Text: Good Finance
The annual 315 Consumer Rights Day is approaching again, and it is not yet known which industry brands will appear on the stage of 315 this year, but looking back at last year's 315 gala, it is Simba's sugar water bird's nest incident that is very impressive.
On the day of 315 last year, in the CCTV News 1+1 to 315 special report on the fight against counterfeiting, the bird's nest incident involving Simba was mentioned again, and for more than a minute it was reported around Simba's sugar water bird's nest incident, which was really enough to give "noodles".
However, after the Simba bird's nest incident was named and reported by the 315 party, on April 29, 2021, the Internet red bird's nest brand Xiaoxian Stew was fined 200,000 yuan by the regulatory authorities for false publicity.
Less than two months after 315, Xiaoxian Stew, as the head bird's nest brand enterprise, dared to "defy the wind", which could not help but worry about the normative status of the entire bird's nest industry.
From poisonous blood swallows to sugar water bird's nests, to false propaganda, when will the bird's nest chaos end?
In fact, before the simba sugar water bird's nest, the most frightening thing in the bird's nest industry was the "poisonous blood swallow" incident in 2011.
In July 2011, Ms. Huo, a cancer patient, purchased 10 "Yanzhiwu" special grade blood swallows (86g) produced by Xiamen Shinong Food Co., Ltd. (now known as Xiamen Yanzhiwu Si nong Food Co., Ltd.) on the strong recommendation of the sales staff of Qingnian Road Store of Beijing Fuze Baichuan Bird's Nest Commercial Co., Ltd. On August 18 of the same year, after consuming blood swallows, Ms. Huo suddenly had a fever, headache and nausea, and went to Peking Union Medical College Hospital to test her blood routine and failed a number of qualifications.
Subsequently, Ms. Huo sent the "House of Swallows" blood swallows left at home to the National Food Quality and Safety Supervision and Inspection Center for inspection and learned that the nitrite content of the blood swallows was 2371 mg/kg, exceeding the highest national mandatory standard by 33 times.
After the incident, the Zhejiang Industry and Commerce Department sampled 491 Blood Swallow dealers and 537 batches of Blood Swallow products, and the sampling test found that the nitrite content of blood swallow products represented by brands such as Yanzhiwu was seriously exceeded, without exception, and the highest exceeded the standard even reached 350 times.
After investigation, it was found that this batch of blood swallows was actually obtained by illegal merchants in Malaysia and Indonesia who added white bird's nest to nitrite and put it into a box filled with swallow feces.
The expensive "tonic" blood bird's nest purchased by Nong ke was actually fumigated by pigeon dung and was "poisonous". After this incident was exposed, it triggered the regulatory authorities to rectify the entire bird's nest industry, and the import of bird's nest in Malaysia was temporarily stopped, and the sales scale of bird's nest fell rapidly from 6.5 billion yuan to 2.2 billion yuan in the same year, and the listing dream of Yanzhiwu entering the capital market was also premature.
It can be said that the poisoned blood swallow incident has hit the entire bird's nest industry and consumer confidence as much as the melamine milk pollution incident in the past. I thought that the lesson of "poisonous blood swallow" would make the chaos of the entire bird's nest industry converge, but I did not expect that in July 2020, Wang Hai, a professional counterfeiter, broke the news that Xiaoxian stew had three core false propaganda points such as "dry bird's nest content of more than 5 grams", "solid content greater than or equal to 90%", and "0 addition", and reported Xiaoxian stew to the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration.
Subsequently, Wang Hai repeatedly pointed out that Xiaoxian Stew was fake, and Xiaoxian Stew at that time said that if necessary, he would call the police and prosecute.
On April 29, 2021, Beijing Xiaoxian Stew E-commerce Co., Ltd. was fined 200,000 yuan and warned for 11 illegal acts such as false publicity.
The content of the administrative punishment shows that from mid-2020 to early 2021, Xiaoxian Stew advertised "Ready-to-eat Bird's Nest Raw Materials: Bird's Nest" in the product parameter interface of Tmall store, but the actual raw materials used included Bird's Nest and Bird's Nest; from March 2020, in Tmall stores, the dry bird's nest content displayed on the sales parameter interface of 70g fresh stewed bird's nest was "2.5 grams (inclusive)-5 grams (not included)", and the actual amount of dried bird's nest feeding was 3.5g/bottle, which objectively misled consumers.
From May 2019 to June 2020, the product origin was marked as Indonesia in the parameter interface of the "Xiaoxian Stew Official Flagship Store" of the Jingdong Mall store, but the actual origin of the product was Langfang, Hebei (gu'an and Bazhou respectively).
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Xiao Xian Stew has had a problem. According to data from tianyancha APP, on November 25, 2020, Beijing Xiaoxian Stew E-commerce Co., Ltd. was punished for providing untrue statistics. Among them, the number of operating profits reported in the "Financial Status" for this year was fraudulent, the number of reports was 32939 thousand yuan, the number of inspections was -32934 thousand yuan, the difference was 65873 thousand yuan, and the error rate was 200.02%; in 2016, Xiaoxian Stew was punished by the Shilibao Taxation Office of the Chaoyang District Local Taxation Bureau for not handling tax declarations and submitting tax payment materials according to the prescribed time limit.
However, even so, the chaotic bird's nest industry did not stop there, followed by the outbreak of the simba sugar water bird's nest incident.
In November 2021, a consumer who bought bird's nest in the "Simba" live broadcast room reported that the bird's nest was full of sugar water and suspected that the product was fraudulent. Subsequently, "professional counterfeiter Wang Hai" said on Weibo that he took the "Ming Zhi" brand instant bird's nest sold in the "Simba Live Room" to do testing. The test showed that the sucrose content of bird's nest products was 4.8%, the carbohydrate of the ingredient list was 5%, and the protein component was 0%, which did not meet the standard of about 30 to 50% of the bird's nest protein content in the quality regulations of each grade of bird's nest.
