On January 4, a topic titled "Qingquan Out of the Mountain False Advertising Sparkling Water 0 Card Was Fined" appeared on Weibo's hot search, causing a lot of attention. The topic content pointed out that Beijing Qingquan Izumi Beverage Co., Ltd. was fined 300,000 yuan by the Beijing Daxing District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for advertising the product "0 sugar 0 fat 0 card" when selling its "Cherry Blossom White Jade Grape Flavored Sparkling Water" product, and the product was actually 2150ka/100ml, which was identified as false advertising.
Global Network financial consumer reporters investigated the national enterprise credit information publicity system and learned that Beijing Qingquan Chushan Beverage Co., Ltd. was issued an administrative penalty decision letter by the Beijing Daxing District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau on December 22, 2021 for violating the first paragraph of Article 55 of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, ordering the parties to stop publishing advertisements, eliminate the impact within the corresponding scope, and impose a fine of 300,000 yuan, and the administrative punishment decision document number is Jingxing Municipal Supervision and Punishment [2021] No. 2460.
According to the main illegal facts stated in the administrative penalty decision, Beijing Qingquan Izumi Beverage Co., Ltd. commissioned a manufacturer to produce a product with the specification of "Cherry Blossom White Jade Grape Flavored Sparkling Water 330ml *6 Bottles" in early February 2021, and then began to sell it. In beverage bottles and website stores, Kiyozumi Izumi advertises the product with "0 sugar, 0 fat and 0 calorie". However, according to the test report and other relevant materials provided by the parties, it was found that there was no problem with 0 sugar and 0 fat, and there was no basis for 0 calories, and the actual situation was 2150 calories/100ml, so it was false advertising.
The Beijing Daxing District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau believes that beverage packaging (including advertising) is designed by the parties themselves and sold on the Taobao, JD.com and Pinduoduo platform stores of the parties' companies, and the platform stores are maintained and operated by the parties. According to the materials provided by the parties, as of April 22, sales were 306 boxes (1836 bottles), and as of July 20, 6,027 boxes (36,162 bottles) were sold.
According to the verification of law enforcement officers, as of September 17, the sales volume of "Cherry Blossom White Jade Grape Flavored Sparkling Water" product was 20,611 boxes (123666 bottles). As of October 2021, the parties concerned have removed the goods involved in the self-operated stores and physical stores on the online platform and returned to the factory to replace the labels. At the same time, the parties also revised the promotional page of the product in the self-operated store of the online platform.
According to previous reports, Beijing Qingquan Chushan Beverage Co., Ltd. was founded in 2018, and the two co-founders, Di Jie and Sun Zhiqiang, have both worked in Yuanqi Forest and are the "top 5 employees" of Yuanqi Forest. The brand's products focus on the concept of "0 sugar + dietary fiber", and have successively launched three major product lines, including sparkling water drinks of the "Qingting" brand, tea drinks including the "Sleepy Tea" brand tea and "Simmering Milk Tea" brand, and plant fermented beverages including "Millet Coke", which have been highly favored by the capital market in recent years and have successfully won many rounds of financing.
Interestingly, after the advent of Qingquan's "millet fermented cola", it was criticized as "touching porcelain" millet, and Qingquan came out of the mountain and finally cancelled this product line under the pressure of public opinion and removed it from the Tmall flagship store, but at present, this product can still be seen in some unofficial Taobao stores.
According to online public information, Qingquan Chushan completed a multi-million yuan angel round of financing from Meihua Venture Capital as early as July 2019, and then completed a 10 million RMB Pre-A round of financing from Meihua Venture Capital and Haofang Venture Capital in July 2020. In January 2021, Qingquan Completed a series A financing of RMB 10 million, which was exclusively invested by Star VC. In May 2021, Qingquan Chushan once again received tens of millions of yuan of A+ round financing jointly invested by Meihua Venture Capital and Haofang Venture Capital. According to the company's previous disclosure, the current valuation of Qingquan out of the mountain is about 1.5 billion yuan, and the monthly sales volume is nearly 1 million boxes.
Today, Sun Zhiqiang, co-founder of Qingquan Out of the Mountain, said publicly when questioned by the media that for the penalty, Qingquan Out of the Mountain applied for administrative reconsideration, which is still in the process of administrative reconsideration.
At present, in the sparkling water market, the Yuanqi Forest undoubtedly occupies the head position, in order to avoid head-to-head confrontation with the Yuanqi Forest, Qingquan out of the mountain to focus on the sinking market, and try to expand online channels. Sun Zhiqiang has publicly stated that the focus of the development of Qingquan out of the mountain is still offline, "the general enterprise online revenue accounts for 1%-2% of the overall revenue, we hope to do 4%-5%, 95% of the revenue is still from offline." "At present, the main markets of Qingquan out of the mountains are concentrated in Cities such as Dongguan, Foshan, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Kunming and Chengdu, and the price is not much different from that of Yuanqi Forest.
It is worth noting that the status of Beijing Qingquan Chushan Beverage Co., Ltd. in the national enterprise credit information publicity system is "the enterprise is included in the list of abnormal operations", the specific reason is that "the administrative department for industry and commerce cannot contact the enterprise through the registered domicile or business premises", and the enforcement unit is also the Beijing Daxing District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, and the implementation time is September 7, 2021.
According to the content of the announcement, "After investigation, your unit has violated the relevant provisions of the Interim Measures for the Administration of abnormal business operations because the administrative department for industry and commerce cannot get in touch through the registered domicile or business premises. In accordance with the provisions of Article 9 of the Interim Measures for the Administration of the Directory of Abnormal Business Operations of Enterprises, it is hereby decided to include your unit in the Directory of Abnormal Operations. At the same time, the Beijing Daxing District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau also stressed: "If your unit is not satisfied with this decision, it may apply for administrative reconsideration to the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau or the people's government of the district within 60 days from the date of receipt of this decision; or file an administrative lawsuit with the local people's court within six months." ”