time, only the spicy field snails sold 1,000 copies a day, earning 50,000 or 60,000 a day.
In 2001, Yan Qi took advantage of the wind and took her spicy snail to quickly promote it to all parts of the country, and opened more than 70 franchise stores in 15 cities such as Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenzhen. By 2005, Tao Ranju's annual sales had exceeded 1 billion yuan, and she opened three stores in Beijing in one go, and for a time the scenery was unlimited, and some people jokingly called her "TianLuo Girl".
"When I first started my business, I wanted to earn 1 million and retire, the party's policy is so good, the open market is so welcoming to me, how can I stop? I feel that as an entrepreneur, in addition to pursuing wealth, there are many more valuable things waiting for me to do, and I still enjoy the feeling of struggling with dreams. Yan Qi recalled the past, and there was a flash of determination and self-confidence in Jiongjiong's eyes.
Yan Qi led Tao Ranju from a small restaurant on the side of the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway to the top 10 of the top 100 restaurants in the country. Photo courtesy of the interviewee, sent by Hualong Network
"To make food is to be conscientious, to make dishes is to be a character"
Keeping up with the pace of the party and moving forward steadily, Yan Qi has a keen sense of smell for the market. In 2005, the Fifth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee formulated the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which put forward the major historical task of building a new socialist countryside.
Yan Qi realized that the countryside is a vast world and will have great achievements.
Not forgetting the original intention, thinking of the source of drinking water, Yan Qi built the "Taoranju Construction Socialist New Rural Demonstration Base" in Baishiyi, where he made his fortune, and developed order agriculture, through the "company + base + farmer" model, driving employment and also driving local farmers to increase income.
Taoranju has achieved direct employment of more than 20,000 employees, of which 90% are migrant farmers in the city, the industrial chain has driven 100,000 jobs, 1,000 new jobs have been created every year, and the State Council has also awarded the title of "National Advanced Collective for Migrant Worker Work".
While feeding the countryside, Taoranju has also been able to develop and grow, Taoran Town, Taoran Guild Hall, Taoran Hotel, Taoran Grand View Garden, Taoran Tianjie... The catering format is in Yan Qi's hands and has become a hundred flowers. A new industrial cluster with brand characteristics as the core, integrating efficient ecological tourism agriculture, experiential agriculture, and architectural garden quadrangle courtyards, is about to come out.
For example, Taoran Grand View Garden, covering an area of more than 60,000 square meters, antique style ancient city buildings, stilt houses, wooden arches, dock streets, has been built into more than 20 characteristic small shops, "Old Chongqing" focuses on bashu spicy flavor, "Ama Zhai" focuses on Tujia cuisine and Miaojia cuisine. The environment in the park is elegant and the atmosphere is quiet, and this catering model refreshed the concept of consumers at that time.
The low starting point of the catering industry is the first choice for many people to start a business, but not many people can eventually become bigger and stronger, why is this? Yan Qi's experience is that customers are first, quality is first, no matter when and where, he will not do anything that harms consumers. One of the words she often hangs on her lips is, "To make food is to make conscience, and to make dishes is to be a character." Every day, she has to personally supervise food safety.
In 2013, as the president of the Catering Association, Yan Qi also promoted the initiative of "100 chefs and heads, refuse commercial bribes" in the Chongqing catering industry, which was widely recognized by the industry.
Tao Ranju is leading Chongqing's catering industry to explore the characteristic road of private enterprises serving the rural revitalization strategy. Photo courtesy of the interviewee, sent by Hualong Network
Let more "Chongqing cuisine" go abroad
"With the deepening of reform, the government attaches more and more importance to the private economy, more and more support for private entrepreneurs, in a good business environment, entrepreneurs should always carry the responsibility of repaying the society with a grateful heart." As a private entrepreneur cultivated and supported by the party and the government, as a witness, participant, promoter and practitioner of reform and opening up, Yan Qi has never forgotten who she is, and she deeply knows where she came from and where she should go.
Over the years, Taoranju has carried out useful explorations in the overall planning of urban and rural areas and driving farmers to get rich together, forming a "Taoranju model" of "one core belt and five turns", that is, taking brand characteristic catering as the core, forming a new industrial cluster integrating efficient ecological tourism agriculture, experiential agriculture, and modern leisure and vacation characteristics of the Ming and Qing Dynasty architectural royal garden courtyards.
Over the years, TaoRanju has also combined the advantages of the enterprise itself, adopted the five major ways of "industrial assistance, business assistance, employment assistance, education assistance, and skill assistance" to find a combination of assistance and support, and has paired up to help 16 poor villages, 383 poor households, and 1027 poor people, involving 34.8 million yuan of assistance funds.
In addition to poverty alleviation, Yan Qi has also spent a lot of thought on supporting youth entrepreneurship. She believes that young people are hope and strength, and young people who start businesses need the guidance and help of people who come over. Taoranju has built a series of new platforms such as Taoran Large Bag Breakfast Fast Food Community Convenience Store, Taoran Liangjiang Water Hot Pot, Taoranju Ecological Fish Restaurant, Qingguo Fast Food Delivery Platform, etc., to fully support young college students' independent entrepreneurship.
"The new era has a new mission, the new era must have new deeds, and new Taoran has new responsibilities." Tao Ranju is leading Chongqing's catering industry to explore the characteristic road of private enterprises serving the rural revitalization strategy. Yan Qi told reporters very emotionally that Tao Ranju plans to invest 300 million yuan to build a rural revitalization demonstration base in Banan, build a demonstration base in Chongqing and even the whole country, and make "Chongqing cuisine" a resounding business card, go abroad and rush to the world.
Text/She Zhenfang Zhou Xiaoxue Xie Pengfei