The simba bird's nest incident that made a lot of noise ended with Simba "refunding one and losing three", paying a total of 61.98 million yuan to consumers who bought bird's nest in the live broadcast room, but afterwards the incident was reversed, Simba was also a victim, but the depth of the bird's nest industry was revealed.
In fact, before that, the ready-to-eat rock sugar bird's nest of The House of Swallows had also been exposed to "97% of the ingredients are sugar water and thickeners". At that time, the relevant staff of Yanzhiwu responded: "For whether the testing agency is professional and whether it is the product of Yanzhiwu, we cannot consider it, and the bird's nest is easy to integrate with water in processing, which cannot represent no nutrition, and the raw material of dry bird's nest we use in the actual production is 1.25 grams / bottle." ”
In general, whether it is the head bird's nest brands such as Swallow House and Xiaoxian Stew, or the waist and tail bird's nest brand Ming Zhi in simba's live broadcast room, a considerable part of the bird's nest industry may have publicity problems.
From this point of view, it is not impossible for the bird's nest industry to "open the two times" to appear on the stage of this year's 315 party.
Real health or IQ tax? Women and pregnant women may not need bird's nest?
In various court dramas, movies, and even Chinese medicine texts, bird's nest is depicted as a tonic holy product. Especially for women and pregnant women, bird's nest seems to be a kind of "big tonic" that can nourish the face and beauty, nourish the yin and yang.
Even today, bird's nest brands represented by Yanzhiwu and Xiaoxian Stew are still marked as "sugar-free pregnant women's ready-to-eat food nutrition products" in the product column of their Tmall stores, and Xiaoxian Stew has played the advertising slogan of "pregnant mothers are at ease with nourishment, one person eats two supplements" on the product promotion page.
However, in the view of Xiangshan Finance, the tonic effect of bird's nest has always been controversial.
According to modern research, bird's nest in the dry state has a protein content of about 50%, a carbohydrate content of 30%, and about 10% of minerals and impurities. The most well-known bird's nest acid is sialic acid, accounting for about 3 to 15%.
Protein and carbohydrates believe that everyone is not unfamiliar, common eggs, milk contain a lot of content, and the most favorite to be advertised by the business is the sialic acid that consumers are not familiar with. For example, in the "House of Birds 115 °C Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest 70g * 28 Bottles Monthly Package", it is highlighted that the product "Bird's Nest Acid ≥ 210mg/bottle".
According to the State Bird's Nest Committee, the standard for evaluating the nutrition of bird's nest is not protein, but sialic acid. If you only compare the content of sialic acid, 1 gram of dried bird's nest is equivalent to 40 eggs. In the human body, sialic acid is an important component of the brain gangliosides, which can promote the differentiation, development and regeneration of nerve cells, and participate in the transmission, memory and learning functions of neural prominence.
But it is worth playing that the so-called National Bird's Nest Committee is called the "National Federation of Urban Agricultural Trade Centers Bird's Nest Market Professional Committee", which is essentially a non-profit social organization and is not a national authoritative institution.
In fact, the chemical name of sialic acid is N-acetyl neurine, which is also named "bird's nest acid" by merchants. In fact, it is not unique because swallows make nests with saliva, and even it is not directly related to our human saliva. It was only because in 1936, scientist Gunnar Blix obtained a new product from proteolysis in the salivary glands of the bovine jaw, named sialic acid because it was first isolated from saliva.
Current studies have found that sialic acid is indeed essential for the normal development of fetal brain intelligence. However, the human liver can synthesize enough sialic acid on its own, and the foods seen daily, such as breast milk, milk, and eggs, contain sialic acid components, and may not need to be replenished by eating bird's nest.
And according to the professional evaluation report released by Consumer Reports in March 2018, the 6 major brands including Swallow House have almost no nutritional value, sialic acid and protein content is far less than eggs and milk, while ingredients such as rock sugar, water and thickeners account for more than 97%.
In addition, it is understood that the price of food-grade sialic acid on the market is now about 5,000 yuan per kilogram, and it is only a few dollars per gram.....
Of course, the above test conclusions can only be used as evidence on one side, and it is not appropriate to look at the entire bird's nest industry in a partial way, but their exposure has undoubtedly poured cold water on the chaotic and fiery bird's nest market.
In fact, according to xiangshan finance and economics on the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation, the license details of Xiamen Yanzhiwu Silk Thick Food Co., Ltd. only include beverages and canned food. And Xiaoxian Stew Bazhou Food Co., Ltd. is more interesting, is other convenience food. Neither of them has a health care product or drug batch number.
This means that both ready-to-eat bird's nest and fresh stewed bird's nest may be a snack food cloaked in a vague cloak of medicinal and health benefits.
Perhaps it is precisely because bird's nest products are neither health care products nor drugs, and their product efficacy is not magical and clear, so some companies have to maintain the product image of their precious tonics through crazy marketing.
Taking Yanzhiwu, which is impacting the "first share of bird's nest", as an example, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, the advertising expenses of Yanzhiwu were as high as 136 million yuan, 187 million yuan, 237 million yuan and 122 million yuan, accounting for 18.78%, 19.72%, 18.27% and 17.32% of the sales revenue.
However, according to state regulations, except for health care products that have the health food logo "Little Blue Hat" approved by the State Food and Drug Administration, other ordinary foods cannot be publicized on the efficacy of the product.
People's livelihood is no small matter, this year's 315 health care products industry chaos can be revealed, we wait and see.