A century-old "big food store"
——The eleventh of the old brands in history
Author: Yang Shuming
In the third (road) weiliu (road), there is a "front shop after the factory" of "Jinan a big food liability co., LTD.", which is a century-old brand founded in June 1912, originally called "a big food store", the store site is in Quancheng Road, and later because of the road widening and transformation moved to the current site, the time is in April and May 2001.
Pastries are commonly known as "dim sum" in Jinan folklore. The "1927 Jinan Express" introduced the "dim sum shop" as follows: "The people of Jinan eat twice a day, do not like to eat between meals, so dim sum is not very demanding, only for women to visit relatives and do red happy events, although the appearance color is not very bad, but the taste is not sought." Perhaps because of this, compared with pharmacies, grain stacks, carbon stacks, cloth shops, clothing stores, etc., the number of "dim sum shops" in Jinan in the old days was very small, and there were only Daoxiang Village, Gui Xin Zhai, Xinfang Zhai, Zhilan Zhai and Jin Xiang Zhai in the old city. Among these dim sum shops, "One Big" and "Daoxiang Village" are relatively famous.
The founder of "One Big" is called Zhou Zhiquan, a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and the earliest store was located at No. 9, Yuanxi Avenue (now Quancheng Road). Regarding the "big" signboard, there is also a small story of "wrong playing wrong". The owner Zhou Zhiquan used the name of the store as "Tiannan Warehouse", the sign was vertical, and the writer intentionally or unintentionally separated the word "Tian" into "one" and "big", so it was misread by many customers as "a big south warehouse", and thus "wrongly played wrong" was used, becoming a common name in the city, and later, the store simply let "a big food store" become its authentic signboard name.
"A big south warehouse" was originally mainly to sell southern specialty foods such as pastries and candies, and later because of the increasing sales of the integration of north and south cultures, and taking into account the demand for food preservation, the store began to produce itself, and thus became the "front shop and back factory" model, that is, the food it sells is processed and made in the backyard of the store. Because of the good color, aroma and taste of the pastries it produces, and the business philosophy focuses on pleasing the people with quality and winning the people by trust, it is quite popular with consumers. In particular, its honey three knives, Luohan cakes, beef tongue crisps, open mouth smile and other "Beijing eight pieces" pastries, Mo said that it was in Jinan, that is, it was also very famous in Shandong, and became a superior product for people to invite guests to give gifts.
Regarding the price of "dim sum" in that year, the "1927 Jinan Express" recorded as follows: "Where oil, glutinous rice and noodles are mixed with sugar, the dim sum sold per kilogram ranges from six points to two third halves; each box of half a kilogram sells five-points." In this way, the price of dim sum does not seem to be too high, but in that year, because the citizens lived in poverty, dim sum was not a daily necessity food, so the vast majority of families rarely patronized the dim sum shop, unless it was to visit relatives and friends or ask someone to do things, before weighing two pounds and sending them as gifts.
In the mid-1940s, Zhou Zhiquan returned to his hometown because of family property, and his nephew Zhou Boyuan succeeded him as the manager of the "Tiannan Warehouse", but after a few years of work, he did not want to do it because of family reasons. In the autumn of 1948, when he wanted to close the "Tiannan Warehouse", the former clerks Jing Shiyi, Liu Qingyun, Zhao Xijun, Sun Milk Zheng, Zhao Xilu and others were not willing to accept this, so they jointly raised funds to take over, took stock of the store, and took advantage of the situation to rename the "Big South Warehouse" as "a big food store". However, the business name registered on its business license that year was still "Daheji South Warehouse", and the enterprise name registered in 1950 was "Daheji Food South Goods Store".
In 1956, after the founding of New China, the "big food store" of public-private partnership became the state-owned store department under the Jinan Bureau of Commerce Tobacco and Alcohol Company, and finally settled at No. 173 Quancheng Road after several relocations, and the business was still based on pastries, and at the same time, it also had tobacco, alcohol and sugar tea. For more than thirty years, "One Big" was both the store department of the tobacco and liquor company and the company name of the state-run food store in Lixia District. Under the name of "a big food company", there have been more than 20 business stores, including "a big food store", of which the same long-established "Hongxiang Tea House" and "Daoxiang Village" were once members of the "family" of the "big" company.
Hongxiang Tea House was founded in 1930 by Meng Yangxuan of the Meng family of the old army of Zhangqiu, and the store is located in Yuanxi Street. "Daoxiang Village" is divided into Suzhou Daoxiang Village and Beijing Daoxiang Village. "Su Dao" was founded in 1773, "Bei Dao" was founded in 1895, Jinan Daoxiang Village was a branch of "Su Dao" or "Bei Dao", the earliest store site was also in Yuanxi Street, as for what year and month into Jinan, the exact situation is unknown, but in the "1927 • Jinan Express", there have been records of "Daoxiang Village". After the public-private partnership in 1956, both "Hongxiang" and "Daoxiang Village" became state-owned merchants. Nowadays, "Hongxiang" has become a historical memory, and many "Daoxiang Villages" are not the "Daoxiang Villages" of the past.
In the mid-1960s, Jinan Tobacco and Liquor Company (Station) also set up a "big pastry factory", mainly for the "big" company's businesses to produce pastries. At the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", "a big food store" was renamed "Victory Store Department", "a big pastry factory" was renamed "Victory Pastry Factory", and in the later period of the "Cultural Revolution", when the old brand name was restored, the "big" shop and factory were separated again.
In the 1970s, the "Big Food Shop" was a five-bay three-story building, with a business hall on the first floor and office space on the second and third floors. Compared with the shops on Quancheng Road, which are mostly three-bay shops, the "big food store" is relatively wide. In the middle is a spacious gate with a vertical plaque in golden lettering hanging above it; two large glass windows on each side, and they are spotless and bright, unlike most shops, which are accustomed to using glass windows as glass windows. In addition, the threshold of "a big food store" is above six or seven steps, which is on Quancheng Road, and even the largest department store building is not as high as its threshold. In my memory, the "big" store hall, the north, east and west sides are counters, because of the high terrain and good lighting, so it is particularly spacious and bright.
Speaking of the price of dim sum in the 60s and 70s, according to the memories of those of us who are sixty (years old), chicken cake is more than nine cents per kilogram, longevity cake is more than eight cents per kilogram, peach crisp is more than seven cents per kilogram, and honey food is more than six cents per kilogram. Speaking of this price today, young people may feel quite cheap, but in the year when the per capita salary was thirty or forty yuan, this price was still quite high, so that children like us ordinary people can rarely eat a few snacks throughout the year. At that time, it was not enough to buy dim sum and have money, but also needed to have food stamps, and buying a pound of dim sum required half a pound of food stamps. Food stamps need to be exchanged for planned food, and in the case of insufficient planned food, most families can still have extra food stamps to buy snacks. I used to go to the "big food store", but I didn't go there mostly to buy snacks, but to buy the tobacco, alcohol, sugar and tea that were served by ticket. I'm a very sweetie, and I still do. I remember that whenever I saw the honey food on the counter, I couldn't help but salivate. I remember the first few months of my work, every time I was paid, I had to go to the "big one" and buy half a pound of honey to relieve my hunger.
If you only talk about pastry packaging, today's packaging is not the same as in the past, because the pastry packaging at that time was quite exquisite. The salesman first puts the weighed snack code on the wrapping paper, and also places it as neatly as possible, and then wraps it. After wrapping, put a red stick on top and finally tie it with paper rope. The red sign is somewhat similar to advertising paper, with the name, address, telephone number, and the words "assorted dots" printed on it. There was a joke in the city at that time, saying that there was a family to go to relatives, bought two pounds of peach crisp, the owner inadvertently left a trace on the wrapping paper, did not expect that more than two months later, the two packages of peach crisps after several turns and returned to their home, at this time the wrapping paper has been soaked by the pastry oil stains.
In the early years of reform and opening up, with the gradual improvement of people's living standards, the "big" business became more and more prosperous, and the customer surplus door became a situation that can be seen almost every day. In the 1980s and 1990s, along with the prosperity of Quancheng Road, the "big one" also ushered in the heyday of development. In April 2005, the "Big Food Company" was transformed from a state-owned enterprise into a private "Jinan Big Food Co., Ltd."
After the restructuring, under the leadership of the old "big" people, that is, the current chairman Wang Yun'an and general manager Wang Shaochun, adhere to the century-old brand, inherit the traditional technology and the original recipe, use exquisite materials, careful production, under the premise of "not out of style" in the pastry taste, continuous development and innovation, so that its products not only maintain the original characteristics, but also enrich the content, improve the nutritional value. At the same time, in order to ensure the quality, they respect always adhere to the principle of self-production and self-sale, put an end to blind expansion, their self-produced pastries are only sold in their own stores, and most of them are sold on the same day, even if there is a small amount of surplus, it must be removed from the shelves after 72 hours, and its business philosophy of pleasing the people with quality and winning the people by faith makes "a big cake", especially peach crisp, cake, fried sugar, longevity cake, Luohan cake, beef tongue cake, honey three knives, hundred grain cake, etc., which is still the food favored by Jinan citizens, and the customer Profit Gate is natural.
In December 1998, "One Big" was awarded the Chinese time-honored brand by the Ministry of Domestic Trade; in June 2005, the China Chamber of Commerce was absorbed as a member unit of "China Time-honored Brand"; in April 2007, it was recognized as "Shandong Time-honored Brand" by the Shandong Provincial Economic and Trade Commission; in January 2013, it was recognized as "Jinan Time-honored Brand" by the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
A hundred years of "big", sowing Fanghua, inheriting the brand, the spirit is commendable.
【About the Author】Yang Shuming (male), a native of Jinan, whose ancestral home is Yiyuan, is a member of the China Writers Association and the former chairman of the Lixia District Writers Association. He has published seven collections of essays, including "Years Without a Trace", "Flowing Years Like Water", "The Road of the Heart Is Not Far Away", "Time Frozen in Memory", and "The Imprint of Time and Yin"; two monographs on the commentary of "There are words to say" and "Words Spoken by Ming"; he was a columnist of "Qilu Evening News" who "has words and clear words"; the editor-in-chief has books such as "The Taste of Jinan", "The Poetry of the City", "The Poetic Calendar", "The Folk Tales under the Calendar", and has won the Bingxin Prose Award, the Qilu Prose Award, and the Quancheng Literature and Art Award.